Pastoral Care
At the heart of every great community there are good people.
At Fairfield Park Lower School, we teach our pupils to be kind, courageous and fair. We appreciate that for any learning to occur, children need to feel safe, happy and surrounded by positive relationships.
We help them to learn about their feelings and identify what makes them feel great, and not so great. We promote tolerance and empathy and help them to imagine what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
We understand that to enable children to be the best version of themselves, takes a united approach with school, families and the wider community. At Fairfield Park, we have a strong Pastoral Team who are dedicated to providing the support that children and families may need when life becomes too challenging to manage alone. We are also passionate about providing advice, support and relevant signposting to help to deal with the everyday ups and downs of family life.
Ultimately we want to equip our children with the knowledge and life skills for them to flourish and to contribute to the flourishing of others.
Pastoral Offer
Core Provision – This is available to all children and families. You could see it as the bread and butter of our school – the things that happen every day to nurture and support children in school – with continued support from home. Also listed is the first level of signposting for families such as websites and local charities that offer advice. More details of these can be found on our Pastoral Boards (in the foyer of each site) and on the Pastoral section of the school newsletter. Face to face discussions with class teachers also provide a great start to any simmering concerns or family issues.
Step 2 – Additional Support within the School Community – this is more bespoke and would be intervention from school and home when a concern is raised. This could be behaviour concerns – home / school, low level anxiety, sleep, toileting etc. The aim is for school and parents to work together, using in school expertise and additional advice from approved websites and courses run in school. This may also come in the form of small group work for the child in school with a member of the pastoral team. There would be agreed actions for both home and school to ensure a holistic approach to the support.
Step 3 – External Agencies – circumstances sometimes arise where staff and parents feel that there is a greater need than can be provided solely by home and school and additional support may need to be accessed from external agencies. This would be a mutual agreement and the Pastoral Team would support any referrals and ensure that the correct, targeted support is being sought.
Social Responsibility
There are approximately 1,825 days from a child’s first day in Reception to their first day at their new middle school. They attend school for around 975 of those days and we value this time enormously.
During this time, we pledge to develop each child’s sense of social responsibility in an age appropriate way, to begin their positive journey as a community and global citizen.
We strive to address controversial and newsworthy topics in a factual and non-bias way. There have been many times we have had to address national news issues that we would hope to never have to talk about with young children. This is always done with a familiar adult and delivered factually and in an age appropriate way, allaying fears and preventing any misunderstandings. We always look for the ‘helpers’ the people who go out of their way to keep us safe.
We also use current affairs to celebrate the best of human kind and to ensure the children are politically and globally aware. Celebrating moon landings, new global leaders and inspirational people are all part of a daily diet of keeping children up to date with the world around them.
We aim to keep up to date to enable us to cope and provide support with the many sides of today’s complex life challenges. Our RHE and computing curriculums complement each other to address issues of online behaviour and safety.
We debate and encourage children to articulate their own perspectives whilst being respectful to others.
Our school is run as a fully functioning micro community, based around British Values. We vote, ensure voices are heard, celebrate difference and teach the children to be a proactive part in their community, giving up their time freely for the greater good of others.
Mental Wellness
Mental wellness is a state of wellbeing where people can meet their learning potential, cope with “normal” stresses and are connected to their community, family and friends. At Fairfield Park we provide an inclusive environment where people have supportive relationships with each other – and this gives us a firm foundation to nurture the mental wellness of our staff and pupils.
Mental wellness helps children develop socially, emotionally, mentally and even physically. Ultimately mental wellness enables children to;
Feel happy and positive
Enjoy their life
Learn well
Develop healthy relationships with family and friends
Identify and manage feelings
Bounce back from tough times
A recent INSET day focussed on staff mental wellness and wellbeing and we have regular ‘check ins’ to remind us all of the importance of taking care of ourselves.
We seek guidance and support from national charities such as Mind, Young Minds and also the NHS. Basic human needs such as sleep, food and physical activity can play a huge part in our state of mental wellness. We promote learning about all these things in school and also provide support to parents to facilitate these at home.
At Fairfield Park, we Stormbreak every day to provide our children with skills and knowledge to support their wellbeing through movement.
In a world where you can be anything, be kind
Behaviour Blueprint
Local support / signposting
CHUMS support
Low Mood InformationMindfulness Information
Online safety posters
Online Safety Tips for Children
School Support to Engage Parents Poster
Remote Learning Pastoral Support
remote learning family support newsletter.pdf
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