In Personal Development, year one focused on ‘No Outsiders in School’. The children had to talk to their partners about what they thought that this meant and explain to their friends by pounding out in verbal sentences. The children soon began to understand that this meant that we include every person into our school community and to not leave any one out and work together as a ‘Hebburn Lakes Team’. The children looked at an image on the board of people from all diverse cultures and backgrounds and shared their thoughts about what they could see. We had lots of valuable contributions about all the people that looked different but were all the same for many different reasons, such as them having the same emotions, feelings, body parts. The children then listened to the story of ‘Elmer’ and understood how he looked different to his friends but they all loved him as he still did all the same things as he did and that he made the other elephants happy. After listening to the story, the children then beagn to make a patchwwork Elmer by place colured paper onto the elepheant and saying what each colour represented to them, for example the yellow made them feel happy and the blue made them feel calm. It was great to see the enthusiasm and the ‘togetherness’ the children showed throughout the session.
