UNLEASH

ED

Tag: class

  • How can teachers support vulnerable children at school?

    In almost every class, there will also be those who find learning a challenge – the children who perhaps cause teachers to wake in the night, or to feel that they are having to manage certain behaviours beyond their usual areas of expertise.

    In my role working to improve the educational outcomes of vulnerable children and young people – specifically those in care and looked-after by the local authority – I have become aware that many will not be in a good place, emotionally, socially or developmentally, to learn. Although the children I work with represent the tip of the “vulnerable” iceberg, there are numerous other children who are on protection plans or identified as children in need. There will be those, too, who are not known to any service but come to school every day having faced significant hardships.

    Teachers I work with often report that schools’ more general behaviour policies don’t seem to work for these particular students – so what can we do to best support these children? Here are some pointers.

    Focus on why

    Behaviour is always a communication, even though we may not always realise it. Imagine a really bad day – you go home and within minutes you find yourself arguing with someone in your family. You probably didn’t plan to take out your frustration on those closest to you, but that’s effectively what happened.

    Many vulnerable students are likely to have had times when they haven’t felt safe – and end up reacting to all sorts of triggers in order to keep themselves safe or feel safe (which of course may be very different things). Similarly, they’ve often experienced multiple rejections.

    Many will have accompanying attachment issues and sometimes will “reject” before they can be rejected. They may push you away because this may be less painful than allowing you to reject them. Or it may be that certain behaviours give them access to a person they are developing an attachment to, so their message is “I need that person”. By acknowledging this, and recognising that what a student needs more than anything is to build relationships that help them feel safe, we may be able to adjust our reactions appropriately.

    Consider their age and stage

    Social and emotional levels of development and maturity in vulnerable children often won’t match their chronological age. In schools, we’re usually good at supporting children when they have gaps in their academic learning – and many of the vulnerable students will have these – but they will almost all have some gaps in their social and emotional development.

    They may not have developed the skills their peers have, and also by virtue of their experiences have developed certain “street-wise” skills that can lead a teacher to think they are much more mature than they are.

    Read more here.

    Source: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/sep/28/how-can-teachers-support-vulnerable-children-at-school

  • 5 ways teachers can challenge inequality in the classroom

    Research shows that everyday teaching practices exclude already marginalised groups of students, but teachers can take steps to redress the balance.

    Schools produce inequality. Work carried out by educational sociologists such as Kalwant Bhopal, David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell shows that the everyday practices of teaching and learning exclude already marginalised groups of students while guaranteeing success for others.

    My own research found that in a climate where teachers are under extreme pressure to produce results, practices such as ability setting, continual student assessments, shaming behaviour management approaches and short-hand descriptors of students – such as “low ability” or “SEN” – are commonplace. Students who are already part of minority groups in society – for instance, due to race, class, gender or a disability – are disproportionately represented in so-called low ability groups; often score below average in tests (because of the system rather than the students); and are frequently misrepresented or underrepresented in curriculum material presented in class.

    So how can we address educational inequalities from inside the classroom? I spent a year working as a class teacher to find out – observing and recording what happened when I attempted to intervene in the production of inequalities in my primary school classroom. Here are some different approaches I explored, which teachers could try in their own schools.

    Rethink ability grouping

    Is ability grouping necessary? Try different ways of organising groups of students in the classroom. Rather than creating separate activities based on a preconceived idea of ability, students could work through tasks with differing levels of challenge. This allows them to think about what they can achieve and does not label anyone incapable.

    Try providing more open-ended activities that require the students to problem-solve and draw on a range of skills. For example, see if they can make a tower strong enough to hold a marble with a given set of materials, or invite students to plan a class party that needs invitations, decorations and food.

    Allow them to work together – one student may be good at writing while another may be more creative. Students can support each other and surprise themselves and you. Sometimes they will all be given the same task and will produce something different from it (writing stories of different lengths and complexities, for example). The important thing is not to predetermine what students can achieve before they have started.

    Check your language

    Interrogate the language you use to describe your pupils and the language used by students themselves in the classroom. Nobody is inherently low ability, discourses of “boys will be boys” or “hardworking, helpful girls” limit everyone in the class, as do ideas about “lads” and “bitchy girls” – such double standards need challenging.

    Some students still use the term “gay” to describe something negative, which can cause those exploring their own sexuality or who come from queer families to feel unsafe. Using labels such as “naughty” or “silly” to describe pupils, even if not used in front of the students themselves, can quickly stick and alter how students are perceived.

    Make the curriculum relevant

    Who decides the curriculum? Is it representative of the students in the class, reflecting their experiences, histories and questions? It isn’t possible to make the curriculum relevant to all of the students all the time, but consider asking them what they would like to learn about. When I did this with the class of six- and seven-year-olds, we planned out a whole term of activities around the topic of babies, through film, writing and other activities – linking together subjects across the curriculum, and reflecting some of the students’ own experiences.

    Where it’s not possible to alter curriculum material, critical conversations could be started around the points of view represented in lessons from history, science or literature. I’ve changed my questioning to encourage students to think about whose point of view we are hearing. For example, drawing children’s attention to the gender of scientists and suggesting they find out about female scientists; or when we learn about kings and queens, who are we not learning about? – if school resources show only white people in Tudor times, for instance, encourage students to ask questions about why people of colour are not represented.

    Avoid quick-fix punishments

    Many behaviour management systems in schools are incredibly shaming for students. Having your name written under a sad face, being made to stand up during assembly, or being asked to sit on the floor in another classroom, are publicly humiliating practices that would seem shocking if carried out in an adult place of work.

    Such practices are a quick fix in a busy school day but, in the long run, rarely result in behavioural changes from a student. Consider where space could be opened up for conversation rather than punishment. Can the language around bad behaviour be challenged to make room for more compassionate understanding of students who don’t so easily conform?

    Nurture relationships

    Ultimately, all of these methods aim to help prioritise teacher-student relationships and the relationships between students in the classroom. It’s these relationships that allow the student to be seen as a person, as opposed to, for instance, a middle-ability child.

    When we connect with the students in front of us by respecting them as people, listening to their point of view, acknowledging their difficulties and acting from a place of compassion, we end up being able to critique the assessments the students take, rather than the students themselves. It is from here that we build a classroom, a school and an education system that is more inclusive of everyone.

  • Mini Lessons – Keep them Small

    There has been an increased awareness of the ‘Mini-Lesson’. We’re using them in Maths – otherwise known as ‘hotspots’; we’re using them in reading, and more commonly in writing. They are great ways of quickly conveying information, getting student buy in, addressing noticeable gaps in knowledge, and moving on.

    What Are Mini Lessons?

    A while back I noticed that students had an issue in writing where their sentences went on and on and on without a full stop or a comma and often including more than one idea and the never ending storytelling that never allowed me to breathe while reading it. Much like that.

    So I addressed it. We discussed sentences over the course of a week, spending 10 minutes at the start of the lesson each day discussing ideas, and including one idea at a time. Students helped me edit examples and decide where full stops should go. We even got into how to combine two ideas together. Student buy-in was high, and there was a noticeable improvement almost immediately.

    An example of what to cover in a mini-lesson
    An example of what to cover in a mini-lesson

    The problem

    The common issue with the Mini Lesson lies in the teacher. As a method, they are great, because student attention isn’t overworked, and they focus on one point.

    However, being the great orators many of us are, and our passion for the act of ‘teaching’, Teachers often make the mini lesson less mini, and more lecture. Student interest wains, and their attention wanders elsewhere. It can go from a snappy, quick, and invigorating lesson, to a morbid affair with boredom, purely because of the length of time focussed on one thing.

    The reality is, a good Mini lesson should have one key point that is the focus, and should be limited to 10 minutes. 15 at a push. But certainly no longer.

    The solution

    There are a number of things that you can do to avoid going overtime.

    1. Make sure you only have one focus for the lesson. Additional points, or sidetracks will only add to the length of time, and can potentially confuse the point of the Mini lesson for the students. If other issues come up that don’t fit into your key focus, but need to be a focus in the future, then put it in the plan for tomorrow. There is always another day.
    2. Set a timer. Let the student’s know what it’s for and they’ll keep you accountable to it. Believe me. As soon as the buzzer sounds, then that’s time up. Eventually however, this can become tedious, and may become a distraction for students. But it’s a viable solution if you’re learning how long you have in 10 minutes, and how much you can cover in the allotted time for the Mini lesson.
    3. Watch other teachers perform mini lessons can not only give you inspiration, but can also allow you to see for yourself how much they get through, and what time they allow for it. You can monitor the clock and see when ten minutes is up.

     

  • Are Modern Learning Environments a Fad?

    We’ve all heard it in news, and seen it in the high glossy magazines or furniture websites, claiming ergonomic desks provide a quieter classroom, or driving through the new housing development with a 21st Century school nearby while the state housing that serves the poorer side of society watches on from across the road. Some have even experienced it going to a conference or workshop which are always held in the latest completed building project, often surrounded by glass walls and neatly air-conditioned atmosphere with the fresh aroma of recently laid high tensile carpet.

    Thats right. Modern Learning Environments, or ‘MLE’ for those of us keeping a list of teacher jargon and acronyms.
    Back when my grandparents went to school, every classroom was the same. A blackboard with chalk-filled scratches and impurities, each wooden desk facing the front, lined up in an individual grid for maximum efficiency. The teacher provided information for the masses, delivering speeches from the front like a preacher at a pulpit, and it was your responsibility to remember and follow directions or you would miss out.

    As time went by, we began to question the effectiveness of this. Desks began to get grouped into small clusters, and the term ‘desk groups’ was formed. In junior classes especially, desks were done away with completely, with furniture makers beginning to focus on large tables for schools. A classroom computer (ex-office computer) sits in the corner and is the place for students to go during wet lunchtimes where the class Solitaire challenge begins. The blackboard is removed for the front of a fridge, and is so called as a ‘whiteboard’. The teacher sets group work and walks around the class to ensure students are on task and discussing ideas together.

    Eventually we reach the current predicament where schools feel like they have to provide a range of different ‘areas’ for students. There are small pods of desks which link together in different ways, ottomans which cluster into circles or snakes, carpet pads or cushions instead of chairs, bean-bags are brought out from the corners, barstools with benches instead of individual desks. There is no ‘front’ of the classroom, and the standard whiteboard is now an interactive projector with multi-touch capability. We’ve opened up the school network to enable students to bring their own device (‘BYOD’) to school on which they can complete their school work. The teacher is a facilitator of learning for every student, and provides a model for inquiry, where students learn on their own with support from others around them, finding out what they want to find out, how they want to find it out. The classroom accesses all corners of the internet, and learning outside the classroom happens each week where the class Skypes another class across the other side of the world. The students are connected through a learning management system (‘LMS’), and parents regularly check in with their child’s progress at school through the school Moodle.

    What actually is a Modern Learning Environment?

    The Ministry of Education defines a MLE as follows:

    “A learning environment may be understood to be the complete physical, social and pedagogical context in which learning is intended to occur. …a modern learning environment is one that is capable of evolving and adapting as educational practices evolve and change – thus remaining modern and future focused.”
    MLE.education.govt.nz

    In short, a MLE is a space that changes depending on the learning at the time, and is future focussed as education progresses. It provides students and teachers with a choice on how to use the space, depending on the learning activity at the time. Students may find it more comfortable to lie on the floor with a laptop, rather than sit upright at a desk with pencil and paper.

    The Ministry website continues to explain that there are eight parts to consider when discussing a Modern Learning Environment.

    1. Accessible
    2. Air Quality
    3. Heating
    4. Healthy and Safe
    5. Lighting
    6. Insulation
    7. Sustainable
    8. Acoustics.

    It is important to remember that this is purely the physical environment. It does not consider online communities, or digital environments within this; but does take into account the idea of ‘ICT everywhere’.

    Why the Craze?

    So why is everyone clambering to get up the property ladder and develop their school into a MLE? Is it the consumer culture we’ve become so entrenched in now filtering into our expectations for school buildings. Is it the same reason that we have to have the latest iPhone as we do have to have the latest classroom fad?

    Firstly, we are attracted to the new. Many classrooms look tired. Those schools that were built during the baby boom in the 1960’s, now have classrooms that are pushing 50 years old. Heck, I bet any of us would look tired if we’d had 1000’s of kids running around us over the course of 50 years! Schools have lots of other priorities as they come to grips with the technical age, and ‘modernising’ classrooms is well down the list of things-to-do.

    It thus becomes very attractive walking into a classroom with clean walls, sharp, clean lines, superb lighting quality, and durable, usable spaces. I’m not sure cleaners will agree that full length glass walls are a good idea, but there is a sense of flow having them, un-defining the boundaries of a space and creating an openness to the area. There is a natural desire for this new environment, given that the alternative is so… old.

    The Need for Guidelines

    In some ways, with everyone wanting the new buildings and new furniture, there has to be suitable reasons and guidelines behind having them installed, so that the government can quantify and add some structure to the wants and desiers of every teacher in the country. The eight parts of the MLE were developed to ensure that there are reasons behind the decisions that are made regarding school property. Even when upgrading old school buildings, the eight boxes can get ticked off as the issues within them are addressed, and though they might not have the latest and greatest technology, or motion sensor lights, or wall to ceiling windows, or enough range in furniture to put a furniture sale to shame, they can still be considered as a MLE.

    So is it a Fad?

    Essentially, no. It’s not a fad. It’s not just the latest thing people are talking about. While environment is important, it is not the be all and end all of learning and education. Can it help? Yes. But a good teacher will teach well in any environment. A good student will learn well in any environment.

    But we are in the 21st Century. There are lots of amazing options out there to explore, especially in regards to our learning environments, and pursuing these is just another step in developing life long learners out of our classes.

     

  • Books. Books. iBooks.

    Those that know me know I am not much of a reader. Obviously I have to keep that quite quiet in the classroom, because I want to encourage my class to read as much as possible. To do so, I usually use a lot of picture books as inspiration for reading. I like picture books because; well lets face it… they have pictures! And some of those picture are works of arts all on their own. Whilst at University, a group of friends and I had an assignment to write a children’s “EBook” for use in a classroom. We had so much fun with it, we actually wrote a few books.
    Now; this was back in the time before iPads, E-Readers and the like. We had to use Powerpoint to create them for use as an EBook.
    Having just purchased iPads for each classroom at our school, I went and found some picture books on iBooks. It gave me an idea.
    A good idea.
    So I dug around my old files from university, and eventually found our original powerpoint EBook. I took it, converted it into a suitable format using iBooks Author, and now it is currently awaiting approval from Apple NZ to be made available in our country. Seeing how easy it was, I decided that actually, I could probably use my love of art and painting, and couple it with my vocation, and make some picture books suitable for 10 year olds and up.

    02

    I even found out how to get ISBN numbers – and it’s not that hard!!!
    Keep an eye out on iBooks Store for an author out there with my name on it!