Our first Assembly of the year is always a great time to tell stories

I love numbers. They tell so many stories. And there are many stories that are important for our school - especially at the start of the year. This morning 1HJ helped me tell some stories at Assembly.
1120 - our total enrolments for 2019. We are a very big school!
1120 kids in 45 classes. When we opened in 2010 we had only 12 classes!
264 - the number of children we had on 27 January 2010
10 - we're 10 years old this year!
9 - we're not 10 yet but all nine year olds can't wait to get to double digits! We will be 10 in Term 4 and we'll be having a big party with many classes contributing something towards it
189 - our biggest year level is Year 4
143 - and our smallest is Year 3
158 - we have 158 Preps in seven classes. It's the most Preps ever!
4 - four students didn't have black shoes to complement their uniform this week. We're hoping parents will be able to sort this out this weekend! 4 is also the number of children not wearing a hat for outdoor play. A hat is a must and we encourage all children to personalise their hats so they are easy to recognise and find.
32 - the school's leaders have picked up 32 pieces of rubbish as we've walked around the school this this week. Much of this was plastic and straws. We would love all children to bring nude food lunches - and many are! I've seen some fabulous lunch boxes this week.
31 - being at school as much as possible is really important. Every day makes a difference! 31 children came to school late this week, 16 left early and 51 didn't come at all. That's too many for the first week.
25 - we are celebrating 100% attendance and 25 classes had every child at school every day.
7 - we've felt sad that 7 children have experienced mean moments. These were all swiftly dealt with by class teachers and staff on duty.
886 - in end of 2017 reports 886 children received the equivalent of an A or B for behaviour. This is amazing! When this many children are focused, polite, caring and considerate teachers can teach so much more and everyone learns better.

2019 is going to be a bright year and we've gotten off to a great start.

Learning is a conversation

As a little girl I loved nothing more than lining up my dolls, stuffed toys and friends and playing 'school'. I read them books, set assignments, wrote on my chalkboard and gave them maths tests. When I first started teaching in the early 1980s my classroom wasn't too different from this! I was often at the front presenting all the information. I assigned the projects and I determined how to mix up the instruction. I always connected with my students personally but I didn't teach them as individuals.

Early in my career I attended some amazing professional development in early literacy (ELIC) and for the first time learned how to develop flexibility in classroom environments and lessons with each and every individual learner in mind. No longer was there a 'one size fits all approach'. I thought about how students learn best, how to give them voice and choice, and how to present a menu of options including collaborative work in groups, independent work, working closely with me as the teacher or a combination. Learning became a conversation with each child and achievement soared; so did engagement and social literacy.

These days our teachers at Peregian Springs State School are absolute masters of this way of teaching. Learning is preparation for life. It's relevant to children's needs. It's enjoyable and engaging. And children are achieving so much more than my dolls ever did!

This week tiny Year 1 students presented their work for feedback at lunch time all around the school. They discussed what they've been doing, what they've learned already in the first three days of the school year and what they will do next in their classrooms with students from other year levels, passing teachers and me - so impressive! There were smiles, use of great language and pride in their work.

Learning is a constant conversation and these Year 1s are certainly having it!

What is the Reggio Emilia Approach?

The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education which values the child as strong, capable and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child is steeped in deep curiosity and potential and this drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.

The Reggio Emilia Approach originated after World War 2 in the town (and surrounding areas) of Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy. The women of Reggio wanted progressive and cooperative early childhood education for their children.

The approach is not a method. It is a unique context to Reggio Emilia. Outside Reggio Emilia, schools are 'Reggio-inspired', that is, they are using an adaptation of the approach specific to the needs of their community. Typically, the Reggio Approach is applied to preschools and early childhood settings but with an understanding of the general principles, this educational approach can be adapted to other years of primary school as well.

The fundamental principles of the Reggio Approach are

• Children are capable of constructing their own learning - they are driven by their own interests to understand and know
• Children form an understanding of themselves and their place in the world through their interactions with others - the adult is not the 'giver' of the knowledge; the adult facilitates social collaboration and works with children to search out knowledge through investigation
• Children are communicators - communication is a way of discovering things and asking questions. Playing with language becomes an continual collaborative process
• The environment is the third teacher - the environment is recognised for its potential to inspire learning. It should be open and light, free of clutter with a multitude of materials and authentic resources and tools that can be considered for their unique purpose. The space encourages collaboration, communication and exploration and is cared for by the children and the adults
• The adult is a mentor and guide - the role of adults is to observe children, listen to their questions and stories, find what interests them and provide opportunities to explore their interests further
• An emphasis on documenting children’s thoughts - children's thoughts and progression of thinking is documented in many different ways i.e. photographs, visual representations, transcripts; all designed to make the thinking visible and show the learning process

Credit - https://reggioemilia2015.weebly.com/the-100-languages.html

The Hundred Languages of Children is a well known aspect of the Reggio Emilia Approach. The belief that children use many different ways to show their understanding and express their thoughts and creativity permeates the idea that there are a hundred different ways of thinking, of discovering, of learning. Drawing and sculpting, through dance and movement, through painting and play, through modelling and music are languages, or ways of learning, are all a part of the child. Learning and play are not separated. The approach emphasises hands-on inquiry learning that enables the child to use all their senses and all their languages to learn.

There's a new kind of learning going on

Much has been made of 'child centered' learning over the years stretching from the teaching of Jerome Bruner in the sixties right through to the recent work of Sugata Mitra. But it's when you see it in action you realise the power of students solving real life problems, using technology to generate possibilities and research what others have done, truly get engaged in high level learning thought to be beyond Year 3s, and producing atefacts and work samples that have quality and lasting value.

It's teaching at it's best when the teacher puts teaching analysis and evaluation at the heart of the work. At the end of the day it isn't about the building, creating or making. It's about the problem solving - doing something useful with paper, technology or a device that can be applied to our lives.

Such is the work of 3T this year. It has been truly inpiring.

What are we really on about?

Last week at our school leadership meeting we had a flurry of discussion about our 'targets' for 2015. It suddenly became important that everyone should know what the school's focus would be for 2015. Well, it's Reading... Writing... Numeracy... - of course it is. What else would we be putting our energies into?

So this little graphic began to be seen everywhere.

Peregian Springs State School

2015 whole school focus for every learner *Reading    *Writing    *Numeracy

We really want all kids to be successful readers and writers and to be numerate - research shows that if you can read and write, everything else is teachable. And more, if you can read and write to a high level, everything else is teachable AND you are ahead of the game. Readers and writers increase their life chances in terms of income, health, participation in political life, and longevity. So who wouldn't want that?

As the week wore on I was finding it hard to get excited about reading, writing and numeracy. I glossed over it at the P&C Meeting and also threw in the Department's mantra about attendance.
 

Peregian Springs State School

2015 whole school focus for every learner *Reading    *Writing    *Numeracy

Attendance

Of course, we need kids at school if we are going to help them be active participants in their own lives and in their communities. But it still wasn't doing it for me.

A huge part of learning is mental health and social and emotional literacy. So in went Student Wellbeing. 

Peregian Springs State School

2015 whole school focus for every learner *Reading    *Writing    *Numeracy

Attendance

Student Wellbeing

Hmmmmm....

Then it dawned on me that these are all results. They are admirable results, of course, but as an educator and a parent, I want more than results. I've often said over the last five and half years that I wanted to build a school kids and staff couldn't wait to get to every day.

Peregian Springs State School

2015 whole school focus for every learner *Reading    *Writing    *Numeracy

Attendance

Student Wellbeing

Happy kids and staff who can’t wait to get to school everyday

Knowing our kids and staff are happy - that's what gets me up everyday. This is what is exciting about 2015 - our sixth year. This is our 'target'. It's always been our target. And why is that?

It's because we all care deeply about the success of our students and our school. We've built a whole school team around this purpose, and it's what we strive for every day.
 

Peregian Springs State School

2015 whole school focus for every learner *Reading    *Writing    *Numeracy

Attendance

Student Wellbeing

Happy kids and staff who can’t wait to get to school everyday

Why? Because we care deeply about the success of our students and our school

Start out how you mean to go on

Start out how you mean to go on - this is one of my favourite catch cries. It's very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to start something one way - to set something up, to communicate a culture or way of behaving - and then say, no, I've changed my mind, we're going to do it this way now! And so it is with classrooms. A rowdy classroom where the focus is on something other than quality learning and quality relationships is very hard to turn around.

Last Tuesday, the first day of the 2015 school year, I started my first rounds of our school about 8.50am in Prep. As I approached the first classroom a Dad was looking in through the windows quite all at sea, fumbling with his phone. 'Just having one last look, are you?' I said smiling, hoping to calm his nerves. 'Look at this!' he said. 'And it's the same in Year 1!'.

I looked through the window a bit apprehensively. Twenty six Preps were sitting or standing around tables, talking, playing, cutting, sticking, writing their name, looking at the interactive whiteboard, and generally looking like they had been there a month - not 10 minutes!

I couldn't see the teacher - oh wait, there she is, crouched by a table talking with one or two children about what they were doing.

I smiled at the Dad again, 'We don't waste any time here', I said. And I went on my way. And yes, when I got down to Year 1, it was the same.

Thirty four classrooms across our school have started out how they mean to go on - a focus on kids, on quality relationships and on quality learning. What a joy it is to work and play in this place!

The joy of listening to kids read

Not long after I started school as a little girl I was curled up in the book corner reading away when the Headmaster, Mr Evans, came into the classroom and said 'What's that silly girl doing over there pretending to read?'

I was four, and I still remember it - perhaps I need to get over now! I still remember being so angry that he thought I was pretending. I even remember the book I was reading - The Princess and the Pea from the Ladybird series. As a child I amassed many of these little hardcovers. I wish I still had them - they are worth a fortune now!

Anyway, back to Mr Evans - needless to say, he wasn't my inspiration to become a teacher - well, maybe he was. I think I knew then that kids deserve a lot better than that.

There is nothing I enjoy more than listening to kids read - any kid, at whatever level of development they are at. Reading is the key to the world and every time an adult listens to a child read and uses gentle timely interventions, they are helping the child cut another notch on that key.

I listened to couple of little girls in 3/2B the other day. They had picked a book for partner reading and were having the best fun. At the end of taking turns, using funny voices, flipping backwards and forwards through the pages, laughing at the funny parts and asking questions about the hard words I told them I thought they were amazing readers and I asked them how I would know that.

'Oh' they said 'We are fluency [sic], we use expression, we know what the words mean, and we can work stuff out - we comprend it.'

'Great,' I said. 'And how do I as the listener know you can understand what you are reading? That you comprend it, so to speak.'

'The voices we use and the funny bits we laugh at - if we weren't comprending we wouldn't know when to laugh or stop reading and think and stuff...' they said. Hmmm...

I was so glad they didn't say 'You know we are good readers because we are on Level J reading books'.

A child's reading level says nothing to a child about how they see themselves as a reader. A reading level is information for the teacher that helps guide instructional decisions. It is the result of a complex array of factors including decoding skills, voice control, fluency, expression, strategies used to make meaning, knowledge about punctuation and vocabulary, and much more.  It's not a competition nor a badge of honour. It's simply a tool teachers use to ensure children are reading at exactly the right level to continue to learn, to continue to make meaning. It's a way of making sure we don't expect children to jump to the top of a flight of stairs from half way down.

Because in the words of a couple of Year 2 girls, it's all about comprending it!

Joyful about achievement - so lovely to see

Not so many years ago as a new Deputy Principal I had some awards to distribute to children on Assembly. I called the children out and told the Assembly how well they had done, and to my horror watched children very reluctantly stand up and come to the front - some had to be cajoled by their teachers and one flatly refused. A couple of boys stood uncomfortably trying to hide their faces behind too long fringes and surf burned hair. And so was the culture of this school - it's not cool to achieve, to stand out in front of the group, and learning was not publicly congratulated. For these children, it was more like public humiliation. Over the years, I've seen this a lot - especially in Queensland. And even though I never stopped trying, it was hard to change

But not so at Peregian Springs...

Our NAPLAN results arrived in the school last week and over the last few days I've been congratulating children (and whole classes) whom I've noticed have done exceptionally well. By exceptionally well, I mean not just those children who performed above the average scores in the state and nationally, but also, and probably more importantly, those children who have made faster improvement than expected.

In the Drop Off Zone the other day, I said to a boy from Year 5 - 'Congratulations on your NAPLAN results. Mum and Dad are going to be very pleased when they see your report. Good job!' The other boys around him clapped him on the back and echoed my congratulations, and this little bloke was just beaming. Then before Assembly on Friday I did the same thing with one of Year 7 boys. His teacher was there and so were his friends - a risky environment to applaud the learning efforts of an adolescent boy! 'Well done, *, on your NAPLAN results. You have made a huge leap in your learning since Year 5. Good job!' He looked kind of surprised, and his teacher joined in saying 'Yes, I saw that too.' And again all the boys around him nodded and one shook his hand.

This is what I love about our kids. They highly value learning and they readily applaud achievement - their own and the achievements of others. They happily offer their congratulations and are genuinely pleased when one of their mates does well, no matter what the area. In a country that regularly cuts down its tall poppies and where there is a culture of not standing out from the crowd, it is exceptional to see children breaking the mold and raise the 'cool factor' of doing well, of doing your best, and being pleased with your efforts.

Same, same and also different - the benefits of both

I go to a yoga class once or twice a week. I love it... I love the feeling of inner calm and stretched muscles. I have a favourite teacher - Jeff. He is amazing. He knows everything about anatomy... and also about a lot of other things. Yoga in his classes is a work out for the mind as well as the body. The familiarity of the classes is soothing in a routine way, and he really knows us all as students and can adjust his planning and expectations. Sometimes he is away and we have a different teacher - the structure of the class is different, we 'om' at the start instead of sitting silently, the pace changes, the expectations are higher (or lower), and the outcomes are also changed. Different muscles ache, a new pose we've never done before is introduced - and we all moan and groan (some silently, and others not) but there is always a benefit.

And so it is with our children in their classrooms. Having the same teacher for a year or two has enormous benefits. The teacher knows how the children learn best, he or she knows when to give a child a break and when to put the foot down on the accelerator, the routines and structure are familiar and comforting - kids don't have to think about it. However, when there is a change of teacher the mind is sharpened and perhaps focused in a different way. The change can be unsettling and it forces the reordering of thinking, activity and process. And in this, children always learn something they would not have learned had there not been a change.

In Term 4 we start planning class allocations for children - we are gradually introducing the concept of looping for teachers who are interested. This means children stay with their teacher for a second year. This year 2B became 3B and they have had the best time together - they have also achieved some pretty cool learning outcomes over the last 24 months! When they go to Year 4 they will experience an unsettled period - and then they will move on with their learning and friendships, being stretched in a different direction with new ways and new resources being introduced. Some will moan and groan as they get used to it, and there will be a benefit for all.

Some teachers will choose to 'loop' for 2014, some may choose a different year level all together, and others will start with a fresh group of kids - no matter what, there will be academic and social benefits for all (teachers as well as students).

What do they need a computer for? ... Digital Literacies for the information age

I remember when I was in Year 5 going home with a note from the teacher requesting that my parents supply a calculator for use at school. My Dad went off! I remember the ranting - it was all about the cost, and aren't your teachers teaching maths any more, and this is the end of kids being able to add up, and no one will get a job - the end of the world was coming it seemed. However, he bought me a calculator (and one for himself too) and I was so proud of it. I kept it in it's vinyl case and was amazed at what it could do. I had it for years (and wish I had it now as it would be an absolute relic!).

These days kids carry around a plethora of devices - iPods, iPads, phones, and lap tops - and the majority of these have the power to tap into and create more information than has ever been possible in the history of the human race. Being digitally literate is an absolute necessity in today's world - we are no longer talking about the future - in the words of William Gibson 'the future is already here'.

From  Educational Technology

So what are digital literacies? This info graphic sums it up beautifully.

Actually come to think of it - we've always needed these skills. I'm pretty sure my Year 5 teacher told my Dad I'd learn some of these skills using a calculator!

What is different about today is that kids need to be able to engage with these literacies using all the information at hand. In today's world, it's nigh on impossible to demonstrate initiative and entrepreneurialism or to collaborate across networks (for example) without a device in your hand. People without these skills may still be able to live happy and productive lives but the extent to which this is possible will be extremely hampered.

Today's modern classrooms encourage students to learn and demonstrate their progress by engaging in these literacies - and usually through the use of technology, the Internet, and information and idea sharing and construction. Teacher's work changes every day and it's a special teacher who can keep up with how kids are learning. I'm thankful to work with the best of these at Peregian Springs - teachers who truly believe in the power of technology, information and thinking; teachers who are not scared to set the boundaries and let kids go; teachers who can say 'I don't know the answer to that and let's find out together'.

Technology in classrooms has enriched all our lives; in many ways our jobs have never been more difficult but none of us care about that when we see kids developing vision, global stewardship and optimism through the practice of self-regulation, agility and pure grit. Technology brings the world into our students' hands and we have an imperative to ensure they have the skills and dispositions to harness the power and privilege that it brings.

It's that time of the year again - NAPLAN

This week children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 across all states of Australia will sit the suite of NAPLAN tests. NAPLAN is an acronym for National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy - however, we rarely say all that, and like many acronyms NAPLAN has almost become its own word!

NAPLAN is not a test of content (says the official website). NAPLAN is a test of the literacy and numeracy skills children learn in the year levels previous to the one they are currently in, for example, the Year 5 Test primarily assesses children's ability to write, spell, read and compute based on curriculum covered in Year 4 and built on from learning in Prep to Year 3.

There is always a lot of press about the Tests - who they are for, why they are bad, why we should and shouldn't be doing them, etcetera, etcetera... In the end, we have to do them, and over the years teachers have learned to make the best of it.

Our teachers work hard to ensure that that the curriculum offerings give children multiple chances to learn the skills that are tested. They prepare solid and sequential programs based on the Australian Curriculum, they streamline the programs to match each child's level, they continually assess children's development and make adjustments for gaps, misunderstandings and misconceptions, and they ensure children develop a certain test literacy to develop familiarity with the tool.

On the day, the tests will assess what children know using only one format with no room for asking the question in a different way, giving a child extra time to think or providing a clue or a hint - this is totally alien to the way in which teachers present their lessons every day but the children have had practice at this - probably since the start of the year.

In other words, providing parents have done their bit with sending children to school every day possible, getting them to bed early on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, ensuring they eat a proper nutritious breakfast, and making sure they are at school by 8.30am with their pencils sharpened, then they are as prepared as they are ever going to be. (Actually, it wouldn't be bad if this happened every school day - not just in NAPLAN week!)

At the end of the day, NAPLAN is just one point-in-time assessment that contributes to the total picture of each child's learning. It's not the sum of the picture and it's not a matter of life and death. It's just three short mornings out of the 203 days of the school year - and all children have had the opportunity to be well prepared for it - no matter what their level of achievement.

Best of luck to all our Year 3, 5 and 7 students this week - I know you will do your best, and this is all we ask.

Student Opinion - worth its weight in gold

Earlier this week I received an email from three girls in Year 7 asking questions about a learning strategy we are currently using in the upper school. The message was simple, it was persuasively written (something I was pleased to see given NAPLAN is a week away!) and the grammar, spelling and punctuation weren't too bad either!

Regardless of the mechanics of the writing, I was most impressed with their forthrightness, frankness and confidence to make their feelings known. I emailed Chris Wise, their teacher, to see what it was all about, and in our ensuing conversation about the learning, the current arrangement, the fact that we liked their final question and finally, what we were going to do about it, I realised how far we have come as a society.

As a twelve year old I would NEVER have questioned my teacher about classroom practices, let alone my very scary headmaster, Mr Evans - either in writing or in person. Not only wouldn't I have questioned them, I wouldn't have even thought of it! And if I had, I probably would have copped a walloping at home for being rude!

I love that our students feel comfortable enough to email me or stop me in the playground to have a chat about something they don't like (or even do like). And I love that I work with a group of teachers and teacher aides who firstly, don't view this behaviour as subversive or threatening; and secondly, embrace the opinions of students and consider their own practices in relation to it. It doesn't always mean we are going to change things to make them the way our students want them but we do think about it and discuss it.

This is persuasive political action at its best and I hope these three girls maintain this level of confidence to question the world around them as they grow and mature. Believe me - they are going to be a force to be reckoned with!

Good job, girls!

Conversations about life, learning and growing up

The school holidays always afford a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time with our children. Gone is rushing out the door with brief cases and brief kisses goodbye, with a sandwich hastily made, and the cats protesting about having to spend the day outside. And in its place are long sustained conversations over breakfast and the paper or morning coffee in a cafe - or in the case of this last holiday, midday rests between hitting the underwater world for Dive No 2 of the day.

Stories anchor children to their futures

During one such conversation, Maddie, my daughter, suddenly said 'well, you know, it was never an option about whether or not I would go to uni - the conversations about post high school always included a certainty I would have a degree.'  And she's right -  our conversations and discussions since she was the tiniest thing were about creating a picture of what her future could be.

Parents are very powerful and influential in helping to create the stories that children see in their heads about a lot of things - not just their future possibilities but also about their self-worth, their capability and their attitudes to school, learning and life in general. If we know this, then we need to take care with the stories we tell and the conversations we have. Which ones will be the most powerful in helping our children develop an overarching life story of positivity and fulfilment; one in which they embrace learning and change as a natural part of life?

I think we could tell stories about taking risks, persevering, setting goals, planning for success, personal organisation and leadership. These are far better stories for anchoring the future than those stories about school results, getting good grades and doing homework.

The stories could be about ourselves succeeding or failing, about other positive role models in society (who our heroes are and why), about what's in the news and what we think about it, about our observations of daily life, and about what life could be like.

Maddie's comment got me thinking about the conversations I've had with her for the past 18 years - these conversations have already taken her to some pretty special places (both physically and metaphorically); she has learned to set goals and persevere and manage her time well; she's prepared to try for things I would never have thought of when I was 28, let alone 18, and I believe she will be a great leader in the future. As far as personal organisation goes - by the look of her room, I need to lift my game with these particular stories. I'm not sure which ones I was telling but they have not resulted in tidiness. Last year she won an award at college for having the cleanest room at the end of the semester (so clearly it's possible) - anyway, this provided an endless source of amusement for my husband and I who have never seen a clean and tidy room we haven't orchestrated! And perhaps herein lies the answer - the story we were telling wasn't often about success in the area of a tidy room - and more about how like my brother she is!

Where is your beam of awareness?

I've loved this past week.

I took some leave to accompany my husband on a trip to Queenstown on the southern island of New Zealand. He was to attend a conference and I thought 'what a great opportunity for a little downtime'. My husband is an accountant. The things at work that excite him bore me to tears so when he came home with a spare ticket to the conference I thought 'you must be joking - sit cooped up in a conference centre when I could be out enjoying the mountains? - Not a chance'. 

Anyway, two speakers caught my eye - Dandapani (a Hindu monk) and Natalie Cook (five time Olympian volleyball player and gold medallist at the Sydney Games in 2000). I figured I might just give up mountains for that... And I'm so glad I did!

While they were very different presenters they both talked about the same thing - how to sustain motivation when working towards a goal. How do we as humans learn to give something 100% effort and attention and how do we keep doing that past the honeymoon period.

It's easy to start something new, to focus on a change, and to set a goal - we have renewed vigour and a certainty that we are going to make it this time. As Natalie talked about this, I was reminded of all the diets I've started! But how do we sustain this and keep going? And as parents and teachers how do we teach this skill to our children?

Dandapani's messages about training the awareness, focusing on finishing what you start, finishing it well and doing a little better than you thought you could will stick with me, and I know I will use his 'monk tools' and analogies to make it easy for me to do and easy for kids to understand. Today's children are so distracted - they flit from one thing to another, giving everything only their light attention - a game for a few minutes, a text to a friend, a TV program interrupted by ad breaks and snack stops; sometimes it seems like they don't focus on anything for very long (and then complain they're bored!)

'Proceed with confidence.'

Dandapani teaches that the mind is everything we know, feel, see, touch, taste and hear and our awareness is like the beam of a torch that shines on what we are paying attention to at the time. When our awareness flits around like a search light at sea we get tired, we don't finish things, we appear 'scatty', we're not focused, it's hard to learn well, and sometimes we even get diagnosed with something too!

How good would it be to train our children to shine their beam of awareness for a sustained period of time on one thing and one thing only - this would create powerful learning opportunities and build the metal muscle needed to solve life's trickiest problems.

This week check where you are shining your torch light - is it flitting about or is it trained on one thing at a time? What we practise we get good at; so practising focusing our torches in our mind's eye for ever increasing amounts of time can only be a good thing.

Kids who love to learn

Last week I circulated a parenting tip sheet from Michael Grose's parenting website called The Pitfall of Using Other Children as Benchmarks.  If you didn't see it, check your Inbox.  It's a great read.

Parent Teacher Student Conferences are on the horizon at Peregian Springs State School. Class teachers will meet with parents and students during the last two weeks of Term 1 to share the learning progress your child has made throughout the term. This is meant to be a celebratory time focused on your child and your child only. It's a time to celebrate how far they have come in relation to their own developmental clocks (and not in relation to how far other children have travelled).

Parent Teacher Student Conferences can be a tense time. Parents sometimes worry about whether their child has learned as much as another child, whether they are on the same reading level as last year, whether a friend's son is faster at their number facts, and even whether their child is as fast a runner as the neighbour's daughter. The fact is that all humans are stretched along a developmental scale and worrying about whether someone is further along the scale than your child tends to lead to anxiety and tension.

As parents, we want our kids to be the best they can be - and this is the trick. We need to think of the difference between being the best they can be, and being better than everyone else. The messages we send our children either directly or unconsciously tells them which we think is more important.

If you want your child to concentrate on their own learning and recognise their movement along the developmental scale then our language must focus on their growth - and not on the growth of other children. A comment such as 'Your reading is much more fluent now than it was a few months ago' is a much better measure of progress than 'You are the best reader in the class!'  Or 'Look at these big numbers you can partition now compared to the small numbers you were working with last year' sends a better message about the learning we are looking for than 'You know more number facts than anyone else in Year 2!'

No matter where your child is on the developmental scale he or she will have taken some steps along it in at least one area and probably many more. Focusing on these will make Parent Teacher Student Conferences a celebration and will go a long way to ensuring your child maintains their love of the learning process. Kids who love to learn will continue to be learners.

What to do in this weather...

If you are like me, you are probably quite affected by the weather. On a sunny day I feel optimistic and uplifted. Warm sunshine imparts a general feeling of wellbeing. Rain, clouds and cool weather leave me feeling somewhat deflated and at times, quite gloomy.

I have always found that connecting with others generates the same feelings as sunny days - I don't mean connecting on the Internet such as Facebook and email. I mean real connection involving a warm bodied person who laughs along with you, gossips and tells stories.

Games are often at the root of all connection between humans. As a youngster my Grandma taught me how to play 21; a little unorthodox - but my skills and fluency in adding and subtracting numbers to 21, remembering what was left in the deck, and strategising about what Grandma had in her hand was phenomenal. Games were played in our home a lot - Monopoly, Scrabble, draughts and chess were the order of the day. I also remember Boggle, Battleships (my brothers loved that), Mousetrap, Pictionary, Uno and Four in a Row. Playing games was great fun and it taught us kids a lot about cooperation, being a 'good' loser, and the place of competition. We would laugh a lot, look at each other's faces, practice 'give and take', use our manners, and would usually be sitting around a table talking about other things as we played.

On the weekend I read about some research into the educational power of parents*. A group of 125 parents were asked to play a board game one night a week for four weeks with their children. The results were stunning - parents and teachers reported improved concentration, social interaction, and cooperation with siblings. (Doesn't every parent want this last one!) Playing board games also boosted patience, teamwork, sharing, communication, sporting behaviour, critical thinking skills, and fluency in maths and spelling. Family relationships improved and parents were amazed that their children did not need to be glued to the TV or Nintendo.

Parent engagement in their child's learning and development takes many forms - and if you are interested in giving your child's learning, manners, compassion, play habits, kindness and thinking skills a boost, you can't go wrong with a deck of cards and a game of 21! (Perhaps draughts might be a bit more politically correct these days.) And let's face it - our current weather system is certainly giving us plenty of reasons to stay indoors and enjoy the company of our family.

These days I still play games; many on my iPad. These are often designed to play alone or against the machine itself. I still find a way to interact with someone else, even if it means posting a 'Help' on my Facebook page for a 4Pics 1Word puzzle.

* Herald Sun, Wednesday 19 August 2009, p 27

Behaviour is infectious!

I recently saw this post on my Facebook News Feed - and thought how true it is. When people make an effort to smile and greet each other, use common courtesies, wait patiently at the checkout, drive courteously and generally be pleasant, others around them often follow.

And similarly, when we are angry, discourteous and greet the world with a scowling face, the world scowls back at us.

If you ever have a chance to drive up (or down) the west coast of Australia, you will see the roadside strewn with bottles, fast food wrappings, nappies, and all manner of rubbish normally reserved for the local tip. It's almost as if every traveller on that highway has seen the rubbish and thought 'oh well, I may as well throw all mine out there too'.

And so it is, not just with litter, but with every behaviour - they are infectious! People seem to catch them and the ripples spread. I see a lot of ripples of infectious behaviour in our school - our children play well together, greet each other warmly and include new friends, use their manners freely, hand in money when they find it, smile openly and are generally cooperative, friendly and cheerful to be with. The virus behaviours are infectious too. The other day I watched a couple of boys on the oval tripping each other up and pushing each other to the ground. By the time I got the teacher's attention and pointed madly to the fracas going on behind him, the 'game' involved five boys.

The behaviour of adults is also infectious - going a little too fast on the roads, jaywalking instead of crossing at the lights, pulling up in a No Parking zone for just a couple of minutes and swimming outside the flags. For more examples closer to home/school, just take a look at parking around our school in the afternoons, stopping in the Drop Off/Pick Up Zone, and latest virus to catch on, encouraging children to 'jump the fence' or putting children over the locked gate on Ridges Boulevard. A couple of people do it, and before you know it, many are doing it, even though it's unsafe and all students have been asked to walk around to the entrance.

In many cases, children can work out when behaviour is a virus and when it's a peaceful ripple, and make a choice accordingly. But as they are learning how to get along in the world they look to adult role models to help them discern the finer points of what is 'right' and 'wrong' in any given situation. As adults it is important for us to think about what our children are learning from watching our behaviour and the choices we make - the 'rules' or safety practices we decide to ignore or just bend a little. In many cases, children are learning that it's okay to ignore rules and do what they want, as long as no one is watching.

I wonder where a learning like this could take us in the future? Will children learn, for example, that its okay to take something from someone else because no one was there to see it? Or they may decide to not wear a bike helmet because it's unlikely there will be a police officer to notice. Instead of learning to be intrinsically honest and caring about others, they learn to test the waters to see if they get caught - and rejoice in the times they 'get away with it'.

Let's all consider what our children really learn when we are rushed and frazzled and tempted to 'jump the fence', and instead, choose the long term solution of teaching our kids how to tread a safe and thoughtful passage through life.

A friend commented on the picture above in her News Feed and said 'Imagine if everyone in the world did this for just one day? It costs nothing and would create world peace'.

Have a lovely day!

Learning to struggle

There's a growing body of writing focusing on the importance of finding learning difficult in the overall development of children. And there is a plethora of examples comparing the difference between Eastern and Western classrooms and parenting.

A post by Alix Spiegel discusses the differences eloquently.

Over the years I've been an educator I've seen an interesting phenomena develop. We (parents and teachers) don't like to see our children find things hard. We don't like them to have to struggle for too long. We don't like them becoming distressed if they can't do something, and over time we have rescued and rescued and now we have many many children who simply don't make the link between hard work, struggling with a problem, perseverance and achievement. The net result is that children give up too quickly, and perhaps, are not learning to live with a feeling of 'uncomfortableness' for any amount of time.

I recently witnessed my own daughter struggling with studying for an end of year exam in anatomy. The procrastination, the complaints about the teacher, the whining about not being smart enough and 'everyone else is so clever; I'm not' and the claims that 'we haven't even been taught this' were extraordinarily creative. It really took me by surprise. And it took her more by surprise when I said, 'Yes, anatomy is hard, and no, it's not good enough to be able to give a detailed description of the digestive system when the exam requires one about the eye! Clearly you haven't studied enough and you're going to have to work at it harder now'. And I couldn't resist adding 'I hope you've learned your lesson'. (I probably could have done without that last comment!)

I often hear teachers comment that the children in their classes that find learning more difficult (eg. have to try harder to get the same result another has achieved effortlessly) are the ones who seem to be able to work away at a problem and who have developed a tolerance to having to struggle a bit - as opposed to the ones who have been rescued, and have learned they can just give up.

The problems of our future require people who can struggle away at something very hard and not find that uncomfortable feeling so distressing they don't want to continue. As parents we need to let our children struggle and encourage them to view the struggle positively. We need to let them find things hard and not rush in to rescue them, worrying that their 'distress' is going to cause some unimaginable harm.  In the end the harm it may cause is a generation of children not willing to persist and not willing to struggle to achieve something great.