Three years ago, when I took over the role of Head of Primary, I was given the task of ‘rebooting’ the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) after the pandemic. My priority was to make sure that we embedded the IPC Personal Learning Goals to see how they best aligned with our school values and how they would function within our context.
After meeting with the Primary Management Team, we decided to stick with the dispositions the IPC recommended: Adaptable, Communicator, Collaborator, Empathetic, Ethical, Resilient, Respectful, and Thinker. We then took these values to the staff to develop definitions that we thought would best fit our school and ensured that the definitions were child friendly. As most of our students have Spanish as their first language we made sure that we had clarity in both English and Spanish. Next, with the involvement of our Student Council, the students chose Venezuelan animals that they thought would best represent these qualities:
Adaptable - a capybara (as it has to adapt to its environment and avoid predators such as crocodiles and anacondas!)
Communicator - a macaw (these fly freely around our school and communicate regularly at great volume!)
Collaborator - a howler monkey (seen to work together as a team)
Empathetic - an anteater (because they’re empathetic to their environment)
Ethical - a jaguar (the animal has great cultural importance for our indigenous communities)
Respectful - a dolphin (reminds us to be respectful of the oceans)
Resilient - a treefrog (being so small and living in a rainforest can’t be easy!)
Thinker - a sloth (they take their time to think things through!)
Afterwards, we introduced the animals to all students in Primary and had a competition to name them, and so they became: Chichi (capybara), Guaco (macaw), Arequipa (howler monkey), Anata (anteater), Yaya (jaguar), Coral (dolphin), Cricki (treefrog) and Pedro (sloth).
We then used the talents of a local illustrator to create the essence of the characters, and these designs have featured in all of the material that we use. Such as for the IPC PLG posters which are displayed in the classrooms so that teachers can refer to them throughout the lesson. We also had cards made for each of the PLGs which are placed on the class teacher’s whiteboard whilst they focus on that specific value and again helps the teacher to refer to the PLG. Through staff meetings, we have discussed the importance of staff and parents modelling the PLGs and teachers looks for examples across the curriculum and highlight them in their planning. To help us embed the PLGs and make them a true part of our school, we redesigned our student exercise books, have the mascots displayed around the school and we redesigned the entrance to Primary by displaying the mascots against a backdrop of Caracas.
To reinforce the PLGs further, we produced stickers which the students are given when a teacher sees them demonstrating a value. We also have had badges made which are awarded in Milepost assemblies for those students who have gone above and beyond demonstrating a value. All of these rewards are integrated within our Behaviour Policy. We also purchased stuffed animals for each of the mascots and they feature in weekly assemblies and spend the week in the classroom of the class that participated best in assembly.
Recently, we contacted a local animator and have had each of the characters animated and voiced by students from Year 6. Using the animator, we had a competition for students to write a script which incorporated all of the mascots which we turned into an animated story, and this has been shared with the school community. But what evidence do we have that all of our efforts are paying off? Thanks to the mascots the values are now ingrained in the Primary school to the point that parents reported to me that their children have told them, “You need to be more like Chichi - you need to be more adaptable!”
From our BSO inspection in February, the report states: The TBSC values and personal learning goals are evident throughout the school. Students are warm, friendly and kind. They treat each other and adults with respect and are fully aware of their privileged place in society. The atmosphere of the school is one of respect, kindness and calm, where behaviour is a strength, and students look forward to learning. The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the students is outstanding and is clearly a strength of the school.
