Guest Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 Hi Has anyone got experience of setting up a buddy scheme in their school? Does anyone have any advice about what to include for training buddies? Any pitfalls to avoid or issues to clarify from the start? Any advice greatly appreciated, please. I found a book "Primary Playground Buddies Toolkit" but the publishers are closed until September and I haven't been able to find it in stock anywhere. If anyone has used this book, is it as good as it looks? Thanks in advance, Louise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 We have a buddy bench where children can go if they are feeling left out. It started in the Junior playground and was very successful so the younger children raised it with the School Council and asked for one for their playground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 The YMCA came and delivered a specialist programme on buddy training to all year 5 children. They then became buddies at the beginning of year 6. They were shown conflict resolution techniques and given a variey of games to play with children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narnia Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 our village school does this for the new children starting in september...they are all paired up for breaks/dinner times with a year 6 child and it works really well.The older ones like looking out for the littlies and the little ones have a big one to look out for them............it's lovely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Thanks for the replies. Got loads of ideas to talk to staff about and hopefully getting hold of that book I mentioned. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 We have a buddy group system that works throughout the school R-y6. The whole school (180 children) is split into about 15 buddy groups, with members from each class in the group, 3 groups to each classroom so the teachers can supervise the groups. We have regular buddy assemblies (try for 2 a half term) where the buddy groups split up and go back to their base classrooms and undertake a task (eg; making xmas cards, talking about their favourite animals, drawing together, etc) The year 6's are responsible for leading the groups and looking after the little ones. We always choose suitable year 6's to lead the groups and talk to them about what will be expected of them. The groups then spend the playtime following the assembly playing together, this is the best bit to them as the children get to mix and meet other children throughout the school and Ofsted praised it when they came. Something that also gets the younger children mixing with other children is the lunchtime clubs that our year 6's run for Rec, y1 and 2. It is something that Ofsted suggested to our head as something else that would work to fill that 'part of the greater community' part of the SEF as well as something our children would do very well. The children love these clubs, lego club, craft club, games club, balls club etc. The year 6's now know the rest of the school and the younger half of the school know so many more children and feel they can go to them in the playground etc. Anyway that's what we do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Well all I can say is it must work if you have yr R to yr6 all in the same playground at the same time! Most schools Ive known have the year groups segregated somehow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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