Reigniting the love of learning

 One child in KA has been particularly disruptive and disrespectful during the first 2 weeks of term 4. According to the other mentors he has regressed back to how he was at the start of the year when he didn’t want to come to school, didn’t like school and didn’t like learning. This is in stark contrast to the end of term 3 when he was caught on video talking about liking school because he liked learning.

We had a meeting this week with the child and his parents to discuss what we could do to bring the love of learning back. They have troubles with him at home and he is quite a lively, energetic child who has trouble staying focused and gets easily distracted.

To help combat some of this and encourage him to manage himself we are going to move where his mentor group meet to a less busy area, we will create a learning space for him to go to (a carrel type set up), have ear muffs available when the noise gets too much and bring in a wrist band reward system. Whenever a mentor catches him doing the right thing he gets a wrist band, when he has earnt 5 then he gets extra play time (something he chose).

Hopefully by focusing on the good (ignoring the bad), and having a space for him to learn that has less of a sensory impact we can make a positive change and restore the love of learning. He does have to realise that learning is hard and that by using a growth mindset he can grow his brain and that managing himself and being motivated to learn will enable him to succeed. We just need to put systems in place around him to enable this.

Fingers crossed it works!!

Relationships

Week 3 at SPS has been all about the relationships. We held 3-way learning conversations so this gave me a great opportunity to meet 17 out of my 20 mentor group families. Hearing the children being able to articulate and truly understand one of our core beliefs – that of having a growth mindset, was amazing. These 5 year olds can talk about a concept that most adults would struggle to define. Not only that but they can also talk about a time they have used it and also apply it to their future learning.

 Being part of the learning conversations with Muireann was an amazing growth experience for me. Hearing our children talk about their learning and then listening to Muireann talk about progressions and describing to parents (and the children) why the goal the child might have chosen was appropriate has deepened my understanding of teaching year 1 children. 

Writing was one focus picked by the majority of children as an area where they could use their growth mindsets. The complicated nature of learning to write was highlighted. Children have to think about what they are going to write, then hold the pencil properly, having the fine motor skills to be able to do this, forming letters and building the letters in to words and then the words into sentences. Not forgetting the purpose, and other conventions such as finger spaces, full stops, capital letters (in the right place!). Phewww!

Having spent the last 3 weeks with this group of children and another mentor, has been a really good introduction into both life at SPS and the capabilities, quirks and personalities of these 5 and 6 year olds. Bring on the next instalment!