Dame Bradbury's newsletter - 1 March 2018

Cool to be kind

"...it is the responsibility of each pupil and member of staff to show and recognise kindness as a way of building each other’s confidence and promoting happiness"

Dear parents and guardians,

Our learning habits were introduced and embedded throughout the curriculum to empower our pupils learning by developing the core skills that our pupils need in order to be successful and thrive as learners. We knew that we needed to consistently apply focus on producing inquisitive and engaged learners and settled on the implementation of the learning habits. We felt that if children could master these core learning skills, it wouldn’t matter what they were learning or how challenging it was; they would learn because they would be using a wide range of skills to do so.

Collaboration is one of the most accessible skills for all pupils aged 2 ¾ through to 11. Working together and playing together is embedded into their experience from birth and all parents recognise the need to socialise their little ones and create opportunities in toddler groups, play dates and family gatherings.

Collaboration is, however, a far more complex skill than occupying the same space, whether it is the virtual or real. Throughout our assemblies, teaching and facilitation collaboration is underpinned by lively discussion, sharing of ideas, conflict in its truest sense and then an agreed direction with a shared view of success whereby each participant is expected to input equal effort and share equally the responsibility whether in success or failure. In print this looks like a tall order when you are 2 ¾ or even when you are 23 or 34. However, it amazes me every day to see our community working together, pulling their combined weight to achieve something of which they are proud, whether it works or not and having the resilience to go back to the drawing board to achieve success and not for their own individual gain but for the group.

As I write about collaboration the words lead me down the path of celebrating collaborative success in the areas of academia, sport and music but I don’t wish to underplay the role of collaboration in pupils achieving strength of character. Each term we look to award YAK awards to our pupils for personifying our motto; be yourself, aim high and be kind. The YAK symbolises a community that shows kindness towards each other and with whom we interact. Kindness of this magnitude however requires the collaboration of the whole community, it is the responsibility of each pupil and member of staff to show and recognise kindness as a way of building each other’s confidence and promoting happiness.