Building a safe and loving community is at the heart of our school values and ‘wellbeing’ threads through our curriculum. We believe that children need the resources and tools to develop mental and physical resilience and have the ability to form strong, inclusive relationships.
We know that we all have a responsibility to keep each other safe and listen if people have a problem they want to talk about. Children in school know that they can talk to any teacher, midday supervisor or member of the school office if they feel they need support. Children are taught to use the phrase, “Can I have a word, please?” and this signals to adults that they need to be ready to listen.
Bullying is not tolerated in our school. Our PSHE curriculum is progressive and allows children to develop their understanding and acceptance of other people’s differences and their ability to empathize. This is strengthened by our work during Anti-Bullying Week. Children know the ‘STOP’ rule – Start Telling Other People – and use this hand in hand with, “Can I have a word, please?”.
Our School Buddy System allows older children within the school to support younger ones during play time and lunch break. Successful applicants go through buddy training and learn how to support turn taking skills, how to lead co-operative game play and how to notice if children need some emotional support.
Children knowing how to stay safe around unfamiliar people is hugely important to us and is woven through our PSHE curriculum. Rather than using the old ‘stranger danger’ rule, we teach children about how ‘Clever Never Goes’. To strengthen this, we have a ‘Clever Never’ focus week throughout the school where children’s lessons are based around teaching safety within the community, to a level that matches the children’s age.
Should you need any support or advice regarding your own or your child’s well-being please talk to your child’s class teacher, Mrs Newton, Mrs Eccles, or the office staff. You may also find the websites below useful – click on the logo to take you to the relevant web page.
We’ve included some useful links to relevant online resources we use in school that you can also use at home.
[Please add in links to the following resources: if its possible to display the logos as per this page. Or add in as a list – I’ve listed them below with relevant links.
Childline Childline | Childline
Young Minds YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People | YoungMinds
Anit-bullying Alliance Anti-Bullying Alliance
Think Road Safety THINK! – Road safety
NSPCC NSPCC | The UK children’s charity | NSPCC
The children’s sleep charity Children’s Sleep Blog – Fostering Sweet Dreams for Your Little Ones (thechildrenssleepcharity.org.uk)
Clever never goes Home – Clever Never Goes
Ways we keep each other happy and safe.
We understand how important it is be able to identify how we are feeling and to know how we can help ourselves if we feel anxious. Take Five at school is a resilience-building programme based on breathing, grounding and awareness. We can calm ourselves down, or ground ourselves and take stock, or we can energise and get ready.
This is an initiative led by children so our Take 5 Ambassadors lead these practices throughout the school at various times of the day.
Everyone in our school is taught how to use breathing exercises to support this, using the Take 5 Breathing Programme. We are proud to have trained Breathing Ambassadors in our upper Key Stage 2 classes and these children lead our daily breathing sessions throughout the school.
Pupils throughout school take part in short breathing practices of 1½ minutes approximately to calm, relax and focus them ready for learning. We even practice our breathing techniques as a whole school in Friday Assembly.
We practice so that we can use it to help us manage our emotions or get ourselves ready for whatever we need to do next, wherever we are; at home or school.
Below are some videos of different practices so that you can do that at home.
Summit day breathing exercise: use this to energise yourself.
Force breathing exercise: use this to help you feel calm, relaxed and positive about the world.
Three second breathing exercise: use this to regroup when you feel your mood changing
Earthquake breathing exercise: use this to help you feel grounded – it’s a firm favourite with everyone!
