Here at SBS we believe it is crucial to promote a whole school ethos that has diversity, inclusion, wellbeing, and equity awareness at its core. Read more
Top Rated for Wellbeing
We celebrate our differences
Safa British School is committed to providing excellent pastoral care for all students, whilst embracing our multicultural environment. The underpinning ethos of the school is to unlock the potential of every child, and we believe this can only be achieved through the development of a safe and supportive environment, where student care and wellbeing form the foundation of all we do. We believe that happy and cared for children achieve socially and academically, and as reinforced from our school values, we never lose sight of developing and nurturing a caring family culture within the school. This approach is reflected in the celebration of students’ achievements across academic, creative, sporting, and cultural successes; recognizing that ‘student wins’ are more than achieving first place. Our pastoral care is built on the foundations of mutual respect and care for one another.
During such unprecedented times, our children can be faced with a variety of scenarios/events in which they need support to navigate through many different feelings. Our pastoral care ensures that each child’s wellbeing and individual physical and emotional needs are supported in close liaison with our parents. When needed our pastoral team can work collaboratively with external agencies for further guidance and support. Our external links with KidsFirst and Light House Arabia offer bespoke child psychology webinars for both parents and children alike.
The notion of wellbeing as a catalyst for human development is common in every socio-economic, education and cultural context. Internationally, wellbeing is recognised and prioritised as a pre-requisite for the future success of humanity.
Wellbeing as the psychological, cognitive, social and physical functioning and capabilities that students need to live a happy and fulfilling life.
With enhanced wellbeing, we naturally become more emotionally literate and creative. In this, we become more agile and develop an enhanced capacity for problem-solving. We also become more resilient when facing challenges and are more likely to employ a growth mindset and persevere. Quite simply, the dedicated pursuance of wellbeing is a fundamental feature of successful human development.
SBS has long been a diverse and inclusive school, with over 77 nationalities represented in our makeup. We have introduced our hugely successful DiverCity Curriculum. Teachers in each year group thoughtfully plan out their curriculum links, activity ideas, and learning objectives. Each year group is allocated three age-appropriate texts per year, which acted as the basis for one unit of work per term.
Strategic planning of theme weeks and theme days ensure we incorporate our DiversCity program of teaching. Each year we run a wonderful ‘Kind Mind’ week using ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox & the Horse’ as our core text by Charlie Mackesy. A massive emphasis is placed on tolerance and acceptance and we were exceptionally lucky to have Nick Watson founder of Team Angel Wolf to join us virtually to raise awareness of people (especially children) with disabilities and how they could be included in our diverse school setting. We also had Asma Baker who is a talented artist and person of determination join us to talk to the children about her experiences growing up with autism.
Each June we plan a DiversCity day to celebrate ‘The me you cannot see’ focusing on race, beliefs, disabilities, age, and gender. This is a project-based theme day to further raise the profile of our DiversCity curriculum amongst our community and families. Building positive identities and a respect for differences means weaving diversity into the fabric of children’s everyday lives here at SBS which has a direct impact on wellbeing. We have launched the EI Pulse application which is a weekly check-in, our children reflect on their mental health and answer science-backed engagement and wellbeing questions. This allows us to continue to proactively act and support wellbeing. We can translate data into immediate action and see how results vary over time for continuous improvement.
Positive emotions are essential for learning, these are what drive curiosity and exploration, which is how our learners excel. Happiness can significantly influence our children’s academic success as emotions significantly influence students learning strategies, cognitive resources, motivation, and academic achievement.
Every child completes a weekly wellbeing check in.
Use a wellbeing application known as Pulse which continues into secondary. The application allows our children to request additional help from any of our designated wellbeing champions. In Secondary, students have the choice of reaching out to teachers or Peer Mentors.
At Safa British School, our children’s social and emotional well-being are at the heart of everything that we do. This policy outlines procedures related to rewards and positive behaviour management. Our pastoral care reflects a positive ethos that builds upon an intrinsic self-motivation to learn as part of our Safa Learning Culture. At Safa, we facilitate the development of all members of our school community. We promote a sense of belonging to our school community where each individual is valued and his/her uniqueness is celebrated. We believe pastoral care is the responsibility of the entire school and we recognize that central to the success of this is the involvement of parents carers and other outside agencies within the community.
We use positive reinforcement in order to promote and support a safe and happy learning environment. Examples of positive reinforcement are:
We take a zero tolerance approach to bullying at Safa British School. Any incidents of bullying will be taken very seriously at Safa British School. There is a consistently high expectation of all children regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, ability or social background. The adults in the school provide good, positive role models in their approach to all issues relating to anti-bullying and equality of opportunity.
At Safa British School, we celebrate a warm and inclusive atmosphere which welcomes and values everyone. Anti-bullying is incorporated into the curriculum through assembly, MSCS and whole school initiatives.
In primary in every year group we have wellbeing champions. These children can be recognised in the playground as they wear blue hi vis jackets and have create the phrase ‘Feeling blue, I can help you‘.
At Safa British School, we strive to nurture and develop confident, independent and resilient learners who are equipped to reach their full potential. We aim to develop self-confidence and excellence throughout our school community.
Through positive education and our ACHIEVES ethos, we help our students develop character strengths that will prepare them for the challenges of tomorrow. The expectation is that positive behaviour will support learning, progress and achievement for all students.
ACHIEVES lessons and activities focus on equipping students with the tools necessary to live a successful, happy and fulfilled life after school.
At Safa British School, we believe Pastoral Care permeates all aspects of a student’s school life. Our Pastoral Care ensures that the needs of all our secondary students are placed at the centre of our school operations. In order to ensure that staff and students are signing from the same hymn sheet, we have implemented our very own bespoke ACHIEVES programme to ensure that together, we will strive to enact the stated Mission, Vision and Aims of Safa British School – To create a school that unlocks the potential of every child. Our Pastoral Care at Safa is omnipresent and touches every part of school life. It can be felt at all levels of curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment, school organisation, ethos and environment. Every teacher is devoted to the personal, social development, education and care of our secondary students across the school. At Safa British School, we recognise that central to the success of students, is the involvement of parents, families and other outside agencies within the community. We strive to work in partnership with them to achieve our aims.
Peer Mentors were established in secondary to offer peer support to students who wish to reach out and talk with other students. Mentors are assigned to each Form Tutor group and work alongside the Form Tutors to offer support and advice from a student’s perspective. Our Peer Mentors also coordinate a weekly Wellbeing Wednesday Form Time lesson to address both current issues of concern and relevant topics for class discussion. Many of our Wellbeing Wednesday sessions stem from weekly Pulse Wellbeing Check-in results and students adding concerns to our ‘’Issues in a Box.’’
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