We all need friends to talk to, have fun with, share experiences and be a shoulder to cry on from time to time. Without them we would be very lonely. At Westbourne House
School we give children the tools to make and nurture good friendships and understand how they work best.
Not all of your children’s friends will be perfect although your child may want them to be. Everyone has their flaws. Some children will be incredibly tolerant of friends’ quirks, (although I don’t know too many of them!) – others will get annoyed by their friends’ habits and the way they behave. At Westbourne House we aim to teach children tolerance. One way we get them to do this is by encouraging them to think about the annoyances and how they can handle them better.
You can help at home by asking your child to make a list about each friend they don’t get on with or find tricky to be around and then get them to think about how they can react to each person. Ask your child to try and come up with a positive way of reacting to that person’s behaviour.
Perhaps they can consider, ‘When Sarah behaves like that I am going to think x’ or ‘When Bert says x to me then I am going to do x’. By having this type of plan in place, they will feel more in control of the friendship and not get so upset about the way they are being treated.
This could save friendships. It can help children get on with more personality types and not walk away from a friend who they have heaps in common with but who can be a bit mean, bossy, or annoying to them sometimes. Everyone has moods and is not consistently happy and fun to be around. Unfortunately that is a life lesson children need to learn and it is a skill to be able to empathise with others.
This term, in Years 5 and 6, we have covered all manner of topics to do with friendships and also tackled some areas where we know children sometimes fail to show kindness readily. Our online friendship fortnight was enlightening it is always surprising to see how many children in Years 5 and 6 are communicating regularly online. We hope that you will be able to attend our Internet Information session for parents next term, which should help you get to grips with monitoring your child’s activities and friendships online.
During ‘Good Sportsmanship’ fortnight, the children looked at what attributes makes a good sportsman or sportswoman. The Sports Department gave a lively assembly on the topic, and Mr Sutcliffe gave the children an insight into their ‘Sports Journey’, highlighting the fact that this is just the beginning of many of their sporting careers.
We rounded the term off with some inclusion work. Looking at accepting others for who they are and ensuring that we don’t make fun of people for being different. As you know we have also been looking at physical development in Year 6 and have reiterated to the pupils that their emotional journeys in these years are often turbulent, but reinforcing the fact that they have plenty of people to talk to at school – including each other!
I have recently attended a training session at St Swithun’s school and learned about the ‘Girls on Board’ programme which they have been putting into good use in various year groups. It’s based around role playing incidents that may occur and getting the children to hold up an imaginary mirror to their behaviour.
Interestingly the theory here is that there is very little that parents and teachers can do when their girls have friendship problems as the complexities can be vast and often very difficult to unravel. With this is mind, the idea is to give the girls tools to help them navigate their way through problems that will affect them at some point in their schooling.
We are going to implement the scheme throughout the Prep School and pastoral staff are receiving training to deliver this programme from September.
It is our aim at Westbourne House that the children will leave here with the tools to help them understand and deal with the ups and downs of friendships, but also realise that they all have the characteristics and desire to be a good friend.
As the great Winnie the Pooh says: ‘A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.’
by Sam Pollock, Senior Mistress and Head of Pastoral for Years 5 and 6