INCREDIBLE YEARS TERM 1

Along with three Pukeko team colleagues, I am taking part in the Incredible Years Programme this year. The programme's aims are to develop teachers' understanding and skills in nurturing children's social, emotional and behavioural  development as a basis for moving their academic learning. In Term 1, we took part in three workshops, with a focus on:

• nurturing positive relationships, with learners and their whanau
• scaffolding the learning environment (routines, rules, transitions.....) and coaching for social, emotional and academic success
• promoting positive behaviour, through both praise and incentives

The course is, in large part, at quite a basic level, but it is great to be reminded of what you know but don't always practise! Also, there are many relevant, real life models of  what you can do. One of the things that I have found most effective is the discussion with peers and colleagues about what is working and what isn't.

The fundamentals of the course can be summed up in this useful visual. The visual provides a reminder of focusing on the positive and providing explicit coaching in the skills and behaviours you want children to show. the positive foundation is the key and this ties in well with Stephen Collis's SCIL focus on relationships as a key in all facets of education.

Conducting the parent survey was a great way to increase understanding of our learners in a whanau context and the feedback was really valuable. Also, seeking feedback form the children themselves, as we did late in Term 1 was invaluable.  I am often reminded of the value of positive interaction with parents, and try to ensure I am interacting in a welcoming and cheerful way with learners and their parents right at the outset each day.  Carolyn and I have experimented with varied incentives, such as etickets and whanau points (school initiatives), group points, ipad time and a 5-minute fun activity.  Providing a responsibility for one of our challenging learners and engaging him in subjects and topics he finds of interest is proving beneficial.

A major part of the programme is developing and reflecting on strategies to engage reluctant or difficult learners.  I have found this worthwhile, although challenging.  Carolyn and I have a couple of learners whose behaviour provides regular challenges developing relationships and the IYP has given options for developing trusting relationships and providing incentives for appropriate social and learning behaviours. However, both the children are a work in progress and for every up moment there are down times!  Having a collaborative colleague to share the load and bounce ideas of is so worthwhile, as is seeking the advice of Pukeko team colleagues.

CHAPTER CHAT

During the holidays, Carolyn and I saw a link to a new teaching and learning initiative, called Chapter Chat, and decided that we would like to get involved with our learners.

Chapter Chat is a kind of on-line book group. We all read set chapters of a book (the book this time is Charlotte's Web), log into Twitter on Friday mornings and tweet responses to a set series of questions about what we have read.  There is also the opportunity to create/make something relevant to the learning, eg last week it was to create a model or draw a picture of Zuckerman's barn (from the story).

We emailed the parents during the holidays, asking if they would, if possible, access a copy of Charlotte's Web for their child. We also accessed some through the school.

In Week 1 we read Chapters 1-4 and, come Friday, Carolyn had set us up with the Twitter profile and we were on-line madly discussing ideas and thoughts about the questions and tweeting them to other learners across New Zealand, who had all read the same chapters as us.  We used the activeboard for viewing and gave whole-class responses, after discussion.

The children were absolutely buzzed by the experience.  It is very powerful to have all the children engaging in the same text, contributing ideas and responding to text, both less fluent and more fluent readers. There is the opportunity for lots of talking, no need for lots of writing (although you could if you wanted to) and there are open-ended follow up tasks using a choice of platforms.

As you can see, I am very excited about this new (to me, anyway) literacy initiative and I can see children engaging with enthusiasm, for example, using minecraft to create follow-up tasks.  I feel it is a way of making literature available to all learners, including those who would be unable to decode the text independently with any degree of fluency.

I'm very pleased we got underway with this initiative and am very keen to continue with it!

Here's the lovely Ti Kouka learners with their copies of Charlotte's Web