Monday 12th June 2023
School Uniform
With the continuing hot weather having a huge impact on school life we talked with the children about keeping safe in the heat in our assembly this morning. We explained to them that, as we have done in previous years, we will let them (and parents) know if we are relaxing our school uniform expectations due to the heat, and until they hear this we expect them to wear correct school uniform. We reminded them that P.E. kit can be worn to school on P.E. days only and that these days should involve children wearing correct P.E. kit. Finally, we reminded them that our P.E. kit does not include open-toed sandals, as they are unsafe for P.E. I think it is safe to say that, in a few cases, standards have dropped since the pandemic, and whilst our attitude to school uniform is more relaxed than some other schools we do have expectations of the children. With this in mind, please be aware that you may receive call to bring in alternative clothing for your children if they come to school inappropriately dressed.
Upstanders v Bystanders
As part of our proactive approach to teaching the children about positive relationships, we often have themed whole school assemblies, and recently we had a special assembly to discuss being a ‘bystander’ vs being an ‘upstander’. We explained to the children that a bystander is someone who sees something happening that makes them uncomfortable but does nothing about it whilst an upstander is a person who sees something happening and takes positive action to improve the situation.
We explained to the children that, whilst we would want them to be upstanders and not bystanders, the challenge for them is to become positive upstanders and make the correct choice if they see something that they feel is not right.
We reminded them that the best course of action is to find an adult in school to help with the situation, and that trying to fix things themselves can sometimes lead to making the situation worse, and that this can sometimes lead to bullying behaviour. Obviously, we have a zero-tolerance approach to this kind of behaviour and would act appropriately if we saw this from any of our children.
Although we can only monitor and support behaviour in school, by taking this proactive approach we can help them develop the tools they need to be positive upstanders out of school too. Now that children have the term ‘upstander’ in their vocabulary I hope that you might hear it from them over the coming weeks!
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