Making Room | The Belonging Project

Making Room: Belonging as a Journey in Catholic Schools

This course invites educators, students, and school communities into a deeper understanding of belonging as a journey rooted in Catholic faith. Grounded in Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching, it explores what it means to make room for one another by honouring dignity, attending to relationship, and practicing hospitality in everyday school life. Rather than beginning with programs or solutions, the course begins with noticing how belonging is experienced and how the Gospel invites us to see, listen, and stay present with one another over time. Participants reflect on access, inclusion, and belonging as spiritual responsibilities that shape daily decisions, shared spaces, and relationships, calling Catholic schools to become communities where each person is known, valued, and able to participate in ways that honour their humanity.

Video 1 : Introduction to Making Room course.

Video 2: Overview of how courses work.

Belonging is not something we achieve all at once, nor is it a checklist of practices to implement. It is a way of seeing, relating, and responding that unfolds over time within people, communities, and systems.

This course invites educators and leaders into a reflective journey of noticing how belonging is experienced in Catholic schools by students, families, and staff, and how faith shapes the way we attend to dignity, vulnerability, participation, and shared responsibility. Rather than beginning with strategies or solutions, the course begins with attention: to our own experiences of belonging, to the people and stories present in our schools, and to the often-unnoticed ways routines, assumptions, and structures shape who is seen, supported, and invited to participate.

Grounded in Catholic Social Teaching and the Gospel, the course moves intentionally from recognizing human dignity, to attending to vulnerability, to widening participation, to holding responsibility close, to sharing that responsibility together, and finally to contributing to the common good through faithful action. Belonging is explored not as an individual accomplishment, but as a communal practice sustained through relationship, discernment, and care.

Throughout the course, participants are invited to reflect prayerfully, engage with stories from school contexts, and dwell with images that shape the Catholic imagination of belonging. Gentle invitations to action are woven throughout, emphasizing small, realistic steps that grow from formation rather than urgency or performance. This course is designed as an entry point into theological reflection on access, inclusion, and belonging in Catholic education. It creates space for discernment, conversation, and gradual movement toward practices that more fully reflect the Gospel vision of community, where dignity is honored, responsibility is shared, and no one is left unseen or alone.

Attend to Belonging as a Lived Experience of Human Dignity: Reflect on personal experiences of belonging and not belonging, and consider how these experiences shape perception, response, and accompaniment in Catholic school communities.

Notice Vulnerability and the Unequal Cost of Belonging: Develop greater attentiveness to who is easily welcomed within school communities and who requires more intentional care, recognizing how systems and routines can quietly create or intensify vulnerability.

Recognize Participation as an Expression of Dignity: Explore how belonging becomes visible through participation, and how voice, contribution, and presence can be supported in multiple, meaningful, and accessible ways.

Discern Where Responsibility Should Be Held: Strengthen the capacity to remain present when belonging feels complex or uncomfortable, resisting premature escalation or withdrawal while attending to how responsibility is held within relationships and local contexts.

Understand Belonging as a Communal and Shared Practice: Engage the image of the table and other communal metaphors to explore belonging as something carried together through shared responsibility, layered support, and relational care.

Take Faithful Action in Service of the Common Good: Identify one small, realistic, and sustainable action that contributes to shared conditions of dignity, participation, and belonging within one’s context.

Each course is built around a collection of narrative learning stories that bring inclusive education to life through realistic, practice based accounts. These stories are designed to help you reflect, make connections, and see how course ideas take shape in real school contexts. As you read, you’ll notice how belonging, access, and participation are experienced differently across roles and settings.

You’re invited to choose one story to follow throughout the course. Select the story that most closely connects to your role, context, or curiosity. This story will serve as a steady lens as you move through the learning interludes and activities. If you’d like, you can return to this library at any time to explore additional stories and see how similar themes unfold in different situations.

Once you’ve chosen your story, you’re ready to continue. Independent learners can move directly into the course content and begin with Learning Interlude 1. If you’re learning with a facilitator, they’ll guide you through the journey using the shared materials and prompts provided.

Prefer to begin with story?

This complete narrative PDF is available for those who wish to read the story straight through, use it for personal reflection, or engage with it in a small group outside the course sequence. Questions to sit with are included at the end of each chapter.

Sofia is a Grade 7 student with autism spectrum differences who longs for friendship and connection. She pays close attention to the social world around her, studying how peers interact and trying to follow what she believes are the unspoken rules of junior high belonging. Despite her effort, the social landscape feels unpredictable and exhausting. Sofia often ends the day feeling as though she has missed something everyone else understands.

As the year unfolds, Sofia’s experience reveals how belonging in adolescence is shaped less by intention than by speed, confidence, and invisible norms. Adults want to support her, but their early responses lean toward teaching strategies, social coaching, or quiet correction rather than relational presence. Gradually, small shifts in attention, structure, and expectation begin to change Sofia’s experience. Belonging does not arrive as friendship or resolution, but as moments of being noticed, invited, and included without pressure to perform.

Alongside Sofia’s story, the narrative quietly attends to another student in the same environment who does not carry a label but experiences similar uncertainty. This second arc widens the lens, showing that Sofia’s experience is not exceptional, but amplified. Junior high social life privileges those who can move quickly and read the room easily, leaving others waiting at the edges. Together, the two arcs invite readers to consider how belonging is shaped not only by individual difference, but by how environments signal who belongs with ease and who must work harder to stay.

Prefer to begin with story?

Mr. Chen is a conscientious school principal who values professionalism, fairness, and clear processes. He believes strongly in collaboration and prides himself on being approachable and responsive. When concerns arise from a family who feels disconnected from the school community, Mr. Chen responds with care and diligence, relying on meetings, documentation, and established procedures to address the situation. Despite his best efforts, the family’s sense of exclusion persists.

As the year unfolds, Mr. Chen begins to recognize the limits of process-based hospitality. The story traces his growing awareness that access to meetings and information does not necessarily translate into belonging. Leadership rooted in efficiency and clarity can unintentionally silence vulnerability and constrain participation. Through discomfort, slowing down, and sustained presence, Mr. Chen begins to reimagine leadership as accompaniment rather than resolution.

Alongside the family at the edges, the narrative quietly attends to other families who appear comfortable and aligned. These families participate politely, affirm decisions, and rarely raise concerns. Over time, their influence diminishes subtly as they learn which questions are welcome and which are not. This second arc widens the lens, revealing that belonging is tested not only through conflict, but through whose voices shape decisions and whose silence is interpreted as agreement. Together, the arcs invite reflection on how leadership practices shape shared responsibility, voice, and communal life.

Prefer to begin with story?

Maria is a school chaplain deeply committed to nurturing Catholic identity through prayer, liturgy, and pastoral presence. She values reverence, consistency, and tradition, trusting that these rhythms offer stability and meaning for students and staff. In her role, visible participation is often taken as a sign of spiritual engagement, and order is closely associated with faithfulness.

As Maria becomes more attentive to belonging, she begins to notice that students experience prayer and liturgy in profoundly different ways. Some engage easily and visibly, while others remain physically present but inwardly tense, quiet, or distant. This awareness introduces layered tensions. Colleagues worry that widening participation may weaken Catholic identity. Maria herself wonders whether her discomfort signals compromise or a deeper call to faithfulness. The story traces how accompaniment, imagination, and patience allow Catholic identity to deepen rather than erode when belonging is understood as a spiritual reality rather than a performance.

Alongside Maria’s journey, the narrative quietly follows a student who appears deeply reverent and well formed in prayer. He knows the rhythms and postures expected in sacred spaces and is often assumed to be at ease. Over time, small moments reveal the effort it takes to remain composed and unnoticed. This second arc widens the lens, showing that uneven belonging in prayer is not limited to those who struggle outwardly, but is present wherever participation is measured by visibility rather than presence.

Prefer to begin with story?

Ms. Gallagher teaches in a life skills classroom located at the end of the hall. Her students have complex communication, regulation, and learning needs, and her classroom is designed to prioritize safety, predictability, and relationship. She is deeply knowledgeable, attentive, and respected for her ability to create calm, structured environments where students are understood and supported. The room functions as a refuge, and Ms. Gallagher takes pride in the care she and her team provide.

As formation around belonging unfolds, Ms. Gallagher begins to experience a growing tension between protection and participation. Her students are well supported, yet increasingly separate from the wider school community. Inclusion, as she has often experienced it, has meant brief visits or symbolic moments that do not shift how belonging is imagined over time. The story traces her gradual movement from understanding belonging as safety alone to recognizing it as an ongoing learning process that must be shared beyond her classroom, without abandoning protection or expertise.

Alongside Ms. Gallagher’s journey, the story quietly follows how the life skills classroom is understood by others in the school. A parallel perspective reveals how the room at the end of the hall comes to function as both a refuge and a boundary; a place where care is concentrated and responsibility is contained. This second arc does not challenge the necessity of specialized support. Instead, it invites reflection on how belonging becomes located in a single space rather than practiced collectively. The story ends not with integration or resolution, but with an open commitment to continued discernment, shared responsibility, and faithful learning over time.

Jamir enters Kindergarten with complex medical and communication needs. He uses AAC, relies on predictable routines, and requires support to regulate throughout the day. Staff care deeply and want to do right by him, yet they quickly discover that goodwill alone cannot compensate for environments that were not designed with his participation in mind. Early responses focus primarily on safety, supervision, and management, reflecting care but also revealing limits in how belonging is understood.

As the year unfolds, Jamir’s presence begins to surface questions the school has not previously needed to ask. Who plans for access before a child arrives? How do routines communicate who belongs? What does participation look like when communication is emergent and regulation is uneven? The story traces a gradual shift from individual accommodation toward shared responsibility and structural learning. Jamir does not fix the system, nor is he asked to. Instead, his presence reveals what the community must learn together.

Alongside Jamir’s journey, a secondary arc follows other young children who participate quietly, slowly, or through observation. As structures shift to support Jamir, these children become more visible. The story widens the lens, showing belonging not as an exceptional response to one child, but as a universal developmental need that must be designed for early and held collectively over time.

Mrs. Patel teaches Grade 5 and works alongside an experienced educational assistant, Denise, who supports Lily, a student with significant disabilities. Denise has supported Lily for several years and knows her routines, preferences, and learning needs intimately. She is confident, organized, and deeply invested in Lily’s success. Over time, Denise has taken primary responsibility for Lily’s programming, often working with her separately from the class. Grateful for Denise’s expertise, Mrs. Patel has gradually stepped back, trusting that Lily is well supported.

As formation around belonging unfolds, Mrs. Patel begins to notice how constant adult proximity shapes Lily’s experience in an upper elementary classroom, where peer relationships and independence carry increasing social meaning. Denise takes pride in Lily’s academic progress and feels protective of the gains they have made together. The story explores the tension between care and control, expertise and ownership, and individual progress and communal belonging. It traces a gradual shift toward shared responsibility, clarified roles, and a reimagining of support that keeps Lily connected to her teacher, her peers, and the life of the classroom.

A secondary arc follows Lily’s classmates as they learn, through adult positioning, when connection is permitted or discouraged. This parallel thread reveals how belonging is shaped not only by student needs, but by how support roles are enacted and interpreted within the classroom community.

Mr. Alvarez is a high school teacher who values dialogue, student voice, and critical thinking. He believes deeply in inclusive practice and assumes that when students are invited to participate, they will respond with engagement and openness. Early in the year, however, his classroom reveals uneven participation, guarded silence, and social dynamics that complicate his intentions. While some students speak freely, others remain quiet, cautious, or disengaged.

As formation around belonging unfolds, Mr. Alvarez begins to recognize that adolescent participation is shaped by layers of identity, culture, status, and vulnerability. Norms around speaking, disagreement, authority, and visibility differ widely. Attempts to widen voice initially expose discomfort rather than connection. Over time, tentative student feedback begins to influence pacing, structure, and expectations. The story traces Mr. Alvarez’s struggle to remain present when belonging unfolds unevenly. Belonging is portrayed as partial, fragile, and relational, requiring humility, patience, and a willingness to be shaped by the community rather than measured by success.

A secondary arc follows a student who participates selectively, revealing how silence in adolescence often reflects social awareness rather than disengagement, and how belonging depends not on invitation alone, but on perceived safety over time.

Evan is a Grade 1 student who has experienced significant trauma and is currently in foster care. He is bright, observant, and deeply reactive to perceived threat. When overwhelmed, Evan can become explosive, yelling, throwing objects, or pushing others away. Adults work hard to keep him and others safe, yet fear follows him through the school day. Peers keep their distance. Staff brace themselves when he enters a space.

As formation around belonging unfolds, Evan’s behaviour forces the school community to confront difficult questions about safety, fear, and responsibility. Early responses focus on control, removal, and avoidance, reflecting care but also uncertainty. Over time, adults begin to shift from managing Evan’s behaviour to listening to what his behaviour communicates. Belonging does not arrive as calm or compliance, but as consistency, predictability, and adults who remain present even when Evan pushes them away.

Alongside Evan’s story, a secondary arc traces how peers learn to interpret risk, care, and safety through adult cues. The story widens the lens to show that belonging is shaped communally through shared regulation, predictability, and collective responsibility, not by the behaviour of one child alone.

St. Brigid’s is a small school where relationships are close and roles overlap. Staff know one another well, share responsibilities, and care deeply about their students. The principal, Mr. Donnelly, is experienced, capable, and deeply committed to the community. Over time, however, decision making has begun to narrow. A small group of trusted teachers is consulted regularly, while others find themselves increasingly peripheral to conversations that shape the school’s direction.

As staff reflect on belonging, they begin to notice that inclusion is not only a student concern. Voice, influence, and participation among adults mirror the same patterns they work to address in classrooms. The story traces how unspoken hierarchies form in close communities, how silence becomes a form of self protection, and how widening participation requires restraint, courage, and a willingness to slow down. Belonging is explored not as consensus or harmony, but as shared responsibility and presence over time.

A secondary arc follows teachers who gradually stop bringing ideas, revealing how disengagement often emerges not from conflict, but from predictability. When participation feels unlikely to shape outcomes, silence becomes a reasonable and protective response.