I’m an avid reader and, at times, a ferocious information consumer.
Whilst I try my best to avoid the compulsion of checking my social media feeds every five minutes, I do find myself engrossed in a number of books at different points during a typical day.
One of the old adages that I attempt to live by is the notorious ‘life is too short to learn from your mistakes, so make sure you learn from other peoples’. However, I know that I’m going to make mistakes just like anyone else, so I guess I’m going to have to learn from my own mistakes whether I like it or not, right?
Well, kind of.
For quite a while now I’ve been writing about the idea that we can only learn from mistakes (ours or other peoples’) if we remember those mistakes.
And that’s the problem isn’t it? – memory.
Organizing the information we receive from life can help to solve the problem of mistake memory, as well as help with our studies, build relationships with colleagues and clients and even help us to build up skills and new personality traits.
As a high school Science Teacher I am constantly encouraging my students to organise their notes and resource-information effectively, so that they can revise successfully for tests and exams. However, these techniques can also be used to plan for, and solve, a plethora of day-to-day problems that we all face.
#1: Bullet-points
Easy and simple: bullet-points list the important parts of a text or information piece in a somewhat-sequential order. Great for summarizing large processes.
#2: Concept Maps
Concept maps are artistic and highly visual representations of concepts that link to a central theme.
Although concept maps have be used for centuries by people from all walks of life, they were first popularised by British psychologist Tony Buzan in the 1970s and given the name ‘Mind Maps™’. Buzan’s suggestions for creating the most effective Mind Maps™ are as follows:
Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least three colors (I’ve clearly missed that in the example above, oops!)
Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map
Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters
Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line
The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The lines become thinner as they radiate out from the center.
Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support
Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also for encoding or grouping
Develop your own personal style of mind mapping
Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map
Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy or outlines to embrace your branches
For more information about Mind Maps™ you can visit thiswebsite.
#3: Mnemonics
These are fun phrases that help you to remember sequences, hierarchies or concepts. Here are some random examples:
Naughty Elephant Squirts Water: North East South West (starting at 12 and working clockwise)
King Prefers Cheese On Fresh Green Salad: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species (classifiers in evolutionary biology)
My Very Energetic Maiden Aunt Just Swam Under North Pier: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (Order of the planets in the solar system starting at the Sun – yes, I know, Pluto isn’t a planet anymore it’s a dwarf planet – change pier into ‘Dark Purple Pineapple’ and you’ll have ‘Dwarf Planet Pluto’, I guess.)
#4: Acronyms
These are a little different to mnemonics – you just use the letters for these (no need to invent a new word sequence).
Here are some examples:
MR FABor “Mister Fab” (when spoken): Mammals, Reptiles, Fish, Amphibians and Birds (vertebrate groups in the animal kingdom)
MRS GREN:Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrition (the 7 functions of life)
Now this is where I reveal my weird side: you can actually use this technique to reinforce core beliefs and value systems.
In my case, my wristwatch is anORISAquis:
Now, to me,ORISmeansOrder,Respect,Integrity,Strength:four life-principles that I try to live by. This means that every time I look at my watch, I am reminded of my core-values and that drives me forward to succeed a little more, every single day.
Are there ways that you could use the acronyms in your life to drive you onwards and upwards?
#5: Infographics
Do you remember when teachers used to ask students to make posters? Well there’s a new kid on the block: the infographic.
An infographic is basically a detailed, organised poster and can include all of the organisational methods I’ve method, but all together on one page.
One of my favorite websites for making infographics ispicktochart.You’ll have to sign up, but it’s free to use once you’re in.
Here’s an infographic I made over there:
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At 23-years-old I was a fraction of the educator I am today. I was fresh out of university and completing my PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education – it’s one way to become a teacher in the UK).
My life was hell for that year of my PGCE course. Trying to keep my students engaged and on-task was challenging enough for an inexperienced teacher. However, my largest challenge was by far this one thing: marking and assessment.
In those early days I found marking to be exhaustive and really boring. I hated carrying a bag of heavy books home and reading through page after page of the same material. I found it really hard to mark my student work regularly too – in large part because I was making life harder than it had to be for myself.
I’m now in my sixteenth year of teaching and, finally, I have reached a stage where I can honestly say that not only do I enjoy marking, but it also takes up very little (if any) of my free time.
If you’re a teacher who’s struggling to keep on top of your marking, or if you want to claim back some of the ‘me time’ that you spend looking at student work, then please read on. I don’t want you to go through the same sleep-deprivation and wasted weekends and school holidays that I went through learning all this stuff!
#1: ‘Live’ Marking
I have personally wasted so much of my free time both at school and at home marking student work. Many late nights; many lost weekends. All for nothing.
Well, not completely for nothing – at least now I’ve seen sense and can pass on my experiences to you so that you don’t go through the same pain.
You see, I now know that feedback only works if it is relevant, specific and somewhat emotional. How do we achieve this? – we must mark student work with the students. They have to be involved too.
As soon as I started doing these things, my impact skyrocketed:
Simply walk around the classroom with a colored pen in hand. Tick, flick and mark student work as you walk around.
For larger pieces of work, set the kids on a task and call the students to your desk one at a time. Sit with the student and discuss the work, adding written comments in front of the student along the way. Use praise effectively and remember – praise only works if it is sincere, specific and collective (tell your colleagues and get them to praise the student too).
Use peer-assessment and self-assessment, but don’t do this for everything. Students still need to receive acknowledgement from their teacher.
I’ve written a useful article about peer and self-assessment techniqueshere. Some general advice on giving feedback can be foundhere.
Shortly after getting my PGCE and completing my NQT year in the UK, I came to Bangkok, Thailand to work as a Chemistry Teacher at an international school. I was lucky enough to have been given a very able and hard-working class of Year 10 students to teach. In fact, the illustrator of this blog and my books: Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati, was in that class.
I decided to try using Learning Journals with these IGCSE Chemistry students. The idea was that they were to buy a special notebook (not their normal class book) and fill it with revision summaries, mind-maps, key words and anything learnt in class each week. I wanted it to be a ‘living journal’, and not just simply a replica of the students’ class notes.
The students mainly took to it verywell. Extracts from Pop’s beautiful Learning Journal are shown below:
Highly-motivated students like Pop would always hand in beautiful notes, every single week. In fact, CfBT inspectors came to that school that year and they said that Pop’s notes were the best they had ever seen!
Wow! That’s quite a statement.
However, some students didn’t take to it that well and I found out why: I wasn’t giving feedback regularly enough. Some weeks I would be too busy with other school things, so I would sometimes (to my shame) collect in the journals and simply give them back the next day with some simple verbal feedback only.
I discovered that when students were given some written feedback on a weekly basis, however small, they was a marked improvement in the quality of the journals I received each week.
Back then, when I realised this at 26 years of age, I would write multiple comments on every page in a student’s journal. This almost killed me when I had 20 journals to mark. I soon gave that up and came up with a better way.
Oh, but did the journals work? Well…that class went on to get 100% A*-C in their Chemistry IGCSEs.
Did the journals help them achieve this? I believe so.
My updated (better) journaling system
I’ve set up a Learning Journal system with my Year 11 IGCSE and Year 12 and 13 IBDP classes. Every Monday they must bring their journals to my room and place them in the right place, as shown below:
Then, after school every Monday I write one and only one post-it note of feedback for each student; which I stick in their journals. This keeps my feedback focused on the essentials and increases my productivity.
An example of what this feedback might look like is given in this reconstruction below:
Students pick up their journals (with post-it note feedback inside) every Tuesday, meaning that they are getting recurring, weekly feedback as well as regular, meaningful homework.
I’ve been using this system successfully for a few years now. The student-signed register system allows me to quickly see who hasn’t completed a journal and the fact that I force myself to get all of the post-it-notes filled in on Monday evening means that I can chase up late journals very quickly.
A little ‘tweak’
I did find that the Monday evenings were becoming quite hard because of all of the journals I was marking. Now, I spread out the days to match my timetable:
Year 11 give me their journals on a Monday
Year 12 on a Wednesday
Year 13 on a Friday
The system allows me to give regular feedback to my students, and it seems to be showing in the progress they are making in tests and assessments.
In addition to this, I’ve turned my Learning Journals into a ‘live-marking’ recurring feedback system: I mark them in class, with the students. It means that I lose no free time, and I am able to give one-to-one feedback to each student that is meaningful and specific.
Learning Journals Conclusion
Journaling is a powerful tool when used correctly
It can be applied to any subject area
It’s great for exam-level classes doing revision
Recurring feedback and meaningful homework come as part of the package
The students can be creative and present their journals in any way they choose (online is an option too)
The feedback process allows the teacher to get to know their students’ strengths and weaknesses very quickly
The Learning Journal is a permanent record that the students can treasure and be proud of
Journaling is not used enough in the teaching profession. I aim to change this.
I’ve written a separate blog post about Learning Journals here.
#3: Peer Assessment
I first learnt the power of peer assessment back in 2008, when I had just moved to Thailand.
As a keen young teacher with two years of UK teaching experience, I found myself teaching students who were all very keen to do their best. Homework assignments and classwork seemed to come my way on a real-time, live-stream basis, and I soon found myself inundated with work to mark.
“An AMAZING book”
At first, I tried the traditional methods of using a green or red pen to write lengthy comments on each piece of work. I had learned from my training in Assessment for Learning in the UK that written comments that help the student to improve were much better than a letter grade or a score followed by a ‘Well Done’. I’d learnt about the ‘two stars and wish rule’ where I’d write two positive things about the work and then one item or target for improvement.
These ideas were great in theory, but I found that my weekends became shorter and shorter as I tried to write effective comments on every piece of work that came in. I was spending less and less time doing the hobbies I enjoyed, and I became quite the old grouch.
I finally expressed my concerns in the staff room one day and a colleague of mine said “You should do more peer assessment”. She was right.
I instantly started getting my students to mark their own work, and reflect upon it, and the results were astounding: My weekends became ‘me time’ again, and students seemed to learn better than they would from receiving my comments.
As I continued to develop my skills in assigning proper peer-assessment, I discovered that I was sometimes making some catastrophic errors. I refined my strategy over the years, and came up with this six-step system:
Step 1: Make sure that the work you set has an official mark scheme or set of model answers associated with it. There’s nothing worse than trying to ‘guess’ the best answers along the way as you’re trying to get the kids to assess the work. Make your own mark scheme if necessary, but make sure the answers are clear.
Step 2: When it comes time for the kids to assess the work, ask them to swap their work with someone else in the class. Alternatively, if this doesn’t work for your particular class, then collect the work in and redistribute it.
Peer-assessment saves you time and energy, and is effective
Step 3: Ask each student to get a colored pen ready to mark with. Red and green are good. You may wish to have a set of special ‘marking pens’ somewhere in class that the kids can use whenever they mark each others’ work.
Step 4: Print the official mark scheme and give a copy to each student. This has the advantage of providing a permanent copy for each student to keep, and allows you time to help students as they mark. Projecting the answers onto a screen can also work, but you may find that students cannot see and that you may have to scroll through at a pace that’s not suitable for every student. Printing a copy, or sharing it on the schools VLE so that students can access it via a tablet or laptop, is best.
Step 5:Make it very clear that students should tick the answer if it’s correct, and make full corrections if it is wrong. The mere act of writing out the model answer onto the work being marked will reinforce the concepts into the subconscious mind of the student.
Step 6:Let the students give the work back. Collect it in at the end of the lesson so that you can glance through and check that everyone has peer-assessed properly. If anyone hasn’t, then make them do it again.
Once work has been peer-assessed, you can sit down with individual students and have ‘progress conversations’ designed to pin point areas of weakness and highlight areas of strength
You have to be quite organised with this method (e.g. making sure you print the mark schemes on time). However, this will save you loads of time and will definitely help the kids to learn properly.
#4: Self-Assessment
Not surprisingly, self-assessment has similar perks to that of peer-assesment. This great overviewby the University of Sydney advocates for the wide-use of self-assessment with students for the following key reasons:
It encourages student involvement and participation, so it’s great for students who normally find group activities or active class tasks a little uncomfortable
When used in conjunction with group work it can be a great way to assess one’s personal role and contribution in the group experience and learning process
Academic appraisals aside, I’ve found from my personal experience that both self and peer-assessment are absolutely invaluable to the modern practitioner. They save you oodles of time as a teacher and students learn so much from each process.
There are a number of different ways that self and peer-assessment can be used in the classroom. My experience has taught me (the hard way!) that the following tasks work really well:
Making corrections to tests and assessments: When any important test or assessment comes up, I don’t think it is appropriate to have students marking these themselves. They’ll get it wrong, even with a mark scheme to use, and will be overly generous on themselves and their peers (unless they’ve been trained for a period of time – more on that next). However, a great activity is to mark the tests yourself, then give the tests back to the students along with a printed or online mark scheme. The students could then use a coloured pen to make full and detailed corrections to their test papers. You could turn this into an AfL exercise, with students writing down the question numbers they got wrong on the whiteboard, or on an anonymous piece of paper. You could then go through these questions afterwards to clear up common misconceptions. If you run a regular Learning Journals system (as I currently do), then students could write down the questions and the model answers in their Learning Journals. This causes very deep-learning to take place and is great for building long-term memory!
Assessing homework, classwork and regular assignments: A great time-saver for teachers. Just make sure the kids have access to the model answers. Don’t forget to collect the work in too – you need to know that the kids actually did the work you asked them to do.
Past-papers:Exam-level students really need to become familiar with the official mark schemes provided by exam boards. They need to become comfortable with key vocabulary, language and command terms. Provide exam-level students with regular past-papers to do as homework. Provide mark schemes too, so that they can self and peer-assess their work in class later. For older students (e.g. ‘AS’ – Level, SAT and IBDP learners) I’ll sometimes give them past papers and mark schemes to take home. Their task is to complete the past-papers under timed conditions and mark them using the mark schemes. The student then hands me the papers completed and marked (this is essential – I need to know that they have completed the assignment). I then check the papers for common misconceptions and target those in class.
Technological means:There a number of ways in which technology can assist in the peer and self-assessment process. Google formsare great; as are online quizzes provided by trusted third parties (e.g.BBC BitesizeandMyiMaths) and online quizzes that teachers can build by themselves (e.g.Quizlets). Make use of these and others (e.g.Kahoot– great for getting kids to use their mobile devices), as they are really interactive and can offer a nice break from traditional methods.
Conclusion
Stop spending your free time marking classwork, homework and tests: it really is a pointless exercise.
Sometimes you may have to do marking the traditional way (e.g. when it’s the exam period and you have ton of papers to mark). Most of the time, however, you should use the Four Pillars:
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I’m a big fan of books and articles that condense years and years of hard-earned experience into a few, clear, tidbits of advice that anyone can benefit from.
The aim of this week’s blog post is to do just that.
To set the context for today’s article I’ll tell you a little about me: I completed my PGCE in 2006, taught secondary science in the UK for two years before moving to Thailand to teach science and mathematics at international schools (along with a little German here and there). I’m now in my 16th year of teaching. In 2015 I published my bestselling book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, which has inspired thousands of teachers all over the world to make subtle little changes to their approach to teaching, with massive results being reported from educators in a variety of sectors and subject areas.
I’ve found that there are many simple techniques that I need to adopt on a daily basis to be exceptional at my job. I’m not talking about that seminar you went to where you had to spend hours planning the so-called ‘perfect lesson’. I’m talking about real stuff: things we can actually do that make a difference, and don’t eat into our free time.
So strap on your seatbelt – this aint grad school!
#1 – Play learning games
You don’t need special resources and you don’t need tons of time – learning games can be applied to any subject, at anytime.
My two favorites are ‘splat’ and ‘corners’, detailed below:
Splat
This quick game is so easy: all you need is a whiteboard, whiteboard markers and a class of kids. It’s a great game for consolidating key vocabulary, and is perfect for E.A.L. learners.
Here’s a short video showing a quick clip of me playing ‘Splat’ with my students (I will include some more lengthy clips soon, but this is a good start):
Corners
Get the kids to stand all around the room. Ask a question. The first to raise their hand can answer. If the student gets it correct then he or she can choose another student to sit down. The game ends when one person is left standing. ‘Sitters’ can also play, but they cannot stand up again.
You can find some more learning games at my articleshereandhere.
#2: Keep a personal journal
This is so powerful, but it’s almost never encouraged in the teaching profession.
Get a special notebook, and use it to record:
Things you did well
Great lessons you planned and implemented
Teaching mistakes you made
We often repeat the mantra ‘learn from your mistakes’, but we rarely consider that mistakes are easily forgotten. We can only learn from mistakes if we remember them. I like to write them down, and then read over my journal every Sunday. It keeps me reinforcing the positive stuff I did, and ensures that I don’t make the same teaching mistake twice.
Available to order now. Only $3.99.
I’ve made a quick video about this here:
#3 Use Learning Journals with your students
Powerful and effective
Encourages consolidation of knowledge and good revision
The kids hand it in on the same day each week, so it generally prevents students from forgetting their homework
The teacher can easily plan his or her marking and admin around this regular feedback routine
Perfect for exam revision, but can be used with any age-group (as long as they can read and write)
It’s cumulative, and acts as a great learning record for the kids
Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it?
So how do we set-up and use learning journals?
Tell the kids to buy a special notebook for themselves. If this won’t work, then give each student a school notebook.
Choose a particular day each week for the students to hand in their Learning Journals
Explain that the journals are for students to record revision notes, answers to questions and reflections on learning. They can use any style they want (see Pop’s Learning Journal above – it’s beautiful!).
Put a name list on the noticeboard. Students hand in their learning journals on the allotted day and sign next to their name.
5. Write one AND ONLY ONE post-it note of feedback for each-week’s work in each journal. This keeps our marking time down and keeps our feedback direct. See the example below:
This ‘marking’ doesn’t have to happen in our free-time either – read my advice about ‘live-marking’ next. You can also read more about Learning Journals in my articlehere.
#4 – ‘Live’ Marking
I have personally wasted so much of my free time both at school and at home marking student work. Many late nights; many lost weekends. All for nothing.
Well, not completely for nothing – at least now I’ve seen sense and can pass on my experiences to you so that you don’t go through the same pain.
You see, I now know that feedback only works if it is relevant, specific and somewhat emotional. How do we achieve this? – we must mark student work with the students. They have to be involved too.
As soon as I started doing these things, my impact skyrocketed:
Simply walk around the classroom with a colored pen in hand. Tick, flick and mark student work as you walk around.
For larger pieces of work, set the kids on a task and call the students to your desk one at a time. Sit with the student and discuss the work, adding written comments in front of the student along the way. Use praise effectively and remember – praise only works if it is sincere, specific and collective (tell your colleagues and get them to praise the student too).
Use peer-assessment and self-assessment, but don’t do this for everything. Students still need to receive acknowledgement from their teacher.
I’ve written a useful article about peer and self-assessment techniqueshere. Some general advice on giving feedback can be foundhere.
Here’s a video I made about the Four Rules of Praise:
#5 – Quick starters, quick plenaries
Do something to get the kids excited and ready for learning at the start of the lesson.
Do something active and focused to review learning at the end of the lesson.
Consider the following:
Put something in the students’ hands as soon as they walk into your classroom – a worksheet, a task, a sticker to put in their books. Anything useful to get their focus right as soon as the lesson starts.
Use the learning games I’ve already mentioned (see above)
Have a task or activity displayed on the whiteboard for the kids to complete
Use the Learning Journals (see above) – these don’t just have to be recurring homework records – they can be used as recurring plenaries too. Get the students to write five bullet points of information about what they’ve learned in their learning journal at the end of every Wednesday class, for example.
#6 – Gather professional intelligence
A professional intelligence journal can send you from excellent to ‘superhero’ status, very quickly.
But guess how many teachers have even heard of ‘Professional Intelligence’? – Almost none.
It works like this: Get a notebook or use a computer. Assign each page to one student (so if you have 200 students, then that’s 200 pages). Write non-confidential information on each page as the year progresses:
Birthdays (so that you can say ‘happy birthday’ on a kids birthday – a massive rapport-building strategy)
Hobbies and interests
Achievements
Goals, aspirations and dreams (e.g. which university the student wants to go to)
Use your professional intelligence to:
Strike up conversations with your students during lessons when activities are happening or even at impromptu times such as when you’re on duty or walking around school. This will show that you’re interested in their well-being and that you remember what they’ve said. Kids and young adults love being listened to and, deep-down, they all want to be recognised and admired for their skills and abilities.
Inform your lesson planning by dividing the class into skills groups for activities, or even link the hobbies and interests of your kids to the content.
Speak with students when they ‘slip-up’ or fall behind. I remember once having a one-to-one conversation with a 17-year-old boy who wanted to be a restaurant manager one day. His attitude and focus had been slipping in class, so I had a one-to-one chat with him. I reminded him of the dream and goal he once told me – that he wanted to be a restaurant manager. The effect was profound and deep, and he quickly put himself back on track.
#7 – Use the legendary power of ‘Subtle Reinforcement’
Do you know what ‘Subtle Reinforcement’ is? If you do then give yourself a clap: you’re in an infinitesimally small minority.
Subtle Reinforcement is the technique of building up your students’ power to change anything in their lives through a stoic belief in themselves, and identification with the experiences that have built-up their character over time.
There are 5 parts to Subtle Reinforcement:
Remind students of who they are – remember, and remind students of moments in life when they overcame setbacks because of character traits they possess: determination, resilience, tenacity, drive, empathy, etc.
Remind students of their skills and achievements – this is where Professional Intelligence can come in. Remind your students periodically of achievements they made months or even years ago. If you haven’t known them that long, then find out by speaking with your colleagues! Ask your students to describe their past achievements. Be interested – sometimes a short conversation can be life changing.
Take the time to discuss progress– Live Marking can feed into this, but it doesn’t stop there. Be sure to have one-to-one discussions with your students regularly to discuss classwork, homework and just general well-being. When kids know that their teachers care, they start to care more about themselves and their work.
Be the person you want your students to be: Be a role-model. Period. That means upholding decency and morality, and being professional at all times. Kids pick up subliminal cues all the time.
Be there – we don’t have to give up hours and hours after school each night. However, if a kid excitedly hands you their homework on the corridor five days early and really wants you to look at it, then don’t dismiss that. Spend a lunchtime or two helping out kids who are struggling – it makes a huge difference.
I’ve made a video about ‘Subtle Reinforcement’ here:
Use ICT to enhance learning positively, not negatively (yes, that’s possible).
Screen time is destroying children’s health: that’s a fact (see my article on the subject matterhere). However, it’s not necessarily the length of time that’s causing the damage, it’s childrens’ compulsion to use a variety of addictive programs such as social media and online games that seems to be causing the problems (see this University of Michiganresearchhere).
When we use technology to train kids that computers can help you to learn (not just to post selfies and wefies) we do them a great service.
Consider setting upKahootquizzes in class, doing aQR treasure huntand even using subject-specific programs such asMyMaths andEducake. Programs like this will often teach and assess the students, taking lots of time and effort out of the teacher’s hands.
#9 – Differentiation
This used to be a ‘buzzword’ in education. It’s still pretty important.
And, by the way: for those who now think that learning styles don’t exist – they still do. My 12 years of teaching experience have taught me that some kids like to build models to help them learn and others like watching YouTube videos and making notes.
Differentiation is when every student in a group has the same learning objectives, but a variety of methods are used by the teacher to get those kids to where they need to be.
My two favorite differentiation techniques are Learning Style Tables and Delegated Responsibility:
Learning Style Tables:This is such a great activity for engaging a wide variety of learners. The idea is that you produce the same information or lesson instructions via pictures, audio, in writing or in clues that need to be solved or through some some other style, such as tablet PCs linked to online simulations. Students can go to the table that best suits their learning style or you can direct themto one. This takes some preparation but it’s well worth it.
Delegated Responsibility: Allocate different tasks to different groups within a class, based upon ability levels. For example, when analyzing a poem a weaker group might be asked to ‘describe the meaning’, whilst a higher ability group might be asked to ‘suggest the ways in which form and structure emphasize the meaning’.
Here’s a short video I made about differentiation:
Sometimes we get caught up in the hustle-and-bustle of starting a new academic year.
From teacher-training, photocopying, meeting new colleagues and lesson-planning; to designing curriculum maps and baseline assessments: the first few weeks of school can be very busy and stressful for teachers.
One thing we must remain mindful of, however, is the mental and emotional health of our students at this time.
Whether they are returning to school, starting at a new school, transitioning to high school or starting their first day at school; many of our learners will be feeling the pressure as the new academic year begins.
In this week’s article, I shall attempt to break-down the most common concerns, problems and stresses that kids have when starting school, along with some strategies that we can put in place to resolve these issues.
#1. Nervousness
Nervousness is a common problem for new students, kids changing school and even students who have new teachers and new classes this year.
What can parents and teachers do to help?
Introduce the child to his or her new teachers before the new academic year begins
Check up on our kids each week for the first few weeks, and iron-out any issues. A simple one-to-one chat for 5 minutes is all it takes.
Remind them that nervousness is normal, and that lots of kids will be feeling nervous at this time too
Make it really clear to the child that he or she can come and talk to us whenever they have a question, concern or need help. This is particularly important for form tutors/homeroom teachers.
#2. Getting lost
If the school has had new building work, or if kids are starting at a new school, they will take some time to find their way around.
What can parents and teachers do to help?
Don’t get mad if kids are a little late to class for the first week or so. Have sympathy – we’ve all found ourselves getting lost in new surroundings from time to time (shopping malls come to mind).
Use colours to highlight areas of the school on the students’ timetables. Building A could be in red and Building B in blue, for example. Black stripes for the ground floor, yellow dots for second floor and green swirls for the third floor. This could be a nice activity for kids on the first day back – get them to colour in their timetables based on location.
Make signage really clear! Do all of the classroom doors have large numbers on them, with the teachers’ names and subjects? It still amazes me how few schools do this properly. It’s such a simple idea and is very easy to implement.
Buddy up new kids with kids who already know the school. The buddy can help the new kid get around and get used to the school layout.
#3. Making Friends
This can be a major and all-encompassing concern for some students, and it seems to become more important the older the students get. Feeling alienated or being ‘left-out’ can be an absolutely heart-wrenching experience for some kids, and is in itself a form of bullying (more on that in #4).
What can parents and teachers do to help?
Work some team-building activities into the first day or two of the new academic year. Get the kids working together and talking together, and put them in groups so that they have to get along with another. A simple idea is a ‘treasure hunt’ around the school, where the kids look for important landmarks on campus (this helps with solving #2 – getting lost, too)
Schedule an outdoor learning adventure trip into the first half-term. A three-day trip to the mountains, or a water-themed snorkeling and beach activities camp can be perfect for breaking-down some of the shyness that students may have and is great for building new friendships.
Again, a buddy-system can work well. Buddy the kids up with each other and schedule meetings with the buddy-teams to check how the kids are getting on.
Teachers might want to increase the frequency of peer-assessment during the first few weeks, as this will encourage new students to work with their peers more frequently and can be a good way for kids to ‘break-the-ice’ with one another.
#4. Bullying
It goes without saying, but it needs to be said: every school should have a zero-tolerance approach to bullying.
New students may come to a new school with peers that bullied them in a previous school. Some kids may be picked-on because of the way they look to other kids, the way they speak, or anything for that matter. Bullies will find anything and everything to capitalize on when being cruel and abusive to other students.
What can parents and teachers do to help?
Spot it. Address it. Monitor it. – Three steps that can change a child’s life, literally. Learn how to spot the signs of bullying, and always raise it with the relevant line-manager or senior teacher. Talk to the students involved about what’s going on. Don’t forget, and don’t let it go unchecked when the victim seems to be getting along just fine – meet regularly with your students to check how they’re getting along.
Provide training for colleagues in anti-bullying strategies. If you’re a school leader, then a one-day workshop on the subject for all staff members would be a worthwhile investment of time at the start of the new academic year.
Go through the school’s mission statement and rules with your students on the first day of the new school year. Maybe a whole-school assembly could be a good idea? Top of the list should be this – Bullying will not be tolerated at our school. We care for each other, we respect each other, we help each other. We never bully each other. It’s amazing how many schools do not start the new year with this message – yet it’s so vital!
Don’t assume that bullying doesn’t happen at your school. I have personally had a quite a few surprises in my career – working at what seemed to be happy campuses, only to find out that bullying had been happening ‘under-the-radar’. Victims often don’t have the confidence to speak-up. Creating a school atmosphere where students feel they can speak-up about these things is absolutely crucial.
Get a school counselor – it’s worth the money! This may be the only person that some students feel comfortable talking to. Get someone who’s fully trained and who’s amenable and approachable.
#5. Language
The world is becoming more multi-cultural, withglobal net migrationfigures changing on a year-by-year basis. It is nowmore common for teachers to find international students in their classrooms than it has ever been before.
What can parents and teachers do to help?
Have patience. Take time. Speak slowly. Students who have English as an Additional Language may need more time to process information and respond than others.
Consider a cultural excursion/orientation programme for students new to the country. Day trips and seminars that showcase the cultural values of the host country can really help new students to integrate.
Put English language programmes on the T.V., with subtitles
Enable subtitles on YouTube and other video platforms
Usevocabulary gamesduring lessons – these are great for all students, natives included.
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