Wellbeing and the pastoral care of our children is at the heart of everything we do at Alfred Lord Tennyson School. On this page you will find information about the pastoral support available in school.
Family Support Worker
Our Family Support Worker, Mrs Bunker, works within our school to help children and families with any difficulties they may be experiencing. She is here to listen, offer support and practical advice and sign post to outside agencies. Her job is to ensure that every child is safe, happy and healthy.
Mrs Bunker is also able to arrange an Early Help Assessment (EHA). An EHA is a simple way to help identify the needs of children and families and make a plan to meet those needs. It's purpose is to provide a coordinated response so no-one in the family misses out on the support they need.
Mrs Bunker is avaibale every morning at the start of the school day at the school gate. You can make an appointment by phoning or emailing the following address:
Discovery Base
The Discovery Base at Alfred Lord Tennyson is our Pastoral Base in school. It is a warm and welcoming room where children can spend part of their lunch time as well as take part in our wide range of pastoral interventions. It is also where our Inclusion Manager, Mrs Appleby, and our Learning Mentor, Mrs Bunker, are based.
Within the Discovery Base there are areas for children to further develop their social skills e.g. playing board games; as well as a quiet area with comfortable beanbags, where children can enjoy time to share with a wide range of books. Many have helpful themes such as sharing, friendships and managing stronger emotions. Displays in the Discovery Base focus on providing helpful advice to our children and celebrating their achievements.
Our space tent is a popular choice at lunch time. It is home to our collection of furry friends who support our children in learning more about supporting their own wellbeing.
Emotion Coaching
We understand that all behaviour is a form of communication and children need to learn to understand and manage their emotions in order to self-regulate effectively for life - not only in school but also in society. Emotion Coaching is our whole school approach to teaching children about their emotions and how to regulate them. This in turn leads to improved behaviour.
The four steps are:
- Recognising the child’s feelings and empathising with them
- Labelling and validating the feelings
- Limit Setting – this includes stating that whilst we understand their emotions at the time, certain behaviours are still not acceptable. Hence upholding our high expectations.
- Problem Solving - this will be part of restorative practice and will include next steps.
Pastoral Interventions
We recognise that in addition to our weekly PSHE lessons, some of our pupils may benefit from some small group/1:1 pastoral interventions focused on specific areas to support their understanding, knowledge and skills of themes such as:
- Friendships
- Emotions
- Managing stronger emotions
- Self Esteem
- Developing social skills
- Further interventions include Drawing and Talking and Protective Behaviours and Social Conversations.
If we feel your children would benefit from attending one of these interventions, we will inform parents/carers of this. We work together with parents to ensure that any strategies learned in pastoral sessions are shared with parents/carers, so that if they wish they can discuss them and/ or encourage their child to use them, when relevant, at home.
ELSA
At Alfred Lord Tennyson School we are also fortunate to have an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) - Mrs Brown.
What is an ELSA?
The ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) intervention was originally developed within Southampton, then Hampshire, by Sheila Burton, Educational Psychologist. It was designed to build the capacity of schools to support the emotional needs of their pupils from within their own resources. This is achieved by training teaching assistants to develop and deliver individualised support programmes to meet the emotional needs of children and teenagers in their care. It recognises that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are also addressed. This intervention is now widely implemented by educational psychologists across Britain.
ELSA is an initiative developed and supported by educational psychologists, who apply their professional knowledge of children’s social and emotional development to areas of need experienced by pupils. They provide on-going professional supervision to help maintain high quality in the work undertaken by ELSAs, thereby helping to ensure safe practice for ELSAs and pupils alike.
The role title of ELSA may only legitimately be used by people who:
- have attended (or are currently attending) a full ELSA training course delivered by one or more fully qualified educational psychologists (courses lasting a minimum of 5 but more usually 6 days)
- regularly attend half-termly supervision in small groups (with a recommended maximum of 8 ELSAs per group and duration of 2 hours per session), led by a qualified educational psychologist
- are currently delivering bespoke programmes of support to individual pupils and sometimes small groups
Mrs Brown works with identified children to give support and advice across the school to children of all ages. It helps to share emotions, fears and worries. To build confidence and resilience and with settling children into school. Their work is invisible but incredible. It makes a difference.
Supporting Wellbeing in the classroom
Each of our classrooms has a wellbeing basket. They include a range of resources such as ear defenders, fidget toys, sensory objects and prompts to support children with their learning.
Lunch club
At ALTS we ensure that all children have the support they need to have an enjoyable and successful lunch time, leaving them ready to start afternoon learning promptly. Lunch club is an important part of this, where children eat together, after which they have the opportunity to play games and /or jigsaws - developing their social skills - or to complete arts and crafts activities. Free choice Friday is where Lego and the mini football/pool table make an appearance! All children also have time on the playground. Lunch time is roughly split into thirds, with 20 minutes spent on each of the following: eating, playing and time on the playground.
Magic Breakfast Provision
As a school we are partners with Magic Breakfast, an organisation who have the motto 'no child should go hungry' and they provide us with subsidised breakfast supplies such as bagels, crumpets, toast and cereal. We ensure that when our children come into school first thing in the morning, they have free access to breakfast supplies within their classroom.
Uniform Bank
We aim to keep a bank of spare uniform for children in school so that if for any reason they have a problem with their own school uniform, they can borrow from our supply, ensuring that they are not worried about uniform issues or are made to feel different.
Food Bank
Alfred Lord Tennyson school also are partners with the 'Neighbourghly Scheme' who redistribute surplus goods from local food stores. Our Family Support Worker collects these supplies which we then use to support our families in need. Any family can contact our Family Support Worker and request a food parcel.