In our contemporary restorative model (we call it RP2.0), one of the simplest and most effective changes we encourage teachers to make is the use of Affective Language. Affective Statements are absurdly simple. All you do is say what you were about to say … and chuck an accurate feelings word in there. …
I’ve had several conversations with schools considering a harder line when it comes to improving student behaviour. I get it. It’s hard at the moment. Our workforce is somewhere between stretched and overwhelmed, and we’re a feeling little desperate. The evidence for some schools choosing this path is a quick win they’ve had. They’ve…
I had a fabulous story relayed to me by my colleague Daniel Vella this week. I’d rather not name the school as they have a class still trying to shake a negative label… and the work’s not done just yet. But they know who they are! The story is about a Year 5/6 teacher who…
I’ve had a few chats with teachers and school leaders lately about preventing conflict between boys (mostly) of all ages in the playground. The most common context for these spats between their boys seems to be sport. Some of these schools are considering extra yard duties for staff so that somebody can umpire…
My latest audiobook adventure was recommended to me twice on the same day. So firstly, my thanks go to the intrepid and wise Chris Cawsey (Principal, Rooty Hill HS) and also Dr Michael Carr-Gregg who mentioned this book later on the very same day in a keynote presentation I observed at the Queensland Association…
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker gave a commencement speech to students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois last year. This link will provide you with a 2-minute excerpt of what he had to say. I’m a fan of his message. Pritzker is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, attorney and venture capitalist whose family owns…
The partnership between home and school has never been more important, fragile or tenuous. Around three decades now of the media highlighting only the problems between parents and schools – rather than the massive volume of positive interactions – will do that. As a result, we find ourselves seeking to encourage parents out of…
It’s true that we should all be relentless in the pursuit of improving teacher quality. What’s just as true is that we should be making it as easy as possible for teachers to teach at their highest quality. A decent example of focusing on the conditions in which teachers work effectively is what’s called…
I’ll get to the point. There were alarmist news stories galore this week about how our schools are going “old school” when it comes to student behaviour. We read about how we’ll be explicitly teaching a new behaviour curriculum, about red/yellow card systems, about furniture being nailed to the floor in rows and…
In my last principalship, I had the opportunity to lead a school with a distinct strategic focus on cooperative learning. To that effect, we chose to deploy the Kagan Cooperative Learning model in conjunction with Restorative Practices, Co-Teaching and Evidence Based Programming to round out our ‘Big 4’. It proved to be a…