Unique Child
At Nadeen, we believe passionately that all children are unique, with different strengths, weaknesses, talents, needs and rates of development. We never employ a ‘one size fits all approach’ as this is not compatible with our philosophy as educators or as people!
- We welcome children from all nationalities, with all abilities and strengths and this gives us a very rich and diverse community, which we love!
- Our lessons are highly differentiated so that learning is accessible to all children – with support, stretch and challenge for all.
- Some children need a little something different to help them fulfill their potential and, at Nadeen, we work hard to make sure that children are able to access learning that is fun, challenging and what they need. We won an award at the British International Schools Awards for best pastoral initiative for our innovative approach to pastoral care.
In November 2022, Nadeen School was awarded an Innovation and Excellence award as part of Gulf Insider’s Education_bh drive of revolutionary ideas in education that have been implemented across the Kingdom of Bahrain. Nadeen School put forward the Unique Child Programme and this was recognized.
_
The Unique Child Programme was initiated in the 2017/2018 school year and has only been building from then on. Given our philosophy towards our holistic approach to children and their education combined with our pastoral care programme, the Unique Child Programme is an extension and enhancement of this. When it began we had 4 or 5 students participating in the programme and now we have over 30 students that are benefitting from sessions. The programme was planned, with everything we do at Nadeen School, with the students at the heart of it and also in conjunction with our pastoral care programme here.
t
The programme really hones in on getting to know the students, what they are passionate about and what really gives them a buzz and sense of achievement which we then build on and see what can help support them to develop social and emotional skills at school. The aim of the sessions is to raise their self-esteem and give them a boost in confidence. This is then reflected in their ability to socialise with others in a positive manner but also transfer this confidence into their learning in class.
P
The Unique Child Programme combines a wide range of personalised projects and activities in these small groups and sometimes 1:1 sessions. Staff propose students to the team, their areas of interest are noted and then the children are allocated a session that would benefit them. There are a large number of sessions that we offer such as: exploring Music, Art Therapy through Intentional Creativity, STEAM sessions, Drama groups and sports activities. Naturally, this programme has not been without some difficulties along the way. Although we were struck by the global pandemic, we still implemented sessions during online learning and Covid which did impact and limited the amount of face to face interactions and activities we could provide. The main impact on students were the actual physical, hands-on experiences that face-to-face interactions provided. This has highlighted the importance of face-to-face sessions.
y
How do we know and see the impact of this programme on students? The first measure is from how happy and confident the students are at school after starting their sessions. This is reflected in surveys of the students, but also of the Teachers and Parents. In our recent BSO inspection report we received the comment ‘very high standards of pastoral care’ as well as the highest rating in our BQA report for our Pastoral programme and everything we do for the students outside the classroom at the school. A few years ago we received another award which was the BISA Pastoral Care Initiative awards.
t
With thanks to everyone involved in ensuring this programme runs successfully, without the team involved it would not be possible. Our students benefit and are happy and that is our priority.