Heard on the Hill Term 1, Week 9

Learning Environment and Staff Wellbeing

Hands up who's tired? Yes, that's what I thought - all of you. It's important to acknowledge the term we are having. The impact of Covid has meant more internal relief at times, more following up of absent students and making sure they have the class work, more worrying about our own health and the health of those we care about. It is normal to be feeling tired, stressed and sometimes even a little grumpy. But, when we go into the classroom, or we interact with students in the yard, we need to make sure we are emotionally regulated and able to maintain a positive tone when managing student behaviour.

The Third Space

A little strategy that you could try to help you emotionally regulate is the "third space". This is the transition space between one thing and another. Adam Fraser wrote an entire book about this concept, but here is a diagram to simplify it. It basically involves taking a short pause as you transition, to reflect, rest and reset. It is about being mindful, and about recognising any dysregulation you may be feeling. You might then need to do some breathing exercises or whatever it is that works for you to get regulated.

If you struggle with your emotional regulation, you may need to seek further support. This could be catching up with a friend, talking to your line manager, or it may need to be some specific counselling from our employee assistance provider - PeopleSense - see the link below.

Progress Reports

The planned parent interview afternoon for Tuesday 5 April has been placed on hold. The school will now send out to parents a progress report for all students; lower school and senior school. The progress report is not a formal report and does not require teachers to do any action other than enter data as per normal. The requirement is for teachers to have up to  data entered into RTP by the close of Monday 4 April in order for parents to receive an accurate progress report.

RTP Good Practice

A good practice that can easily be done by everyone is that when the first data is entered into RTP to also complete the ABEs at the same time. By entering the ABE for a student at the same time as the first data is entered, allows you to have a fresh view on a student and how they are performing. At each subsequent entry of data you tweak the ABE to reflect how each student is doing; very little extra effort to be accurate. Not only does this allow the teacher to demonstrate a clear knowledge of their students, but also provides PCs or HoYs a snapshot of a student if they need to speak to a parent. And by doing it this way there is less stress/need to rush this requirement at the end of the semester when reports are due. When reports are due the ABEs have already been done and only require that tweak to be accurate.

Note: No teacher is being asked to enter ABEs for a student’s progress report because ABEs are not part of a progress report!

Effective Feedback

Tweaking the ABE of a student throughout the term to accurately reflect the actions of a student towards their study leads back to what is ‘The Best Teacher’ modus operandi for student feedback. To quote from Hattie “Effective feedback leads to positive changes in teaching and learning practices and significant improvements in student outcomes”. The AITSL standards requires teachers to be active in their feedback to students; how to grow the student. AITSL has a range of resources for everyone to tap into including this one – click here  or here.

Hello World

Say hello to Luella Marie Marinoni who came into our world at 6.12pm on the 24th of March 2022. It was an all day event beautifully soundtracked by machinery demolishing parts of the hospital... for the whole time. Luella needed some extra support under the watchful eyes of the midwives but has come through with flying colours! Mum is getting her strength back and Dad is impatient to take his girls home.

Luella is named for her father Luke and her pops Luigi and Murray; the men who will be her biggest champions and supporters over her lifetime.

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Something interesting happening in or around your classroom? Having an incursion or excursion this term? Please let me know!

We love to share updates from the school with our community and would like representation from each area of our wonderful school; no matter how big or small.

Please submit stories for our Facebook page via the wufoo link below and include as much information as you can, plus a few images to accompany the article. If you are having trouble with the wufoo form, you can email the information to me directly.(ellie.mackay@education.wa.edu.au)

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