Sherborne House School is committed to providing outstanding pastoral care to all of its pupils. We are dedicated to providing a nurturing and supportive environment in which every child feels valued and cared for within every aspect of their school life. Our children’s physical welfare, confidence, self-belief and well-being is at the heart of our school.
Through our school ethos, our children recognise that they are part of a school community in which they learn equality, diversity, democracy and respect for all. As part of this community, the children share a sense of belonging as they are placed within ‘house teams’ from Pre-Reception to Year 6 and opportunities are given for the children to collaborate and celebrate their successes as part of a team. These house teams – Beeches, Oaks and Pines – are central to life at Sherborne House School. Throughout their school experiences, the children earn house points – small wooden tokens – which they place in their house bowl for all to see. The sense of pride and excitement is a sheer delight to see on their faces as they are eager to know which house team has won the most house points each week!
Our Golden Thread at Sherborne House School encourages the development of self-esteem and confidence in all of our pupils and provides positive experiences for overcoming adversity and building resilience. Our child-led curriculum means that every child is treated as an individual with our children developing an excitement and enjoyment for learning. Recognising that mental health plays an intrinsic part in a child’s holistic development, the children are provided with a curriculum to promote positive mental health and relationships.
Every child has a form tutor who will observe the physical and emotional welfare of the children. The form tutor develops a positive, caring relationship with the children and is able to offer comforting and ‘safe’ conversations to support pastoral care. However, we have pride in the fact that all staff at Sherborne House School know our children well and offer an open door policy to the children to support their pastoral care.
In each form, as appropriate to the age of the children, the Zones of Regulation are used to discuss emotions and strategies to support self-regulation. This supports our children to recognise their emotions and the emotions of others, sensory needs and thinking patterns. It also helps children to learn how to recognise their triggers, learn to read facial expressions, manage their emotions and become more attuned to how their actions may affect others.
We passionately believe that excellent pastoral care is built upon strong relationships with our children, parents and staff. We work hard to ensure that a well-developed system for pastoral concerns is in place and our pastoral leads work closely with all staff to ensure that any concerns are handled sensitively and in a timely, professional and confidential manner. We respect that every child is individually unique and therefore the pastoral care must reflect the child’s individual needs. Our SENCo and Pastoral Lead is able to offer advice to parents or guardians. In addition for the children, we are able to provide outdoor learning opportunities for children through our Forest School, ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support) individual support and have a well-being garden for the children to use. We also have peer support through our Well-being Ambassadors.
We are proud to share that Sherborne House has been granted the AcSEED accreditation for our commitment to emotional well-being and mental health.
About AcSEED
The AcSEED Initiative is a charitable organisation exclusively focused on promoting the need for high quality emotional wellbeing and mental health support in UK schools and colleges, and provides recognition through The AcSEED Award to those organisations that can demonstrate their commitment to such support. Founded by young people with lived experience of wellbeing challenges at school, the wellbeing framework defined by AcSEED encourages a whole school approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health support.
Our Success
“AcSEED promotes adoption of best practices in supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of young people in UK schools and colleges, and provides recognition for organisations that satisfy the AcSEED criteria for wellbeing support” said Charlotte Gatherer, founder of The AcSEED Initiative. “The AcSEED assessment team were particularly impressed by the strong wellbeing ethos at Sherborne House School, by their comprehensive range of mental health and wellbeing provisions supporting both pupils and staff, and by their close collaboration with external wellbeing organisations and with parents. We are therefore delighted to announce that Sherborne House School has been accredited with The AcSEED Award”.
PSHE (Personal, Social, Health, Economic Education), RSHE (Relationships, Sex, Health and Education)
The learning and promotion of PSHE, RSHE Education and SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development) is embedded across the whole school. Children are in classes with a dedicated form tutor who is responsible for their pastoral care and will address any issues as they arise such as supporting pupils to develop feelings of self respect, self-esteem and general well-being; and also to help them take responsibility for their actions and understand the consequences of their actions and the world around them. The Fundamental British Values are also actively promoted in the school.
In Reception to Year Six the children have a dedicated weekly timetabled PSHE & Relationships lesson. However, the teaching of PSHE and Relationships Education is not in isolation. There are cross-curricular links with other subjects e.g PE, Science, Religious Education, Humanities, ICT and Maths.
All staff working at Sherborne House School are aware that they help support the learning and teaching of PSHE & RSHE Education whether directly or indirectly – this includes our Learning Support Assistants, Teachers and other support staff. Staff must be good role-models to our pupils. Learning and the development of self-esteem, health and relationships do not just take place through the taught curriculum, but through all aspects of school life including playtimes, assemblies, visits, art and music events and sporting activities.
The progressive nature of PSHE means that topics are revisited regularly and are built upon each year as the child advances through the school. We use many resources and relevant safe sites on the internet such as Newsround but predominantly the SCARF Coram Life Education scheme www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk (Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship) is used. This provides a whole-school approach which includes mental health and well being and is mapped to the PSHE Association programme of study. The programme follows a spiral curriculum of half-termly topics (Me and My Relationships, Valuing Difference, Keeping Myself Safe, Rights and Responsibilities, Being My Best, Growing and Changing) which are built upon each year as the child progresses through the school.
Planning will change depending on the current needs of the children, in response to major world or country events and will also reflect the whole-school half-termly themes charity events and national events such as Internet Safety, Children’s Mental Health Week and Anti-bullying Week. There are also links to whole-school activities such as class activities in our ‘Wellbeing Garden’ and ‘unplugged’ activities. We welcome visits or ‘virtual meets’ from our parents sharing their expertise whether it is through their job or hobby and have built up a bank of contacts.
PSHE RSHE policies are on our website in the policies section. Please contact p.holmes@sherbornehouse.co.uk if you would like further information on our PSHE RSHE curriculum.
Pamela Holmes
PSHE Leader
