Assistant Head of Primary Update

Pastoral Care

Returning to school after a restful break and time spent with our families provides us with a great opportunity to reconnect with friends, refocus on our learning and renew our appreciation for the diverse network of relationships that we have within our school community. Within the Pastoral Care context, we have used this time to build upon the foundations laid in Term 1 of developing students’ capability and confidence in school and beyond through the five essential skills of resilience, self-regulation, resourcefulness, respect, and responsibility. Now, we turn our focus to building connections and relationships with others. To achieve this, students have explored weekly themes of showing empathy towards others, appreciating diversity and flourishing. 

Empathy

According to Brené Brown, empathy is ‘feeling with people.’ Empathy allows us to walk alongside others in times of sadness, share in their moments of joy, and everything in between. Helping children recognise and consider the feelings of others and seek out the best for those around them, helps them build stronger friendships, deepen their own sense of self and ultimately, brings out the best in themselves.

Diversity

Building upon the theme of empathy, students were next introduced to the theme of diversity and celebrating the unique characteristics among different members in the community that collectively make the world a better place. This understanding lays the foundation for social awareness and behavioural expectations to respect and uphold the dignity of the diverse backgrounds, cultures and diverse learning needs of all students in the classroom, on the playground, at the school and beyond. For the youngest members of our Del Monte community in K-2, this was explored through the importance of having lots of different types of friends at school, recognising that friendships change over time and that we need to put effort into friendships to help them grow. For 3-6, the focus shifted to individual ability to accept, honour and celebrate the unique characteristics of themselves and others.

Flourishing

Martin Seligman describes flourishing as, ‘Feeling good and doing good’ and outlines five measurable pillars for human flourishing: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. At Del Monte, students identified things that make themselves feel good and actions they can take to do the same for others. These conversations help children start to recognise that these two sets of actions are not always mutually exclusive; that ‘doing good’ can also be a source of ‘feeling good’ within ourselves.

Lauren Petroni
Assistant Head of Primary P-4