From the darkness and cold of the winter months, we naturally swing into spring with a little more light and hope. Our learners throughout the school have been focusing on Interpersonal Effectiveness and Social Effectiveness as character aspects of their PSHE programme. These explicit learning opportunities enable children and young people to learn, develop and practise skills that allow relationships to form, function, grow, and – if necessary – end, positively. It helps them gain confidence in communicating effectively both off- and online, within different relationships. Developing interpersonal skills enables them to become more effective in social situations, raising their awareness and effectiveness as a member of their own and wider communities.
These skills and attributes are essential to be able to contend with requirements of an ever changing world. Through this dimension of the PSHE Character Curriculum, pupils develop an understanding that relationships are based on trust, honesty, respect and integrity, and that each person has a responsibility to respect others’ viewpoints, feelings and boundaries. They learn to go beyond tolerance to respect and embrace different cultures, faiths and backgrounds while being proud of their own culture, values and heritage.
Assessment and management of risk is integral to this dimension, as young people must successfully evaluate risk in order to safeguard themselves and others, while allowing them to define their own boundaries. "The Road Not Taken" is a famous poem written by Robert Frost that embodies these attributes, which can be developed over time and through unambiguous learning opportunities such as those taken in PSHE lessons at ISIB.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.