Promoting positive behaviour on a daily basis is very important in all year groups, not simply at school but within the home environment too. Having a positive link between both environments is additionally special and can have a huge impact on achieving and maintaining excellent behaviour.

In our Early Years department, we have a system in which children can bring from home a little kindness note written by their parents, which outlines a good deed they have done. Simple things like helping to tidy up, helping their siblings put on their coats or shoes, helping Mummy with the shopping, or similar.

The children put these notes in our Kindness Catcher basket every morning upon arriving in the classroom. This encourages independence and ownership of their belongings.

Together as a class, after morning register, we read these little notes out and show praise for the children who brought them. The notes are then returned to the children and are put on our PSHE wall display which is placed at a child friendly height. They do this themselves, again encouraging ownership of learning and their environment.

This display has become a wonderful tool for us when showing how we value home-links and the relationships we have with parents. It never works out that every child brings a note every day, rather simply three or four children per day on average.

To make sure that no child is left out, we have pens and post-it notes available to parents every morning. So, if they have not had time to write a little kindness note at home, they can upon arrival in the morning. Staff encourage this verbally and occasionally print a reminder of this system on our ‘Early Years Newsletter’. Over the course of the academic year, every child will have at least a couple of notes on our display.

Overall, we are very proud of this system and it is really working for us! Our children take pride in making kind choices and in maintaining their kindness wall display in the classroom. The biggest impact, however, is the children’s ability to feel pride in their friends’ achievements as well recognising that we all have unique family units.