Pastoral Care Day
Last Friday was our second Pastoral Care Day for 2023. This was an important day for our whole school reviewing our norms and safety plans, then focusing on building skills to confidently join, participate and include others in games, particularly in the yard.
In addition to re-familiarising ourselves with the Zones of Regulation and reviewing our preferred regulation strategies, all students were asked to add a trusted adult to their safety plan. This was a follow up to the Circle of Trust activity we did on the first Pastoral Care Day last term. Ask your child/ren to share with you which adult they can rely on for help at school.
The next part of the day was used to discuss ways we can make the people around us feel happy/included/respected. The topic of this conversation was about showing kindness through actions and/or compliments. Children were asked to pull a name out of a hat and perform random acts of kindness for their person. This could include helping them, giving them compliments, including them in a game etc. It’s up to you!
The Prep students did an activity on Bucket Filling, a representation of a person’s emotional wellbeing (bucket) that we can either fill or dip into, depending on the way we treat someone.
The grade 1/2 students shared a photo of each student around and their peers were asked to write a compliment about that person. These were given to the child at the end of the lesson to read what their classmates thought about them.
Next, children discussed the important social skill of appropriate ways they can join a group or a game. They learnt the following strategies:
- Approach and observe: Approach the group and stand a reasonable distance so you can watch what is going on.
- Identify friendly faces: Look at the children who are playing the game and note the ones who seem the friendliest and most approachable.
- A natural break: Wait until there is some natural break or lull in the game when your approach will be least intrusive.
- Blend in, don’t burst in: Try to enter the group without causing any disruption. Wait until your turn and don’t expect to be centre stage straight away.
- Be confident: Expect to be allowed in. Be friendly and confident (not mousy or bossy).
After discussing these strategies, some classes played cooperative games inside and other classes were rotated through six activities in the yard. These were:
Station 1: Football safety
Station 2: Shed and oval safe play
Station 3: Four square rules and demo
Station 4: Skipping safety and demo
Station 5: Basketball court safety
Station 6: Quiet area safety.
Representatives at each station explained to the students how to be safe and what the expectations are in certain areas of our yard. They demonstrated how to play each game to try and teach the students and motivate them to be doing something structured at lunchtimes.
Overall it was another fantastic day and we thank Mr Bacon and Mr Blythe for their fabulous planning.
