At KIST, we aim to provide a safe and supportive environment where students are physically, emotionally and intellectually healthy, and where each student feels valued. We understand the necessity for comprehensive social and emotional education during the early childhood and elementary years, alongside support systems for students who encounter issues or require extra guidance in their academics or lives. As such, we have developed a comprehensive Student Care program for our PYP students to provide them with the resources and skills they need to learn and grow up happy and healthy.
Student Care Coordinator
We have a Student Care Coordinator who is responsible for overseeing and organizing the Student Care structure in the Elementary School. The Coordinator is chiefly responsible for designing and implementing the social and emotional education program, including curricular material focused on social skills, community building, bullying prevention, effective communication and more. The coordinator collaborates with the classroom teachers at each grade level to deliver relevant and age-appropriate lessons during Community Circle lessons through the SEAL Program (see below).
The Student Care Coordinator also works with students on an individual basis where the children’s teachers or the children themselves express the desire or need for extra support. It is a priority at KIST to ensure a safe and supportive environment where students feel comfortable talking about issues to the Student Care Coordinator, who in turn works jointly with the classroom teacher, school administration, and students’ families to ensure that the welfare needs of all students are met. The coordinator also maintains records regarding the welfare of individual students, and follows thorough procedures to assure that all Elementary students at KIST are physically and emotionally healthy. The Student Care Coordinator is not a licensed therapist, but regularly attends training sessions and conferences for school counselors, and is equipped to refer students to professionals outside of school when necessary.
Community Circle
Once a week in all grades, students participate in a Community Circle period, which allows students to discuss events and issues collaboratively as a community. Students are encouraged to reflect on their actions and interactions with others in the class and school community to share during this 45-minute class period, and together with the classroom teacher, they foster an environment of appreciation and respect for everyone in the class.
SEAL Program
The SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) program at KIST is a social and emotional education program based on a curriculum developed in the United Kingdom. SEAL lessons are implemented during Community Circle class periods in a collaborative effort between the classroom teacher and the Student Care Coordinator, and are designed to help students develop the five social and emotional aspects of learning:
- self-awareness
- managing feelings
- motivation
- empathy
- social skills
The SEAL curriculum is designed in a circular framework divided into six themes covered over the course of the year. Similar to the Units of Inquiry, students are able to build on and understand the context of what they learn each year more deeply by reflecting on what they have learned while focusing on the same familiar themes in previous years. The themes over the course of the year are:
- New beginnings
- Getting on and falling out; Say no to bullying
- Going for goals
- Good to be me
- Relationships
- Changes
Students engage in interactive, age-appropriate activities to develop thorough and nuanced understandings of human emotions, effective communication, boundaries and conflict resolution while also strengthening their sense of unity as a learning community. The self-management and interpersonal skills and knowledge they gain through the SEAL program helps KIST students grow up into self-aware and resilient young adults ready to tackle academics and relationships in Secondary School and beyond.
Pastoral care
Pastoral care is a method of supporting children who may find themselves in situations that are perplexing and for which they can find no easy solutions. As there are no counselors on staff at KIST, we have adopted a loose definition of the term “pastoral care” to function as our approach to children with concerns that have been created by the environment of the school, social interactions, academic responsibilities, and family matters. Children with such concerns may need support from someone whom they can get friendly advice, to lend a new perspective to an old problem, or just to act as a sounding board for the students to air the issues that concern them. In cases where such issues are determined to be beyond the scope of the school, further recommendations are made by the child’s support team which consists of the class teacher and instructional support staff, the Student Care Coordinator, and the Elementary administration team.
Student Care events and initiatives
The Student Care Coordinator, in collaboration with the Elementary School administration, staff and students, coordinates a wide variety of Student Care events, activities and other initiatives for the benefit of the Elementary School community.
Anti-Bullying Week
Aligned with the National Anti-Bullying Week in the United Kingdom and the second theme of the SEAL curriculum, KIST Elementary students take part in Anti-Bullying Week in November each year. Through a variety of exercises and activities, the students focus on understanding why bullying happens and how to prevent it through empathy, healthy communication and awareness. Students are encouraged to celebrate diversity and share the importance of accepting differences with students from all grades through events that involve the whole Elementary School, and even prepare speeches and presentations for an all-Elementary assembly.
As an international school, KIST places the utmost importance in maintaining a school atmosphere where students from diverse backgrounds can feel safe and supported, and Anti-Bullying Week is one way in which we ensure students understand and uphold this important part of the school’s mission.
21 Days of Kindness
This spring event, held in May, guides students to focus on teaching empathy and demonstrating the positive impact of showing kindness on their classmates, their community, and themselves. Helping young students understand that impact that words can have and the importance of thinking about the feelings of others before making judgmental comments or engaging in hurtful behavior is one of the most important tasks of social and emotional education in the Elementary School, and the 21 Days of Kindness event is intended to help students grasp the positive changes that being kind can bring by challenging students to record five acts of kindness a day on a strip of paper. These papers are linked together to form long chains to be hung around the Elementary School, visualizing how quickly a little kindness can build up into something positive. Students are also tasked with reflecting on how these positive acts have impacted their day-to-day lives, and are able to tangibly see how kindness can make the community a better place.
ESRC initiatives
The Elementary Student Representative Council is responsible for considering and, when possible, executing initiatives to bring positive change to the Elementary School, and often, these initiatives work in tandem with topics related to Student Care. One example is the Odd Socks Day event held in late October 2018, leading up to Anti-Bullying Week. After discussing various ideas and options, the ESRC planned and enacted this event where Elementary students wore odd socks for a day to express themselves and appreciate individuality and uniqueness among the student body. Another example is the ‘friendship benches,’ which are located around the ECE playground. After receiving the idea from some younger students, the ESRC helped coordinate a bench to be decorated by students with the theme of friendship and diversity and displayed near the elementary school. This set a precedent, and several years later, a different set of students proposed a second bench, which now sits a short distance from the first bench and serves as a symbol of friendship and unity in the Elementary School.
Click here to view more information on the ESRC…
PYP Exhibition Action
Each year, the Grade 5 students participate in the PYP exhibition, in which students identify, investigate and offer solutions to real-life problems. While much of the focus of the PYP exhibition is on the research and presentation of the topic itself, students are also encouraged to take action in relation to their proposed solutions in order to enact change for the better in their community. Grade 5 students at KIST often choose topics related to discrimination and bullying, and introduce initiatives to better the KIST community through their investigation of these topics.
