Jogo Behaviour Support Blog
Your New Class - Tips to help you Booklet for new students Monday, 21 August 2017
Your New
Class – Tips to help you Booklet for New Students
This activity is a quick
exercise that encourages students to reflect on the year and develops peer
support.
Materials
- A4 paper
- Pens and felt-tips
Ask each student to think of
3 tips that a new student coming into that year group would need to help
them.
To prompt the students’
thinking, the following questions may be of use:
- What would have been helpful to know when you started this year?
- What have you learnt that has been helpful this year?
What is resilience and why do we need it?
What is
resilience and why do we need it?
Resilience is according to
Grothberg, E. H. (1997)
“a universal
capacity which allows a person, group or community to prevent, minimise or
overcoming the damaging effects of adversity.”
And as stated by Newman, T.
(2002)
“A resilient
child can resist adversity, cope with uncertainty and recover more successfully
from traumatic events or episodes.”
The reality is that as human
beings we will at some point need to face adversity and resilience is having
the skills to prevent, minimise or overcome it. Whilst as adults we want to
obviously minimise the exposure to adversity, however we also need to help
children with the skills to overcome adversity too.
In recent years, there has been an interesting debate developing between the political
establishment about the future course of direction for education policy.
Previously an all-party parliamentary group advocated a 'Character and
Resilience Manifesto'. It argued that more importance should be given to the
development of "character and resilience and schools must be "more
than just exam factories". It stated schools should make it part of their
"core business" to nurture pupils' self-belief, perseverance and
ability to bounce back from set-backs. It
also wants Ofsted to build "character and resilience" measures into
its inspection framework, and for teacher training and career development
programmes to "explicitly focus" on the area. A view supported by the
CBI, senior politicians, and the government's social mobility adviser.
As a young child I remember
listening to the song “Rose Garden” and not fully understanding the symbolic
message of the words:
“I never
promised you a Rose Garden. Along with
the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.”
We cannot as the song says promise
them a Rose Garden, but we can support the aim and vision of wanting one and help
them on the journey towards it. However
we have to also instil a sense of reality that there will be disappointments, a
little rain to be managed along the way. Acquiring the skill of coping with and
managing the rain becomes just as important as the destination itself.
Children who are resilient are
able to recognise their own abilities and are willing to try new challenges.
They are able to build and maintain positive peer relationships, able to
generally regulate their behaviours, are able to hold their own, able to repair
following disagreements. They feel
connected to their school and have a sense of belonging.
The resilient child will have the
ability to not only form these relationships but maintain and sustain them
during challenging times. When the rain comes they will provide themselves,
others and their relationships with coping strategies. Resilience breeds the confidence to take
risks, learn new skills and strategies, cope with more rain and develop more
resilience.
How can we help children and young people build their resilience?
Developing resilience
in many ways is like teaching any new skill to our pupils/students. It will begin with an assessment of need and
making sure that when we teach it the provision in which that teaching takes
places matches the need we have assessed.
There will be students and pupils who will need be able to learn and
acquire the skills and strategies to help build their capacity to be resilient
at wave 1, while others may need wave 2 and some may need a wave 3
approach. We need to be prepared to
resource all these approaches from quality first teaching to group work and 1:1
work intervention programmes.
Whatever wave is being accessed
by the pupil/student there are certain principles or factors that will always
be present.
Our ability to form, maintain and
sustain our relationships will have a direct connection with our levels of
resilience. We can help develop resilience by recognising it is as a skill and
therefore it can be learned if we teach it.
If we begin with the premise that pupils/students are capable of
bouncing back, coping, weathering the storm we construct a curriculum with
activities and strategies of high expectations, teaching a variety of skills
like responsibility, co-operation, empathy, its ok to fail, we experience many
feelings and it’s how we use them, I’m ok, you’re ok, interaction, sharing, my
needs, your needs, their needs, feeling safe, helping others, giving time and
attention, needing time and attention the list is endless.
As educators, we can help develop
resilience by continually encouraging a safe environment that supports
consistent and long lasting relationships with both adults and peers. Every day
we repeatedly believe in them and their ability, encourage them to keep going, to
feel that they are important, worthy and have a voice. Furthermore it is not only that they have a
voice but that their voice counts, they are able to contribute and participate
in their own education, to contribute in the education of others and the
development of the school.
Resilience gives them the
self-confidence to try and to keep trying, to implement skills and strategies
on the way to the rose garden, cope with the rain and provide shelter from the
storm.
References
· Anderson, Lynn (1968) I never promised you a
rose garden.
· Grotberg,
E. H. (1997) in B. Bain, et. Al. (Eds) "The
International Resilience Project: Findings from the Research and the
Effectiveness of Interventions", Psychology and Education in the 21st
Century: Proceedings of the 54th Annual Convention of the International Council
of Psychologists. Edmonton: ICPress, 1997. 118-128.)
· Newman
T (2002) Promoting resilience: a review of effective strategies for child care
services, Centre for Evidence Based Social Services, University of Exeter