Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies
At Grange Valley, we actively promote the positive well-being and emotional well-being of our children by incorporating PATHS into our daily life. The programme, which has been developed by Barnardo’s, empowers all our children to develop the fundamental social and emotional learning skills, which will enable them to make positive choices throughout life.
Barnardos Path Programme Website
Background
Children come to school with different personalities, interests and skills. They also come from a range of backgrounds, homes and situations; and they will have experienced a range of factors in their homes and communities that can either lead to poor mental health (risk factors), or alternatively protect them and help them build coping mechanisms and resilience (protective factors).
Below is a document prepared by Barnardo’s giving more information about the research and background to the PATHS programme.
What we have done
Over the last year, under the guidance of our Barnardo’s PATHS Co-ordinator, Lisa Best, we have changed our approach when faced with challenging situations. Our KS1 children can talk confidently about “doing turtle” while our KS2 children readily use the “three steps to calming down”. Children are becoming much more confident in talking about their feelings and emotions rather than demonstrating them through behaviour.
We also introduced “Pupil of the Day” when a randomly selected pupil will be given a number of complements by their peers to highlight the positive in them. These pupils are given a complement sheet which they are encouraged to take home and discuss with their families.
We use posters as visual reminders and prompts of the approaches we follow in PATHS. Posters are also used to show the children the emotions and feelings they will discuss in detail throughout the programme.
PATHS has been shown to improve:
- Classroom Behaviour
- Self-Esteem
- Self-Control
- Emotional Intelligence
- Academic Engagement
- Conflict Resolution
PATHS has been shown to reduce:
- Emotional Distress
- Aggressive Behaviour
- Conduct Problems
How can you help your child?
Top Tips for using PATHS at home:
- Take an interest in your child being Pupil of the Day – give them a compliment too.
- Model complimenting at home.
- Encourage you child to share their feelings – remember all feelings are okay.
- Differentiate between feelings and behaviour.
- Encourage the use of Turtle or the 3 steps for calming down.
- Compliment your child for self-regulating their feelings.
- Model problem solving so they can see the process for themselves.
- Play games which encourage teamwork and cooperation
- Remember the Golden Rule – treat others how you want to be treated.
