I have been wanting to do this course for a number of years but the opportunity never really presented itself until this year. After teaching for 20 years some people were curious as to why I wanted to participate at this stage of my career.
My reasons - Why not!? I've heard great things about it for over 15 years. My brain can take a punitive stance at times and this is something I've worked hard to change. Being the parent of an almost 7 year old has also given me much to reflect on when it comes to managing a child's behaviour. I'm doing the course alongside a beginning teacher I am currently mentoring - I thought this was a great opportunity to work more closely with him and other professionals at different stages in their careers, and share our thoughts on effective classroom practice. We also have some challenging behaviours in our kura at the moment so I was keen to take on anything that might challenge my own beliefs about behaviour management help me to better support my team. With our change in tumuaki, we have recently introduced restorative practice - this seems to align nicely with what I knew about IYT.
Our first session covered Building Positive Relationships and Proactive Teaching - the bottom 2 tiers of the pyramid below. There were definitely some great reminders for myself here.
Some key takings from these 2 tiers -
- Relationships are key! With the tamaiti, and the whānau.
- Position yourself at the level of the learner.
- Hold space.
- Be available and present - little things like eye contact when taking the roll, smiling, acknowledging, making connections, asking questions that show you know them or have remembered something they've shared.
- Make the day predictable and explicit - kids love routine!
During the Proactive Teaching portion of the day we looked at Behaviour Management plans. These covered what we know about the learner, how they might see themselves, their whānau support, their current needs, extra support they might need and steps/strategies that we know can help calm and de-escalate. They are for tamariki who are not in the top tier by any means, but who fall slightly below - they still need lots of support but don't attract funding/ta support. I thought these would be a great support system to implement for our tier 2 kids. How helpful would this be for a reliever to pick up, someone like myself or SENCO to be able to read to make ourselves familiar with these cherubs. I am keen to sit down with my team and look at creating these for tamariki who need in school support. I think sitting down and completing them as team brings another layer of support and understanding - everyone can be onboard in supporting the child. Watch this space.
I must point out my disappointment with the extremely dated vignettes that are still used in IYT. Each one comes from the 80s and is so very outdated. After viewing each one we were asked to discuss the positive interactions we noted - I found it really hard to do so due to negative interactions I saw - Standing over kids, leaning over them from above, touching... so awful! I can not understand why these have not been updated!! As pointed out this is an American company. So far this is the only serious flaw I have noted - but it has definitely reduced my excitement about taking part.
All in all, a full on day. Lots of reminders and refreshers about good practise strategies that can sometimes be forgotten/put aside in a teachers already overloaded brain! Looking forward to session 2 with a little less enthusiasm than before, but nonetheless keen to see what's on offer.
