reception [noun]
Every interaction is an invitation. Purposefully designing school receptions to foster connection.
the action or process of receiving something sent, given, or inflicted. "sensation is not the passive reception of stimuli"
a formal social occasion held to welcome someone or to celebrate an event. "a wedding reception"
[British] the area in a hotel or organisation where guests and visitors are greeted and dealt with. "wait for me downstairs in reception"
[British] the first class in an infant or primary school. "my son is in reception"
I love visiting schools.
Schools have been pretty good to me so far. As a child, it wasn’t totally plain sailing but I always felt safe and secure. My schools gave me the space to grow, learn, and discover who I was becoming. And since then, they’ve been my place or subject of my work. My little sister is a teacher. Some of my very best mates are too. Schools are woven into the fabric of my life.
This gives me a certain perspective—a set of lenses, a bias that shapes how I see them and their place in the world. And far from being unique to me, I know I share these perspectives with many others in education.
But while schools have been places of safety and security for me, this isn’t true for everyone. For many, schools weren’t places of growth or belonging. They were places of struggle, judgment, or even harm. Our collective experiences of ‘school’—such a unifying, grounding word—vary enormously. While some look back and see transformation, others feel they were simply tolerated—or worse, excluded.
This history—this emotional inheritance—comes along with each of us every time we step through the doors of our schools.
Which brings me to ‘the school reception’.
The school reception isn’t a room—it’s a moment
When we talk about “a school reception," most of us picture a physical space: a buzzer, an ambiguously semi-automatic door, one of those slidey window things housing the ‘school office’, a (cramped?) waiting area, a few chairs in a row, maybe a trophy cabinet or a display board highlighting recent achievements.
Your school may have all of those, or perhaps none at all. But that’s not how we should think about what “a school reception” is.
“A school reception” is a moment in time.
It’s the moment a parent or carer steps into your school with their own story, their own expectations, and often, their own anxieties. It’s the moment trust is built—or eroded.
Pleasingly, more and more school leaders are recognising the importance of belonging. The discussion around it has grown louder and more prominent in recent years. But there’s a challenge: much of the discourse remains imprecise and abstract. How does belonging happen?
It’s a question two of my brilliant colleagues at The Reach Foundation, Verity Howorth and Jon Hutchinson, have been exploring with great intensity in recent years.1
What I’ve learnt from them, and when reflecting on my own experiences and expertise, is that belonging doesn’t happen in vague ideals or broad-stroke initiatives. Belonging is built in specific moments. And some moments matter more than others.
The “school reception” is one of those moments.
“Design for the edges”
In experience design, there’s a principle known as, “designing for the edges.” It’s the idea that if you design for those with the most challenging needs, you make the experience better for everyone. It’s ‘progressive universalism’ in practice. Improving public transport for wheelchair users benefits people with prams too.
So, let’s imagine a parent who enters your school reception already feeling defensive, judged, or unwelcome. If we can design that moment to disarm their fear and build trust, we won’t just improve their experience, we’ll enhance the experience for every visitor who walks through our doors.
This is where the best school receptionists shine.
As the first point of contact, receptionists are the emotional anchors of a school. Their work is both simple and profoundly complex.
In Alchemy, Rory Sutherland celebrates the work of doormen at prestigious hotels. He notes that their job isn’t just to open the door—it’s to set the tone. They create an atmosphere of welcome, reassurance, and belonging before a guest even steps inside.
The best school receptionists do the same. They navigate awkward silences, soothe tensions, and make visitors feel seen and valued. Their work often goes unnoticed, but it’s absolutely critical. A smile, a kind word, or even offering a biscuit or a glass of water can turn a difficult moment into one of connection.
These small gestures create moments of connection and ease. They signal to the visitor: “You are seen. You are welcome here.”
That’s great, really, but it’s not enough. “A bad system will beat a good person every time”, so said W.E. Deming. We can do more to support our friends out front.
Reframing reception
Inspired by the most dog-eared pages of my copies of Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering and Chip and Dan Heath’s The Power of Moments, here are five intentional principles for school leaders to improve their school reception:
(1) Reframe the purpose of reception
The school reception isn’t just a place where visitors wait; it’s a gateway to your school’s culture. When we talk about staff-child relations we say, ‘every interaction is an intervention’ and adults aren’t that different. Every interaction in your reception space should communicate: “You matter, and we’re glad you’re here.”
Action: Explicitly reframe your school reception as a relational—not just administrative—space. Make it a deliberate moment of welcome. Consider whether you need to develop a training session or short programme to align staff around this moment and the messages you want to communicate in this moment.
(2) Shape the emotional arc
Every visitor goes on an emotional journey as they gear up to come into school and enter reception. For many of us, we’ll rush in and out of the school reception dozens of time each week. For some visitors, today’s visit might be one of only a handful of times that they’ve visited a school as an adult. Let’s focus on three key moments:
The arrival: How do they feel as they walk in—nervous, defensive, rushed?
The transition: What needs to happen to shift them from anxiety to calm, from tension to connection?
The exit: How do they feel when they leave—respected, reassured, hopeful?
Action: Make this arc explicit and equip receptionists to guide visitors through it. Simple acts—like offering a cup of tea, water, fruit or biscuits; providing reassurance; or explaining what to expect next—can make all the difference. Reflect on your own experiences engaging with other organisations too; like your GP, your A&E department, a car garage or hotel.
(3) Co-create the experience with your families
If we want to shift the dynamic from summoning to collaboration, we need to invite people into the process. There are two bits to this principle, I think:
First, we need to understand what entering your school really feels like for the families you hopefully have in mind right now. That means observing what they actually do, how they actually behave, when being received by the school. That means listening openly and earnestly to their experiences, without judgement or defense, to better understand this. This is hard.
Second, in the moment, consider whether there is scope to ask your visitors questions like: “What’s one thing you’d like us to understand about your child today?”, or “Is there anything we can do to make this conversation more helpful for you?”.
Action: Frame all meetings as opportunities to partner, not just deliver information. The questions posed above might not be the right questions—but the principle of invitation is important.
(4) Establish some welcome rituals
I like the word ‘rituals’ because it sounds sacred and confers a sense of occasion. But use whatever language fits your school; ‘routines’, ‘protocols’, other words are available.
But to realise our intentions we need to set some sort of framework in place—however tight or loose—because, as James Clear reminds us, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems”.
Action: Ask yourself the question: To what extent does the experience chime with our school’s values? If the answer is, ‘totally’—play on. If not, we’ve work to do!
You want to design rituals that reflect your school’s values to ensure every visitor feels seen and valued (not just the families for whom you already have a positive relationship with). Identify some small, intentional acts that build trust and create consistency in those key mini-moments identified above, in line with what your families tell you about their experience. Design a protocol.
Maybe that’s standing to greet visitors, committing to always greeting them with a smile (especially when it’s hard), offering a bowl of sweets, having some jokes that the year 4s have written printed on the walls, maybe it’s sharing a positive insight about the staff member/s or children they’re here to meet?
I don’t know what the right things are for your school but I trust that you will if you stop to think about it.
(5) Signal belonging
This is the least immediately actionable of the five principles but it’s an important reminder to round them off: your reception area isn’t just a space; it’s a signal. Every choice—from the warmth of the lighting to the tone of your receptionist’s greeting—sends a message about who belongs here.
To conclude: belonging is a choice
Schools are places of incredible potential, but they are also places of profound vulnerability. For any parent or carer stepping into reception, that vulnerability is magnified.
The good news? Belonging doesn’t require sweeping changes. It’s built in the details: a smile, a chair, a moment of empathy.
When we design those details with care, we create an environment where every parent—not just the confident ones—feels they belong. And when we do that, we reshape the way parents see our schools, and in turn, the way they support their children within them.
Because belonging isn’t just a feeling. It’s a choice. And it starts with a moment.
As part of The Relationships Collective, Verity’s been doing some pioneering work to secure a relationship-centred future in our schools through The Reach Foundation’s Cradle-to-Career Partnership and school leadership programmes. She’s writing a monthly/ish dispatch about some of that stuff here. Meanwhile, Jon has spent the last two years interrogating ‘belonging’ alongside five educational professionals from across the globe. The result of that work is the Building Belonging Project—a veritable feast of free resources to support teachers to better understand and apply the science of belonging. I thoroughly recommend watching the video below if you want to find out more: