I am a Global Citizen
At Swainswick Primary School, we believe that every child is unique and all our differences should be celebrated. Through nurturing, celebrating and supporting our children’s individual needs pupils feel valued and known, and in turn are able to value each other.
As our children will become adults in an increasingly inter-connected and complex World, we believe that as a school, we have a responsibility to support them in becoming understanding citizens of the 21st century who recognise the need to participate in a caring and responsible way for the world and community around them.
This strong ethos permeates every aspect of school life, from the learning behaviours, and values celebrated in weekly assemblies, to the meaningful exploration of their own and other cultures.
Celebration Assembly
Celebration Assembly is held every week and celebrates all aspects of school life. It always starts with a moment of quiet reflection, letting the children pause amongst the busy-ness of the school day, to contemplate and look around, absorbing their own thoughts and feelings.
Children's efforts are showcased and celebrated an emphasis on where children have persevered and shown specific learning behaviours, or behaved in a way which reflects one of our values in action.
The following certificates are given out weekly, with additional efforts recognised on an ad-hoc basis:
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3 Awards for Learning Behaviours & Christian Value per class - one of which is discussed and decided on by the children themselves
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Lunchtime Award - demonstrating one of our values during play
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House Point Award
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Attendance Award
Ethos Council
The Ethos Council plays a very important role as it works as a moral and spiritual compass, guiding the children, staff and school in the right direction. They make decisions that help us build the holistic needs of the school and on a day to day basis help to support people around them.
What topics does the Swainswick Ethos Council discuss:
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Keeping Everyone Safe
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Behaviour
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Assemblies
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Class and Collective Worship
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British Values
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Fun for All
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Raise money for a charity
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The children's School Values Award
House Groups
Children in Swainswick belong to one of four "House Groups', reflecting the villages in our local area: Larkhall, Woolley, Tadwick, and Langridge. These House Groups give children another opportunity to work across year groups and create relationships with older and younger children.
House Points are used to reward where children have demonstrated brilliant learning behaviours, or have acted with kindness and compassion towards others. House Points are added up at the end of term, and the group with the most points enjoys a whole House reward together. This might be a fun morning at Swainswick Explorers, including mud, marshamallows and hot chocolate.
House Days, a few times a year, lessons are put aside and the children across the years come together in their House groups to explore an interesting cross-curricular topic or tackle a tricky challenge.
Christian Values
Through our Christian values and strong partnership between children, parents, staff, governors and the wider community, we understand that children must be happy to become confident learners.
This strong ethos permeates school life and the emphasis on increasing our children’s awareness of our ‘values’ is a significant factor in enhancing the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
Each term we focus on a different value, celebrating and discussing it in assembly, and in class. In addition to enable parents to engage and support their children in exploring these value, we send home a ‘Home School Values’ challenge sheet.
Welcome to the Week
Swainswick's ‘Welcome to the Week’ poster is displayed on the notice board and in the all classrooms - highlighting the schools cultural, learning, and values focus for the week.
In addition to our Christian Values, we celebrate cultural festivals that are taking place around the world. You will also find our greetings, music, songs, learning to learn focus and any reminders. These are all introduced to the children in our assembly on Monday and then referred to throughout the week
We keep our ‘Welcome–to-Week’ greeting for two weeks. This was requested by the children so that they can embed the greeting and have more time in class to learn about the country and the culture.
Story of the Week - An example being we have recently purchased ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’ and ‘Stories for Boys who Dare to beDifferent’. These wonderful books inspire children with100 stories of heroic women and men who have made the world a better place, through compassion, generosity and self-belief. We are reading and discussing these stories in assembly, Collective Worship and in class. In each of the stories, we are identifying our Christian Values. The children are really enjoying the books and we recommend them for home reading too.