Promoting Friendships and Positive Relationships at Upwell
Making friends and forming positive friendship groups is a significant challenge for children of all ages in our primary school settings. Whether in early years, KS1 or KS2, students will need to maintain and explore relationships with other learners on a daily basis.
The role of our PSHE curriculum is essential in a school wide curriculum of learning, with relationship focused learning activities and learning support with making friends enabling our children to have a more positive experience during their primary years.
The Long-Term Benefits of Promoting Friendships
Friendships and positive relationships are vitally important for children’s development and overall wellbeing. There are several key reasons behind this:
Stronger Social and Interpersonal Skills
Building a strong and robust friendship group allows our children the opportunity to develop interpersonal skills which, in turn, can help children to understand how others think and feel. This often helps in supporting and developing a culture of respect amongst the class while simultaneously helping children understand their peers’ feelings and thoughts more empathetically. Encouraging students to navigate perceived issues within relationships is key to developing communication skills and problem-solving skills within friendships.
Heightened Self-Confidence and Self-Worth
Strong friendships are essential for a child’s self-esteem and confidence. Without them, children may feel insecure and question their acceptance by peers. In accordance with this, alongside encouraging a commitment to inclusion in the classroom, promoting friendships can help ensure that young students feel more positive about themselves, thereby helping them feel optimistic and positive.
Provides Additional Support
Children, like adults, need a support network, and friendship groups are crucial for this. Without strong relationships in the classroom and beyond, young children can feel alone and isolated, making it harder for them to seek support when needed. While we strive as teachers to encourage children to reach out with their problems, they may not always feel comfortable doing so. Building robust friendships provides them with a dependable support system, making it easier for them to navigate challenges.
Encouraging children to develop deeper connections with their peers benefits both their wellbeing and academic performance.
How PSHE Offers the Ideal Opportunity to Support Making Friends
With friend-making being such a critical aspect of our children's time at Upwell, supporting this goal is vital – and PSHE lessons (along with RSE) are the perfect place and time to address this. Notably, this is because PSHE and RSE are designed to focus closely on personal experiences, emotions, social skills and relationships.
As a result, friendships and relationships are an integral topic covered within a RSHE/PSHE curriculum.
The Muse video below is taken from our curriculum and introduces and supports students in developing their understanding of friendships and relationships.