Everyone at Stoke Minster Academy strives to ensure that our school is a safe and caring learning environment where all children are supported to develop and maintain healthy relationships with peers and adults and to learn to take personal responsibility for behaviour. We are a caring community whose values stem from our Christian ethos and we encourage mutual respect for all. In all relationships in school we aspire to offer a model of the school values in action. We believe this creates an environment where learning can flourish and pupils feel cared for and listened to.

All staff across the academy are guided by the following principles:

• Every child is unique.
• All behaviour is communication.
• Behaviour is a function of the interaction between a person and their physical and social environment.
• Through their behaviour, children are trying to solve a problem not be one.
• Children develop their social and emotional skills and ability to self-regulate in the context of secure relationships.
• Children need their basic needs met, including physical and emotional safety, before they are ready to learn.
• All children are different and a ‘one size fits all approach’ is not likely to be effective.

Zones of Regulation

We base our understanding of our emotions on The Colour Monster story and Zones of regulation.

Children read the story of the colour monster, learn about the emotions that he has and how we can help each other if we feel the same.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

What about if a child is struggling to regulate their emotions?

Time out cards – Children may need time out of the classroom to chat, reset or refocus. They can go to a safe space in school and chat to a trusted adult.

Social Lunch – We know that at times there are some children who can find the hall and playground loud, busy or overwhelming. Our Social lunch provides a quieter space for children to chat, play games and relax. They use these cards to access this through lunch times.

Sensory Circuits – Some children find it hard to remain regulated through the day and need time out to reset. We use sensory circuits to enable children to move through a series of activities:

Activate – gets the heart rate increasing and raises the cortisol, which could be – running or jumping on a trampette.

Challenge – allows the children to focus on a task for a set period of time, such as aiming things at a target.

Calming – brings the heart rate down and provides the child with a sensory need suited to them such as weighted blanket, deep breathing, blowing bubbles.

Values Points

Visitors to our school often comment on the welcoming, calm and happy environment and our friendly, polite children. At Stoke Minster we believe that we know every child as an individual, and place great importance on the establishment of strong and positive relationships with our staff, Trust, parents and carers. Our Christian values (Faith, hope and love) underpin all we do and are often visited throughout our curriculum. We look to famous individuals from around the world past and present who the children believe have been role-models for demonstrating our values. The children have chosen our teams to be named after them:

• Martin Luther King Jr
• Malala Yousfzai
• Florence Nightingale
• Bishop Stamer

Faith

Faith is represented by Bishop Stamer who founded the school and many others across Stoke-on-Trent as he believed all children, regardless of their backgrounds, should have a high-quality education.

Hope

Hope is represented by Dr Martin Luther King who worked tirelessly to overcome racism. Through the use of peaceful protests, he was able to persuade the government in the USA to change laws to improve the rights of black people. He represents hope; ensuring that we never give up believing that things can change.

Love

Love is represented by Florence Nightingale, who showed love when overcoming huge challenges to improve conditions and care for soldiers injured in battlefields.

Perseverance

Perseverance is represented by Malala Yousafzai who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for speaking out against the ban they had imposed upon girls attending school. Malala never gave up fighting what she believed was right, despite facing a lot of opposition. She now lives in Birmingham and continues to campaign for all girls to have a right to an education. She shows how it is possible to flourish, despite difficult circumstances.

Children earn values points for their teams throughout the week which are added to the teams’ running totals in assemblies. At the end of each half term, the team with the most values points earn a non-uniform day.

Celebration Worship

Whole School Celebration Worship takes place every Friday to celebrate the children’s successes. A child from each class is chosen and awarded a certificate for being the Star of the Week. Also, winners from Times Table Rock Stars are announced and rewarded with a trophy to keep for a week. Attendance is also celebrated with the winning class given the responsibility to look after and dress up Stamer bear in an outfit that reflects something they have learnt about in the week. Additionally, we always enjoy celebrating our children’s achievements outside of school.