Pastoral Support
At Tooting Primary School, we have the wellbeing and social and emotional development of our pupils at the forefront of everything we do. We believe that we cannot expect academic success or positive personal development from our pupils, if they have social or emotional concern or if they are experiencing barriers to their learning. We work hard to ensure that all pupils are able to make the most of all of their educational, social and emotional opportunities, to be the best that they can be.
Our Pastoral team is very much every member of our staff, whether that be through our communication, our interactions with each other, our ethos of belonging and community or through specific interventions to support removing barriers to learning. We are a talking school, and through consistent communication and early intervention, we are able to identify and put early support in place, for pupils that are facing difficulties.
At Tooting Primary School, we have whole school initiatives for consistency, such as a regulation zone in each classroom, for pupils to reflect and emotionally regulate when required, visual resources in each class for pupils to show how they are feeling (KS2 use Zones of Regulation and KS1 use The Colour Monster), weekly star awards, for individual pupils and opportunities to seek support through Sharing Circle and through speaking to a member of our Safeguarding Team.
At Tooting Primary School, we deliver multiple interventions, usually over the course of a term, but where required for shorter or longer periods. The interventions used at Tooting Primary School include:
- Drawing and Talking
- ELSA
- Mentoring
- Emotional Literacy
- Social Skills
- Lego Therapy
- Sharing Circle
- Bereavement Support
- Mindfulness
If pupils require further specialist support we work closely with outside agencies, such as CAMHS and Early Help.
At Tooting Primary School, we work hard to ensure that our pupils are actively taking responsibility for their choices and recognise how their choices impact our whole school community. We believe that all children should be supported to contribute to positive change in our school and to act as role models for each other. Our peer mediation programme, is highly successful. The children in years 5 and 6 have to apply for the role and secure 3 references, they are then trained to mediate conflict in the playground and to give children the opportunity to continue to support each other's personal growth and development. Our younger children can become 'Playground Pals', a role designed to ensure that everyone has access to a friend. Both our Peer Mediators and Playground Pals take pride in supporting pupils in our school and carry out their roles with passion, to ensure a happier, healthy environment for all to thrive.