Emotional labour and developing schools as community hubs

The benefits of schools as community hubs for students, teachers, families, and the wider community have been documented in Australia and internationally. Indeed, connecting with community is now a key performance indicator for many Australian school principals. Nevertheless, planning, designing, and sustaining community-facing schools can be time-consuming and demanding for the professionals tasked with their delivery. Successful hub projects rely on the creation of trusting partnerships and establishing and communicating shared visions, as well as deft management of entrenched attitudes, resistance to change, and at times conflict. This chapter examines the experiences of professionals involved in delivering schools as community hub projects. Data is drawn from a workshop, post-workshop survey and seven in-depth interviews with school principals, architects, hub partners, policymakers, and others tasked with delivering ‘school as community hub’ projects. Rewarding as hub projects can be, the findings suggest that they can place high demands on the emotional resources of those involved. Our evidence suggests a strong theme of emotional labour, with implications for wellbeing, job satisfaction, and burnout. As a counterbalance, we argue that hub partnership mediators, dedicated hub staffing, and training pathways for leaders may help sustain more schools as community hubs to benefit children, their families and the broader community.