Feeling Welcome – your experience Think privately of a recent occasion when you felt welcome. (It doesn’t have to be a ‘formal’ welcome – just a time when a friendly person or group welcomed you.) B. Continue thinking about: What the other person(s) did to make you feel welcome What difference the welcome made to you immediately and for the rest of the time 3. Whether you try to make other people welcome in the same way Then, share your thoughts about 1, 2 and 3 with a talking partner, and discuss whether people should be given lessons in ‘welcoming’.

Welcome – in return As a whole group, discuss: Whether some people are more welcoming than others, and, if so, why? (Give examples, but not ‘too close to home/school’.) 2. Whether this might be true also of some families, schools, and even countries? (Give reasons for your beliefs.) How people who have been welcomed could, and even should, ‘return’ the welcome? (Give examples, including from school.)

Welcoming - communicating In pairs, discuss, decide and write down, in short words or phrases,: 3 examples of ‘welcoming words’ that people might use, and 3 examples of ‘generous gestures’ (body language or actions that make people feel welcome). . B. As a whole group, welcome each other’s ideas, building up good lists of each sort of communication. Then discuss: How well did we welcome each other’s ideas? How easy is it for people to learn these ways of communicating? How easy is it for people to use these ways of communicating? How easy it is to become a more welcoming person?

Welcome – formal and informal As a whole group, think back to the different ways of communicating a welcome, and discuss: Are some ways of welcoming people more ‘formal’ than others, i.e. more ‘public’ and part of what is ‘expected’? (Give examples.) 2. Why do most people welcome strangers more ‘formally’ than people they already know? (Give reasons for your view.) Could someone become so ‘informal’ with people they know, especially friends, that they forget to welcome them at all? (Give reasons for you view.)

Welcoming – personal task A. Privately, write down some of your own thoughts about welcoming. The following might be welcome aids to organising your thoughts: Do you have to have a certain attitude to welcome someone, or can you do it without feeling or thinking? 2. Do you feel yourself to be a welcoming sort of person? In what ways or places could you be more welcoming? Do you respond well to people who welcome you? And to people who don’t? OR Write a short story about a good welcome, and another short story about a bad welcome.