Primary School Student Welfare

Primary School Student Welfare

Safeguarding, Care and Support for Learning

At Emirates International School - Meadows we are fully committed to ensuring that all of our learners are happy, safe and successful in everything they do. The care and support of your child is our first and foremost priority and providing a safe, secure learning environment and ensuring that they are protected from any form or harm or hazard is essential.

EIS-Meadows is committed to developing our students’ understanding of their rights and responsibilities as global citizens, in line with The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which the UAE is a signatory.

Positive Behaviour for Learning

The Positive Behaviour Policy at EIS Meadows is designed to create a happy, safe, secure, caring and supportive learning environment which will enable each student to develop and maintain self-confidence and self-esteem, and to promote positive behaviour. Our students are encouraged to be aware of their rights as well as their responsibilities within a community. Our goal for all EISM students is to provide the best opportunities for them to be happy, safe and successful. In return we expect our students to be ready, respectful and safe at all times.

Ready – Ready for learning. This means arriving punctually for each lesson and with the correct equipment, as well as having a positive attitude for learning and being ready to give their very best in everything they do.

Respectful – Respectful to each other, staff, parents and visitors to the school. We are extremely proud of our students’ polite and well-mannered behaviour and we expect them to maintain these high standards at all times as ambassadors of our school.

Safe – We expect our students to demonstrate safe behaviour in everything they do. This not only concerns their responsibility for keeping themselves safe, but also our expectation that they will behave in a safe way around others and therefore ensure their safety also.

In keeping with this, the following guidelines have been developed:

· Positive behaviour is encouraged, acknowledged and praised whenever shown.

· Students are encouraged to respect others, property and the environment.

· Students are encouraged to move around the school quietly and courteously and to settle to work quickly.

· At the beginning of the Academic Year, our students are invited to discuss and identify both their rights and their responsibilities and draw up an Essential Agreement for their class.

· Consequences of inappropriate behaviour are discussed with the students.

Unacceptable or inappropriate behaviour choices are dealt with immediately by the class teachers, Primary Leadership Team Year Links or our Head of Pastoral Care and Support.

Parents are contacted and included in this process. Students are encouraged to understand how the consequences of their actions might impact on themselves or others. Temporary

or permanent withdrawal from the class may be put into effect if a child continually persists in seriously inappropriate behaviour choices. In instances of serious misconduct the Head of Primary will be involved.

The school reserves the right to recover costs of deliberate damage or vandalism to school property as determined by the school management.

We do not tolerate bullying or victimisation of any kind at our school.

Attitudes and Relationships to Learning

In keeping with the philosophy and values of PYP schools we empower our students to demonstrate:

· Appreciation – Appreciating the wonder and beauty of the world and its people.

· Commitment – Being committed to their own learning, persevering and showing self-discipline and responsibility.

· Confidence - Feeling confident in their ability as learners, having the courage to take risks, applying what they have learned and making appropriate decisions and choices.

· Cooperation – Cooperating, collaborating and leading or following as the situation demands.

· Creativity - Being creative and imaginative in their thinking and in their approach to problems and dilemmas.

· Curiosity - Being curious about the nature of learning, about the world, its people and cultures.

· Empathy – Imagining themselves in another’s situation in order to understand his or her reasoning and emotions, so as to be open-minded and reflective about the perspectives of others.

· Enthusiasm – Enjoying learning and willingly putting the effort into the process.

· Independence – Thinking and acting independently, making their own judgements based on reasoned argument, and being able to defend their judgements.

· Integrity – Being honest and demonstrating a considered sense of fairness.

· Respect – Respecting themselves, others and the world around them.

· Tolerance – Being sensitive about differences and diversity in the world and being responsive to the needs of others.

Attendance and Punctuality for Learning

At EIS-Meadows we believe that consistently good attendance and punctuality are vital in ensuring that our students make the most of their learning opportunities, and for preparing them to be responsible life-long learners. We have high standards and expect all of our students to attend school on a regular basis.

We recognise that:

· Consistently good attendance and punctuality is vital if our students are to benefit fully from the wide range of opportunities offered to them.

· Regular attendance and punctuality facilitates easier learning. Our students learn best in positive, stable and safe environment where there are consistent routines in place.

· Regular attendance and punctuality develops character qualities such as commitment, self-management and reliability. Students who develop good patterns of attendance and punctuality from an early age tend to continue this pattern throughout their lives.

· Regular attendance and punctuality facilitates better results in learning, greater confidence and self-esteem.

Healthy Lifestyles for Learning

Medical Team and Facilities

The Primary School Medical Clinic is staffed by our qualified nurse, Nurse Princy Lazar. The School Doctor, Dr. Vinitha Gopan, has her surgery in the High School along with our other nurse, Nurse Selvapriya Davidson. Whenever a student is attended to by either the Doctor or Nurse Team, parents are informed either by phone call or email. Medical records, including vaccinations, are kept on file. Parents are asked to ensure that the Doctor is kept fully informed regarding their child’s medical records, vaccinations and any recent changes in their medical situation. We strongly encourage the development of good hygiene practices throughout the school, and in keeping the learning environment consistently clean.

Healthy Eating

The school and School Cafeteria follow a Healthy Eating Policy so that our students get a healthy start to their lives and are able to make sensible food choices. The School Cafeteria offers a nutritious range of hot meals and cold snacks, and this is available to our Year 1 – Year 6 students. Should you wish to send your child with a packed lunch we ask that the contents are healthy and nutritious and do not contain nuts, soft drinks (especially canned fizzy drinks), candy, chocolate, chips, pizza, potato crisps and other items of ‘junk’ foods. All forms of nuts are banned in school as several of our students are hyper-allergic to them.

Physical Exercise and Fitness

We endorse and encourage regular exercise and physical activity throughout the school day. Our Physical Education curriculum, together with our diverse Sports and After School Activities programmes and the engaging activities we offer during break times, ensure that our students are provided with a wide range of exciting opportunities to be fit and active, and to appreciate the many benefits that healthy lifestyles and exercise have to offer.

Bring Your Own Device & Cyber Safety

EIS-Meadows is a ‘Bring Your Own Device’ School. This means that we have created a safe environment where students can bring their own ICT devices for effective inquiry

learning. We are dedicated to providing excellent access to appropriate technology in order to enhance learning, unlock potential and connect students locally and globally. We ensure that all students, staff, families and guests have access to high-speed internet in all areas of the school. At EIS- Meadows we have a rigorous Cyber Safety Policy and we support our students to ensure all technologies and applications are used responsibly and appropriately at all times.

Student-centred learning is a key value of any PYP Internationally-Minded School and Bring Your Own Device helps support this philosophy by giving students more opportunities to take responsibility for their own learning and to develop the attributes of the IB Learner Profile.

Social Responsibility and Innovation for Learning

Our students demonstrate both a strong sense of community and a commitment to serving and helping others on a local, national and global scale. Social responsibility and taking action is often the result of the learning and inquiry which has occurred in our classrooms.

At EIS-Meadows our students are empowered to be responsible and innovative in a wide variety of ways.

We endeavour to inspire our young people to be successful, socially responsible life-long learners. We offer a wide range of student leadership opportunities including our House Captains, Student Council representatives, Learning Champions, Reading Ambassadors, Wellbeing Warriors, Young Innovators and Eco Warriors.