Exceptional Personal Development and Wellbeing through

'An Even Better Arbourthorne'

Collaboration and volunteering to make everyone's lives better!

What is An Even Better Arbourthorne?

An exceptional aspect of this schools provision is the strong emphasis on children and families personal development and wellbeing. We engage with businesses, industry and civic partnerships and utilise external funding to provide a wealth of opportunity for the community to collaborate together, thrive together and to learn and understand that each of our individual characteristics make us unique as people. Through these activities our community learns to be respectful and harmonious and children learn to behave with integrity and cooperate consistently well with others. They learn the skills to keep themselves mentally happy and healthy. These skills prepare them for the next stages in their education. Every child leaves this school knowing the part they have to play as a good citizen in the future. Our focus is to support families with skills and knowledge to help them live well through a coordinated series of opportunties and activities designed with a focus on healthy minds and healthy bodies.

An Even Better Arbourthorne (AEBA) is a school initiative developed in partnership with several organisations and funded by a community lottery grant which aims to develop long term opportunities to build a better future for our children, their families and the wider Arbourthorne Community.  We work together to find solutions to address poverty and create an even better life for people in the community. We develop the role of volunteers and have built on our strong culture of working in partnership with our families. Everyone uses a problem solving approach and collaborates to share skills and talents with each other. We have a dedicated Community Volunteer Coordinator who develops an extensive network of volunteers from within the Arbourthorne Community and within businesses and industry and civic partnerships in Sheffield. Parents and Community have a voice in this partnership and actively decide and create activities based on their lived experiences. 

We explore interests and challenges that our community faces, agree priorities and then we work collaboratively to address these needs. Activities include:

• Food growing and distribution from our polytunnel (sustainability is a key aspect of our curriculum and our gardener is residence supports the curriculum)
• Helping address some aspects of food poverty and play our part in helping to reduce food waste through our well established Community Fridge (a place to donate and receive surplus food which is open to all). Parents and Volunteers co-ordinate food collection from across the City to distribute back into the Community. This is very popular with families.
• Offering Family Feast - a monthly community hot meal cooked by parent volunteers using school kitchen facilities and designed to improve the quality of talk and engagement between families and build a sense of connection.
• Flourish, our new Community kitchen where parents and children learn to cook alongside a professional chef and provide parent to parent expertise in cooking. The community kitchen uses produce grown from the polytunnel. It is our ambition that every child in this school will learn to grow and cook from scratch. 
• Afterschool cooking classes (a club where children and parents learn about gardening and cooking healthy food). An enhanced offer designed to support Mental Health and Wellbeing.
• Slow cooker/air fryer courses using appliances loaned from our slow cooker library. 
• Our extensive and well developed outdoor spaces provide a meeting point for transition activites when we welcome new families to the school or support children in their movement between classes and activities.
• Groups of parents sharing family recipes including families who have English as an additional language to provide trans-languaging opportunities for intergenerational first language exchanges with our artist in residence and EAL expert.
• Environmental - to ensure that pupils are supported to become responsible, respectful and active citizens who can play their part in public life as young people and adults. Our Hearts of Gold Awards are designed to acknowledge the part that children can play as volunteers in their own community. Families are encouraged once a week and during half term to engage in environmetal activities in and around the Community, acitivties such as litter picking, random acts of kindness and doorstep drops that align with our Core Values. 
• Annual Horticulture Show is a highlight for the Community and is a strong collaboration of parents, children and community celebrating sustainability, healthy living, wellbeing and alignment with the environment we seek for the future. Children grow produce over the Summer and return to school for a "soft landing" to spend time with their new teacher and friends before the new academic year starts.
• Working with the School of Medicine we offer third year doctors a community placement in which they design a health related series of activites to improve knowledge and confidence of families to stay physically and mentally well.

Would you like to get involved either as a volunteer in the Community or a parent of the school? We are always looking for new people to get involved. You could join one of our clubs, courses or volunteer with us for an hour or two. See Georgie, our volunteer co-ordiantor or Mandy, our safeguarding officer if you want to get involved. It is a great way to meet new people, socialise, learn new skills, share your own skills and strengths and give something back to your community.

As a thank you, we also offer Time Builder rewards such as trips for volunteers and their family in exchange for time spent volunteering.