At St Robert's Catholic Primary School, our school curriculum and wider curriculum enable our pupils to become resilient, responsible and respectful. We recognise that pupils’ personal development: spiritually, morally, socially and culturally (SMSC), plays a significant part in their ability to learn and achieve. We believe that it is very important for all of our pupils to value their education as curious learners who question, debate, and listen to others’ opinions whilst voicing their own beliefs and concerns appropriately. We encourage our pupils to take pride in their own and other pupils’ work and to show empathy and understanding to all people regardless of race, culture, gender or religion. It is important that we teach our pupils to have aspirations beyond school so that they want to make a difference within the local and wider community.
At St Robert's, we believe it is important that all children have the opportunity to be leaders and role models to others. This helps them to build resilience, independence and gives them a public voice.
School Council
School Council is one of the ways in which children can learn to advocate for themselves and each other. It is run by Mrs Bhogal.
Each child is elected by their class to represent the views of all children and to think of different ways in which we can improve our school. They meet regularly with Mrs Bhogal to discuss issues that are important and to support our school’s leaders. During our first meeting, we discuss the roles of the school council representatives and the purpose of our meetings.
To date we have discussed behaviour expectations linked to our Golden Rules “Be Ready, Be Safe, Be Respectful” and gathered ideas on how to further promote a love of reading across school. The council introduced the Extreme Reading Competition which was well received!
Currently, we are devising a survey about the favourite subjects across school.
Eco Council
The St Robert's the Eco Council is committed to looking after the environment and being a positive change in the world around us. They meet regularly to discuss how we can make the school more environmentally friendly.
Why do we have an Eco Council?
- To ensure our school is eco-friendly and prepares pupils to live with reflection of the environment.
- To make sure each class has a platform to voice their opinions.
- To discuss and raise issues related to the environment.
Our Eco Warriors have been busy encouraging others to get creative with their rubbish! They inspired others to take part in a competition to create an animal out of recycled material and led an assembly to share the results, at the same time raising the importance of recycling for our environment.
Our Eco Warriors are committed to reducing pollution and waste. They have many responsibilities linked to this, such as checking lights are switched off around school, collecting used pens for recycling and litter picking around the school grounds, to name just a few!
Well Being Ambassadors
Our Wellbeing Ambassadors at St Robert's include pupils from each year group across school, who are positive role models for others. Their role includes supporting pupil wellbeing through proactively empowering children to positively interact, to ensure no bullying occurs, and to identify children that may need support.
The Wellbeing Ambassadors are also responsible for making sure mental health and wellbeing is a priority for everyone within school, in line with the World Health Organisation’s campaign for 2022. By advocating the need to be vocal about our Wellbeing, the Wellbeing Council will be ambassadors of an ethos which teaches us it is good to ‘speak out’ and ask for help, from a young age.
The Wellbeing Ambassadors currently run a lunchtime club which includes a range of mindful activities that help to support children regulate their emotions and talk about their feelings.
Mini Vinnies
At St Robert's Catholic Primary, we promote good behaviour by creating a happy, caring school environment where everyone feels valued, respected, secure and free from all forms of anti-social behaviour.
We realise pupils’ behaviour improves and they feel safer and happier in school if school staff consistently apply positive behaviour management strategies and maintain regular classroom routines. House points, the Recognition Board and certificates are used to celebrate children who follow the 'Golden Rules' and demonstrate positive personal virtues.
We encourage pupils to achieve in a learning environment where self-discipline is promoted and good behaviour is the norm.
Zones of Regulation
At St. Robert’s Primary School, we recognise the importance of promoting positive mental and emotional wellbeing to our students and their families. We aim to create an open culture around the discussion of mental health and wellbeing and to empower our children be able to regulate their emotions. By implementing the Zones of Regulation curriculum we aim to teach our pupils to identify emotions in themselves and others and provide them with bank of strategies to help regulate their emotions and improve their wellbeing.
The Zones of Regulation is a range of activities to help your child develop skills in the area of self-regulation. Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management and impulse control. It is defined as the best state of alertness of both the body and
emotions for the specific situation. For example, when your child plays in a basketball game, it is beneficial to have a higher state of alertness. However, that same state would not be appropriate in the library.
The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum based around the use of four colours to help children self-identify how they’re feeling and categorise it based on colour. The curriculum also helps children better understand their emotions, sensory needs and thinking patterns. The children learn different strategies to cope and manage their emotions based on which colour zone they’re in. Additionally, the Zones of Regulation helps children to recognise their own triggers, learn to read facial expressions, develop problem-solving skills, and become
more attuned to how their actions affect other people.
There is progression across the curriculum with children in Early Years learning to identify different emotions to children in Upper Key Stage 2 discussing how our behaviour can impact upon the feelings of those around us.
Please see below a link to the summary of enrichment activities for the academic year 2022-2023. As new opportunities and experiences become available, this overview will be added to.
Enrichment Activities 2022-2023