Teaching Safely: Caring for Classroom Relationships

Abstract

The article introduces “safe teaching” as a set of observable practices that foster both emotional and cognitive security, enabling students to learn by feeling simultaneously welcomed and challenged. Drawing on the European project Let’s Care, it outlines the Safe Teaching Toolkit, developed with teachers from six countries through focus groups and peer observation. The framework is organised around two core movements—welcoming and energising—and emphasises that caring schools cannot exist without also caring for their teaching staff.