At Towngate Primary Academy, we strive to instil a sense of responsibility and understanding in all of our pupils. All staff in our academy set high expectations for all pupils and encourage exemplary behaviour in and around school.
At Towngate Primary Academy, we follow three key principles:
We expect our pupils to be ready to learn, ready to collaborate and ready to play.
We encourage our pupils to be respectful of themselves, respectful of other people in our school and wider community and respectful of our equipment and our school.
Our children are reminded to make the right choices to keep everybody – including themselves – safe.
Celebrating Success
In addition to class prizes and achievement certificates given to children during Celebration Assembly each week, at Towngate we use ‘class marbles’ as an incentive to work collaboratively as a team throughout our academy. In order to be awarded marbles, our pupils are encouraged to share, support one another, follow instructions carefully and respect one another in and out of the classroom. Each week in celebration assembly, the class with the most marbles is awarded an extra playtime; the winning class at the end of each half term is awarded £10 from the Academy for a class treat.
Anti-Bullying
At Towngate, it is imperative to all staff and those within our academy community that all pupils feel welcome, valued and respected by all within our academy. We work hard throughout the academic year to ensure that we share this message and support our pupils in making the right choices and develop consideration and compassion for others. We implement the teaching of our core values within our values based curriculum and encourage our class teachers to consider how our curriculum will ensure pupils are provided the opportunity to discuss and explore protected characteristics and have a safe space to discuss similarities and differences between ourselves, our families and our interests.
Behaviour across our curriculum
Every year we spent a week focusing on the importance of working together to banish bullying from our academy. We focus our assemblies and elements of our curriculum (including PSHCE, Values, Art and English) around the topic of bullying and spend time discussing and exploring the many forms of bullying and the impace this can have on individuals. We recognise that bullying is:
‘‘the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group. Bullying can come in many forms, including verbal, emotional physical and through cyber-space.’
Our pupils understand that bullying can take many forms (for instance, cyber-bullying via text messages, social media or gaming, which can include the use of images and video) and is often motivated by prejudice against particular groups, for example on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, special educational needs or disabilities, or because a child is adopted, in care or has caring responsibilities. It might be motivated by actual differences between children, or perceived differences.
Should you wish to discuss the behaviour policy in our academy or find out further information about how our curriculum is derived to develop moral values and promote positive choices, please speak to a member of staff or to our Behaviour Officer, Mrs Johnson.
Two key questions were posed to children:
1. What is working well during playtime and lunchtime?
2. What is your perception of our school?
“School is fun because we get to do great things such as PE, Art and creative writing. Most of the time behaviour is very good in the classroom and on the playground. If behaviour isn’t good then there are fair consequences for that behaviour.” Year 3/4 pupil.
“Our school is a very safe place. The displays show off our hard work and make our school colourful. Behaviour is dealt with in a good way and I think behaviour has got better. The sports coaches play lots of games at lunchtime and the Year 6 roles and responsibilities make the school feel friendly – we try to help eachother.” Year 6 pupil.
“At playtime I play with skipping ropes and play hop scotch. I like to play make believe games and sometimes the buddies and teachers help. My school is a nice place to be because it is nice and bright. Our school has good behaviour because everyone knows the rules.” Year 1 pupil.
“School is a very safe place to be because I have all of my teachers and friends around me. Equipment is well looked after in our school.” Year 6 pupil.
“I like to play sports to learn new skills. Also, I play on the tyres and trim trail with my friends. I like how there are loads of different sports at playtime every day. I like school because I love learning. Also, I feel safe in our school because you have people to talk to and caring teachers help you. I think the behaviour at school is great – but if someone doesn’t behave there are consequences and the teachers sort it out.” Year 4 pupil.
“I like our school – it’s really good and is very safe. Buddies are a really good idea and there are lots of caring teachers in our school. The behaviour in our school is getting better and better!” Year 6 pupil.
“At lunchtime I like to play football with my friends and with the coach Jordon when he plays rugby with us. I feel very safe in school because I have so many people surrounding me. Behaviour is good most of the time.” Year 4 pupil.
