[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

Join the CEO of one of the world's unique think-tanks and a key international thought-leader in Education and Social Capital. Dr Rob Loe's doctorate, in the field of the measurement of human relationships, sought to explore the systems, processes and structures of highly-connected school environments that encourage relationships to thrive in and those that hinder them.

Relationships Foundation has studied and measured relationships in organisations for over 25 years with a recent focus on schools. Since its launch in 1994 a number of insights have governed their work:

- Human flourishing and wellbeing are rooted in relationships. The evidence is clear that social connections are a vital factor in happiness and health. Yet the sad reality is that too many people experience loneliness, division or broken relationships.
- Organisational effectiveness is rooted in relationships. Our own work over the years with schools, prisons, healthcare and other organisations to support and develop their relationships, and our partnerships with experts in these fields, consistently shows that an organisation’s relationships are a key factor in their social impact.
- Relationships are too often neglected or undermined. The unintended consequences of policies, the individualism of culture, the impact of new technologies, and the priority of financial over social measures are all create conditions in which desired relationships are more difficult to sustain.
- Relationships are a powerful focus for ethically motivated social reform as we work together as a society to promote individual and community flourishing.

So, what’s the big idea? I’m going to suggest there are three essential elements to this:

1.The first is the need to look at the world through a different lens – a relational lens.
2. Secondly, I’m going to speak about relationships not as a means to an end but an end in itself. And I think we are used to the idea, I might suggest, of using relationships to achieve some other purpose – whether it be increased profits or political advancement.
3. And lastly, I would like to suggest that in order to foreground the central importance of relationships, there has been a need to pioneer the mapping and measurement of them – and that’s part of making relationships an end goal.

The session will explore the thinking that undergirds this work and unpack the results of the measurement of relationships and wellbeing of over 8000 students in a range of international settings. We knew relationships matter; we now know that strong relationships with peers, or with a teacher, protect.