Jenny’s High Five – 5 Top Tips For The Golden Rules

The Golden Rules are there to help your school’s moral values extend into every area of school life. They are a way of bringing concepts of morality and responsibility into the forefront of children’s minds, enabling them to become more aware of their choices. In our experience children’s ideas always fall into six areas of concern: to look after people physically, to care for people’s emotions, to be the best you can be at work, to respect things, to respect people by listening to them and to be honest.

  1. Think of the Golden Rules as the values that guide your school – so try not to muddle them up with classroom and playground routines and involve all members of the school in discussing and establishing them.
  2. Do constantly reinforce the Rules by discussing them during Circle Time, telling children the Golden Rules Stories and bring them to life with the Small Books of the Golden Rules in Action. Nearly all activities can be related to the Golden Rules “Well done, you were really careful handing out the new books”.
  3. Remember that children go backwards during the holidays so the Golden Rules need reinforcing at the beginning of each term with lovely assemblies where everyone is invited to come including midday supervisors.Try Assemblies to Teach the Golden Rules or for more general assemblies inspiration which can always be linked to the Golden Rules try More Active Assemblies for SEAL, Assemblies for Every Week and Active Assemblies 3.
  4. Do get posters of the Golden Rules up all round the school – classrooms, corridors, dining areas, playgrounds. Make sure they are bright and colourful or backed on gold. To see all our Golden Rules resources click here.
  5. Try to relate the Golden Rules to your incentives and sanctions systems. If you are using Golden Time and we asked any child in the school ‘Why are you having Golden Time today?’ their answer should always be “Because I kept all the Golden Rules all week” – not “Because its Friday afternoon”! For training options on the Golden Rules, incentives and sanctions, positive behaviour management and more please click here.

 

For fantastic resources, please visit our Webshop, or phone 01225 719204.

For training related to this, please phone 01225 767157, email circletime@jennymosley.co.uk or visit our Training Section.

Many thanks.