Our Head of School Team has launched the King's School Code of Mutual Respect. In this article, Mrs Sumner explains more about the student-led initiative.
The end of the summer term saw the launch of the King’s School Code of Mutual Respect. What is particularly special about this is that the code has been created by the School Council.
Since March, students have been discussing what mutual respect is, and how and why we all benefit from mutually respectful relationships now and in the future.
This was as a result of discussions around the MeToo movement and Everyone’s Invited Campaign of 2021.
The student-created code is a combination of our students' ideas, condensed into six ways to build mutual respect.
What makes the code more memorable is the acronym - A SMILE.
One of the original ideas from one of the Shells Tutor Groups was to smile more. One of my favourite quotes from Phyllis Diller is "a smile is a curved line that makes everything straight", so I was particularly pleased that students wanted to include this.
Incorporating the smile into into our code is not only creative, but key to our aims. It is, after all, difficult to be angry with someone if they are smiling at you, and a smile can make the day just a little bit better for everyone that you come across.
The code will form the basis for work in tutor groups, with the key message that the impact of our actions is more important than the intent.
Our Head of School Team, Jack Hayter, Mahima Hansoge and Hannah Evans, launched the code to the whole school, including our new Removes, in Assembly in June
We look forward, as a pastoral team, to repeating these messages and promoting the code so that all students can benefit from stronger, healthier and more respectful relationships.
Aba, our anti-bullying ambassador mascot: A SMILE builds great relationships.
