Our popular Buddy Scheme has continued to grow this year, now all the Upper School classes are partnered with a younger class, creating meaningful friendships and valuable learning opportunities across the school.
The benefits for our younger children are easy to see. From Nursery through to Key Stage 1, every child has a friendly older buddy they can look up to. Whether it’s helping new Nursery children settle into school, offering reassurance on the playground, sharing a smile in the corridor or lending a helping hand with reading and times tables, these relationships help children feel safe, confident and part of the Forest Prep family from the very beginning.
What is perhaps less obvious, however, is just how much our older pupils gain from being buddies too.
Taking on the responsibility of supporting a younger child helps our Upper School pupils develop important leadership skills, empathy and confidence. They learn what it means to be positive role models, communicate clearly, show patience and build strong relationships with others. These are qualities that will benefit them throughout their education and beyond.
The Buddy Scheme also provides exciting opportunities to deepen their own learning through carefully planned activities.
Year 5 pupils became authors and illustrators, creating their very own storybooks for their younger buddies. Writing for a younger audience challenged them to carefully consider vocabulary, sentence structure and storytelling, while their illustrations helped bring each story to life and supported their buddy’s understanding.
Year 4 have been putting their mathematical knowledge to the test through their popular Maths Champs challenge with Year 2. Together they race to answer times table questions, but with a twist, the Year 4 pupils begin with a time handicap! This extra challenge pushes them to improve the speed, accuracy and recall of their multiplication facts.
Meanwhile, Year 3 showcased their creativity and English skills through a wonderful Easter writing project with Reception. Pupils planned, wrote and beautifully presented their own Easter stories, carefully adapting their language and ideas for a younger audience.
The Buddy Scheme is far more than simply pairing older and younger pupils together. It creates a culture of kindness, responsibility and belonging, and develops the ‘character’ of all our Foresters. It plays a big part in contributing to our close knit family community which we are so proud of.
