Welcome to the Building Belonging in Education - Inca Hide-Wright and Sarah Bennett, University of Warwick
I’m Inca! Currently, I am a Warwick Graduate Management Trainee who is coming to the end of my placement with Warwick Students’ Union and will be starting my new placement with Warwick’s Regional Strategy Team in February. I am the founder and co-lead of University of Warwick’s Building Belonging Framework and WIHEA* Building Belonging Learning Circle, which is now a community of over 100 students and staff, within and beyond Warwick.
And I’m Sarah, I work within our Student Opportunity department where I manage a Warwick-written student-facing personal development programme, co-created with students to build their confidence, resilience and agency. I co-lead the Building Belonging Learning Circle with Inca.
We had the pleasure of presenting the Building Belonging Project, Framework and Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) Learning Circle at the University of Leeds Student Success Conference, 2025.
We promise to debunk the jargon and break down any acronyms as we go!
What do we mean by Building Belonging?
So, let’s get into it. Belonging is not a buzzword here.
Building belonging is not only being discussed, researched, evaluated and practiced, but it is also being embodied in the ever-growing learning circle community.
Inca says: I began the Building Belonging project, which outputted the Building Belonging Framework, during my MASc in Community, Engagement and Belonging (2023-2024). The project stemmed from me wanting to understand what enables and hinders students’ sense of belonging or like they could belong in society and sports’ spaces. When joining the AdvanceHE Building Belonging Programme, the project aim and scope changed dramatically. The project became institution-wide, working with existing as well as new data from students and staff which was gathered via surveys, workshops, and listening rooms, and was thematically analysed. Five themes emerged: Trust, Connection, Mattering, Empowerment, and Inclusion, with the greatest challenge to building belonging being how abstract belonging can feel and therefore, how do you build something that feels so intangible and so much of the time like guess work? Trust was identified as the foundational element as without trust, you will not build nor maintain any of the other four elements. It is from identifying these elements, the consideration of different participation types (i.e., doing things ‘for’, ‘with’ and ‘by’ others), and making an abstract concept more tangible, that the Building Belonging Framework, visual, theory of change and written guide, were developed.
Challenging Assumptions:
It is important not to assume that something like this framework works, even if it has been developed with and peer reviewed by the community and so, the WIHEA Building Belonging Learning Circle was established and a catalogue of resources began to be developed.
The Building Belonging Learning Circle is a student and staff task and action space, currently led by me and Sarah, and is now in its second year of running. In our roles as co-leads we support, facilitate and lead on the organisations of meetings, activities and outreach, as well as overseeing projects and workstreams such that each member of the learning circle can contribute, lead and learn in ways they may not otherwise.
An early adopter of the Framework was Sarah Bennett, who manages Thrive™ – an empowerment programme for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. A key aspect of the programme, co-created with students at Warwick in summer 2023, is connecting students with each other and building a sense of community. Sarah asked me at a meeting early on, when the learning circle was newly established, whether there was a way of creating a resource based on the framework that can help you capture what is and could be done. It is from these discussions, testing and refining the resource that the Snapshot Tool was created. Sarah used the snapshot tool to review mattering, connection, empowerment and inclusion, through the lens of with students, for students, and by students. This review was repeated by the students using the same tool, the aim being to both acknowledge where the programme was aiding building belonging at Warwick, but also to look for opportunities where this could be improved. Keen to work further in the belonging space, Sarah now co-leads the Building Belonging Learning Circle with Inca.
How our learning circle operates:
This year we alternate our monthly meetings between running in-person and online, with a meeting summary provided within a week post-meeting so, whether you can attend the meetings you can stay up to date and engaged. We begin each of our learning circle meetings with an activity that anyone can get involved with, whether you have been a member for the last year or so, or whether you have just joined the space. At the end of last academic year, I asked the community what they would like to see next from the space. It is from their ideas that three themes emerged: Sharing, Embedding and Developing. At the beginning of this academic year, we created a Microsoft form for all members to express whether they would be interested in co-leading or contributing to a workstream, as well as giving them space to share other ideas they would like to explore. Based on the responses, the project and workstream teams were created so all could engage, contribute and lead as it suits them, on ideas they are excited about exploring further.
So, what now?
The learning circle has multiple workstreams and projects up and running. From looking at embedding belonging within the curriculum and dissemination of resources, to evaluating the framework and research priority groups’ sense of belonging, with the view of co-developing a set of recommendations for the University of Warwick.
Interested in learning more, getting in touch or participating in this space? You are welcome to get in touch with Inca (Inca.O.Hide-Wright@warwick.ac.uk) and Sarah (Sarah.J.R.Bennett@warwick.ac.uk). We are open to feedback, discussions and collaboration, just get in touch!
Inca’s LinkedIn: Inca Hide-Wright, AFHEA | LinkedIn
Sarah’s LinkedIn: Sarah Bennett | LinkedIn