Pastoral Care and Pupil Wellbeing
Behaviour Management
Our aim is that by the time children leave us at Greenmount Primary School they are able to make an informed decision about the choices they make regarding their behaviour and that hopefully they will be able to make the right decision! Our school is a happy place where children feel safe and content to come to school every day. There are so many opportunities for children to succeed and receive praise in school. (Please see the section on rewards).
Children respond to praise first and foremost and this is our first strategy.
We teach children that we must respect each other and if our actions do not help others but hinder or hurt someone else then that behaviour is wrong.
We do not expect that children will use physical means to resolve disagreements or that they call names and use put downs to gain power over someone else.
Our expectation is that age – appropriately, children will be develop their own self – discipline. However, this doesn’t happen by magic and we don’t sport magic wands. Our first response is to use praise to celebrate the correct behaviour being displayed by children.
Children need to be taught about the right choices of behaviour, about moral and values led codes. Our belief is that we do this in partnership with parents. At school we teach about right and wrong in assemblies, in personal and social education lessons, informally with children and also when a mistake is made we consider with the children what the alternatives were and which would have been the better choice and why. So we consider with children what they should have done. Often this is all that is needed.
However, there are rare occasions when children should have known better and have demonstrated that they have knowingly broken our code of behaviour by making the wrong choice of action.
We then employ sanctions, which are hierarchical in nature. We will inform parents if there is a serious incident or should a pattern of behaviour develop.
We use an online system for recording positive behaviour. The Class Dojo system allows teachers to award green Dojos for positive behaviours. The children are rewarded when they reach a milestone of Dojo points. Parents can sign up to the Dojo system and receive regular reports of their child’s Dojo points and information about why certain points were awarded.
Our school's Behaviour Policy can be found on the Policies page.
Rewards
Children can gain all sorts of rewards in school for good effort, excellence in their work or for being super helpful, reliable, kind or careful.
Good Work and Positive Attitudes to Learning
These are rewarded through Green Dojo Points or Team Points. Parents can keep track of their children's achievements through an app or by receiving a weekly email.
Reach for the stars …
Teachers identify children who have either made a noticeable improvement in an aspect of their learning or who have done something notable during the week. Teachers try to recognise all children’s efforts verbally every day – this is something a little more special. Certificates are presented at our whole school assembly on a Friday. On gaining their 3rd certificate, a bronze award is achieved. A silver award is achieved after 6 certificates. The prestigious “gold award” is presented to children who achieve 10 certificates over the course of the year.
One child in each class is named as the "Star of the Week"
Team Points
We also believe that supporting a team of people is important. Their colour teams are organised on entry to school. Team points are announced in assembly each week and the winning team is published in the newsletter.
Anti-Bullying
Bullying of a persistent nature takes place rarely at our school. However, we must always remain alert to the possibility of its occurrence.
Bullying can take place in many ways and is not always obvious. An equal disagreement between children who are usually friends would not cause concern if this was not often repeated or prolonged. However if your child is unhappy to come to school there must be a reason. Sometimes they just want to be at home. Perhaps something exciting is happening there e.g. a new baby or visitors from abroad. Perhaps something unhappy is happening at home that they want to know about to make sure they and their loved ones are safe. If these possibilities have been counted out then perhaps the problem is at school and you should tackle it sooner rather than later.
The most important strategy for all children to understand and carry out is to tell someone if they feel that they are being bullied. This could be their class teacher or teaching assistant, a member of the family or a best friend. The person who has been told then has the responsibility to bring it to the attention of an adult in school who will then follow the correct procedures in school. If we don’t know about it we can’t help. We have found that where school has been informed early on about the problem then the success rate of dealing with bullying is significantly improved. Generally speaking it is better to involve school rather than the parent of the suspected bully. It is then harder for us to resolve if a parental argument has taken place.
Please discuss the problem with your child’s class teacher initially and they will look into the problem. They will also inform senior members of staff, who will consider if any additional measures need to be taken.
If the problem is resolved - great! If not then please see the Head Teacher who will then engage additional measures to resolve the problem.
Should it become apparent that a child is being bullied in any way at all they will be taught specific strategies to support them. A circle of friends will also be implemented to aid the victim as well as the bully. Frequent monitoring and strategies with members of staff will be put in place until the problem has been fully resolved. Parents will be kept informed of progress being made throughout.
Should it become clear that children are involved in the bullying of another child their parents will be informed and discussion will take place as to the successful resolution of the problem for all children. The bully is often unhappy too!
On a more positive note we have only rare occurrences of bullying and we have been successful in tackling them. Our Personal, and Social education lessons tackles many of these issues with children in the hope that they are less likely to bully and they know what to do if someone attempts to bully them. Bullies only bully if you allow them to. The bullied child must tell someone!
Full details can be found in our anti-bullying school policy, available from the Policy webpage.
Accidents in School
Accidents happen and are a common feature of childhood and school life ! All injuries are dealt with by one of our team of qualified first aiders and notification is always sent to parents where first aid has been administered. Look out for a white A5 slip in your child’s book bag ! If your child has had a bumped head in school they should bring home a pink ‘bumped head letter’ which will give you additional information about their minor accident. If we should suspect that your child is suffering from concussion we will contact you by phone and give you the option of collecting your child and taking them for a check at hospital. If there are no symptoms of concussion we will still continue to observe them throughout the day and contact you should we have any concerns.
Please ensure that you keep the school office up to date with any changes to your contact details. The greatest difficulty that we experience is in contacting parents should the need arise. We find that mobile phones are often switched off, due to parents being in meetings etc. but if they are the only contact details we have this presents a problem, especially if your child needs to be taken to hospital. Please make sure that we have a land line number and / or you keep your phone on vibrate. Serious accidents are infrequent and we are well equipped in dealing with them.
Illness
It can be quite difficult deciding if your child is fit or not for school.
However some rough guidelines below may help.
Reasons for keeping a child at home:
Your child:
- has lost sleep during the night due to coughing / high temperature
- has a high temperature
- has vomited (Must remain off school site for 48hrs after last session)
- has diarrhoea (Must remain off school site for 48hrs after last session)
cannot eat breakfast - has a rash which you cannot identify or which you know is infectious (Please take to GP) and check with school the isolation period from school.
Usually, if you send your child to school with any of the above we will be in contact with you early in the morning to collect and take home because they are usually genuinely ill.
However, if your child has eaten breakfast and they just seem to have a common cold then send them into school and if they can’t cope we will get in touch with you or an alternative contact to collect and give them TLC at home. Please note that we are unable to sit with a sick child unless they quite obviously have dangerous symptoms. We continue to monitor their condition approx every 10 minutes. Please collect children promptly because young children can easily become distressed when they are poorly. Thank you.
If your child has an ongoing medical condition please make an appointment to meet with Mr Griffith so that an individual care plan can be formulated.
Our policy on Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions can be found on our Policies page.
Medicines in School
We are willing to support the administration of medicine in school. Each case is considered separately. There are some ground rules which have to be followed to ensure the system runs smoothly and that we follow best practice.
If your child needs to take medication on a long term basis – please ask to speak with Mr Griffith.
We are able to administer medicine late morning / lunchtime and at GOOSE- we are unable to give medicine at other times in the day. Parents are, however, welcome to come into school if necessary.
We are unable to administer non – prescription medicines. All medicines must be labeled from the pharmacist and prescribed for your child.
You will need to complete a medication registration form which identifies the medication and informs you that we are willing to take the responsibility of administering it.
Records are kept in school of any medication administered. It is parent’s responsibility to keep inhalers / epipens / medication up to date and to collect to take home. If medication is out of date we will not administer.
With the exception of asthma inhalers for the juniors, children must not keep medicines of any type in their school bags or lunch boxes etc with the intention of self–administering, whatever their age.
Our policy for Supporting Children with Medical Conditions can be found on our Policies page.
Collecting Children from School
Up to the age of 5yrs children must be collected from school by an adult (18yrs+).
If you know that someone different is collecting your child on a particular day you must let school know in advance. We will not allow children to leave school with unknown adults. Parents of older children usually wait for children at the school gates allowing children an element of independence. Some children in years 5 and 6 walk home independently or with their friends.
Reception
Children must be collected from outside their classroom. Please wait at the reception outdoor play area for your child to be released to you.
Year 1 and Year 2
Children must be collected from outside their classroom. Please wait at the outside door to the classroom for your child to be released to you.
Years 3 and 4
Please wait on the lower playground (adjacent to the play trail) or at the gate.
Years 5 and 6
Please wait at the outside doors to the classroom or at the gate.
Child Care
We offer before and after school child care. This provision is affectionately known as GOOSE (Greenmount Out of School Experience). It is open from 7.15am – 9.00am and from 3.30pm – 6.00pm.
The club meets in the portakabin in the school grounds and charges apply for using the facility. The club is staffed by an experienced team that caters for the needs of children of different ages.
A light breakfast and afternoon snack is available from the healthy options menu, which varies throughout the week.
Children are able to take part in physical, creative and social play, in groups or individually. At the end of the school day, children will be collected by GOOSE staff and taken across to the club.
GOOSE
GOOSE is our before / after school care facility.
For more information, check out the GOOSE page:
