During Anti-bullying Week, Mr Barker relaunched our leadership initiatives that centre on creating a kind, inclusive and supportive community of children.
In Years 3 and 4, our Playground Pals completed their training early on in the term and now head out regularly into the playground to help their friends and make sure everyone has a positive break time.
This is what one pupil wrote about why she wanted to be part of this innovative leadership scheme: "I will be a good playground pal as I can also understand and help them with their problems. I love listening to my friends and working as a team. I find sharing really really fun. But sometimes it is really hard to share but I always share. I find it fun and easy to share. I know that I can be a really good playground pal. I love my school so I want to help my school to be amazing and fun like it already is. But making break fun for everyone."
In Year 6, our Buddies also set out into the playground to help and support younger pupils during breaktimes and in Year 8, children undertook their training to become Friends, a supportive peer mentoring position.
During the week, Mr Barker reminded pupils of the difference between unkindness and bullying in assembly and pupils were given an environmentally-friendly anti-bullying bracelet to wear.
Year 6 thought about how they should react to bullying behaviour during a virtual reality anti-bullying session. Year 6 found it really interesting and it was a great way to discuss openly what we can all do in a very difficult situation.
Molly who took part in the session said: "We learnt what you should and shouldn't do and say in a bullying situation. We could see the situation in the headset and had to look left and right to see the people talking. It was surreal and cool. I learnt that you have to be firm and ask the bully to stop, but also that it is likely that the bully is having trouble at home or at school so we should also ask the bully if they are ok. If the bullying carries on then you have to tell a teacher."
The Kindness Committee, with representatives from Year 1 upwards, has also been at work. They created a brilliant initiative to help us all, especially the new pupils and new staff, get to know our kitchen team better. Lunch, after all, is one of the most important parts of the day! One pupil said: "Everyone who works in the kitchen seems to know our names very quickly and our favourite meals, but we don't know theirs. So we asked them what they would like to be called and made this display so we can be as kind to them as they are to us."
Finally, congratulations to the winners of our 'Celebrating Difference' poster competition which took place in Years 3 and 4. Our Head of Art, Mrs Jeram, chose two posters: "Well done to everyone who took part. The two winners' posters had an extraordinary level of detail - congratulations."
