Clare Brokenshire reminds us that frequent examples of good pastoral practice within a positive school culture can make a big difference to a student’s day.
Thomas Kelley and Kathy Marshall propose that if we are to address the issue of poor wellbeing and mental stress in our schools, we must grasp a sufficient understanding of the way every person’s psychological life is created from the “inside-out”.
Despite the huge benefits of an international education, we know there can be a downside for ‘third culture kids’. Tanya Crossman looks at awareness and risk mitigation in schools.
Can the social and emotional state of our students be tracked to enable early intervention? Jonathan Taylor and Simon Antwis think so.
Matthew Savage looks at why students in international schools might choose to mask their real self and the consequences for student wellbeing.
Do you suffer from risk assessment anxiety? According to David Gregory, you are not alone but you can master your fears!
Eva Coddington of Sevenoaks School presents the case for the active practice of Yoga in schools as time very well spent.
Lorna Conroy describes how Bangkok Patana school has developed a two-track approach to monitor and support secondary student wellbeing.
It seems we are now constantly dealing with the effects of local and global uncertainty. Milena Prodanić Tišma describes how one school in Zagreb helped children to cope after two earthquakes during lockdown.
For Nicholas Chaddock, just talking about wellbeing in the classroom achieves little. Doing rather than talking is the key.
According to Jim Knight, Rt Hon Lord Knight of Weymouth, dealing with Covid has come at a cost, but significant ways to improve teacher wellbeing are also at hand this side of the pandemic.
The wait has been a long one, but their needs are not the same. Simon Dunford looks at the gaps in social learning that needs to be closed in different ways on returning to learning on-campus.
Safeguarding is a high priority in any good school, but Huma Shah wonders if we are doing enough to protect children’s data when using well-known online learning resources.
Do failure and trauma really toughen you up? Not without a process of healing, argues social psycholgist Dr. Helen Street.
A recent study by the OECD strikingly confirms the importance of holistic education. Andreas Schleicher looks at the outcomes of their 2018-20 global Survey of Social and Emotional Skills.
Do ‘inclusive’ leadership styles in teachers motivate students? A study by Paul Parham and Gloria Moss at Sevenoaks School suggests there is a significant correlation.
Charley Openshaw, IB teacher and Head of Art at Sevenoaks School recommends the virtues of careful observation and drawing as useful techniques for wider learning.
Claire Sewell looks at a new Post Graduate diploma course for 2021 which will help schools – including international schools – become more self-reliant in making a range of positive interventions.
Careers and Universities Counsellor, Paul Yap, looks at how graduating students can ‘win the wait’ imposed on them as they plan for the future during lockdown.
Set up to provide a great education in self-supporting schools, HUGS is a model for the development of low-cost, sustainable learning, as Dr. Richard Bircher reports.
Covid has brought home the value of getting outside. Nicholas Chaddock looks at why reevaluating the importance of outdoor education is so important for all of us in 2021.
Far from being marginalised, sport moved centre stage at this UK day and boarding school during a difficult year, as Ed Buck, Director of Sport reports.
As a result of frequent relocations and long periods of family separation, the children of military personnel need empathetic support in school, writes Louise Fetigan.
Whatever you teach, argues Richard Evans, helping students know themselves is equally important. Acquiring emotional literacy transforms lives – yours and theirs.
Feature Image: Courtesy of Brian D’Cruz Hypno Plus https://www.briandcruzhypnoplus.com/
Holly Warren describes Think Tank, an innovative studio environment in which children learn to synthesise their learning experiences as new design and art pieces.
The Think Tank (Warren, 2015) is an immersive, interactive studio setting (atelier) designed by students and an atelierista (art studio teacher) to celebrate, stimulate, enhance, and develop creative thinking patterns that connect children with a range of other experiences, both inside and outside a school. The concept was initially inspired by the educational approaches of pedagogues Loris Malaguzzi, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and Kieran Egan, which allow a child to express ideas, interests, concepts and theories by creating visual narratives without restriction. This approach sets the ground for exploratory adventures that will tell the story of a child’s research and findings and has evolved into what the children have described as “the place where your ideas come true.”
The Think Tank never requests, it proposes, shares, presents, and inspires its community to create art pieces that are expressive of their own experience. A constant inter-action with the students’ environment allows an ongoing dialogue of the parts. Think Tank therefore embraces and celebrates the different environments in which the students work, whether at home or at school.
Designing and making activities in Think Tank draw on materials which are readily available and are sourced locally either at school or at home. Recycled, repurposed and natural materials are valued, while the language, movement, and sounds that are part of the materials are used to enhance, document, and create narratives.
Think Tank is also a research hub for children’s ideas, concepts, and interests. As a child-centred learning setting it documents the ever-changing processes and themes the children spontaneously engage in.
During Think Tank sessions, the mentor meets small groups of 6 to 8 children in a Pow Wow format to share ideas and thoughts. These can be experiences, recollections of past explorations or new proposals. If needed, a quiet moment of recollection/thinking is proposed as a way of linking with the students’ self. Then the group creates a dialogue and decides how to proceed. This is the three-step process of visible thinking that accompanies the experiences.
The environment is set up with a selection of materials that the Think Tank mentor proposes in different areas of the room. These could be glass bead on the light table, a video installation with sounds and an area for exploration with light such as light pebbles and fairy lights.
Having welcomed each other, participants start a conversation about a continuing project or make an initial exploration of something new. Beads can turn into spaghetti in a make-believe restaurant, the video installation might become a walk in the woods or the lights may turn into a fire requiring firefighters to design a new generation hose.
Recently, due to the requirements linked to the pandemic the students have been given working and exploration areas that are not shared with other classes but are still trampolines of inspiration.
The Think Tank is its own setting, created with the children’s input. It is dynamic and changes according to the moment, the situation and the projects involved. This requires a space that can morph and adapt easily, but its salient characteristic is the mental space needed to create it.
However, there are strong links to what children are learning elsewhere, and which they bring to the studio quite naturally. Think Tank enables them to talk about these ideas and skills in a new context, which is invaluable. Surface learning becomes embedded into deep learning as the children make connections that are meaningful to the projects. Think Tank discussions therefore involve personal know-how and knowledge acquired in class from all areas of learning. Literacy, numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, social and emotional skills and predispositions, fine and gross motor skills, creative thinking and problem solving meet in the Think Tank, demonstrating the uniqueness of each student that becomes a vital element in the creation of projects that celebrate multi-perspectives:
“Nothing of me is original, I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve known.” (Palahniuk, 1999)
Think Tank therefore celebrates and brings together the school as a learning community. Parents become partners in exhibitions and performance art pieces when everyone adds to the outcome. During the lockdown parents themselves became Think Tank mentors themselves by stepping inside the experiences and working with the children to produce family pieces in a process of incredible educational value.
The richness of the Think Tank experience is best expressed in the words of the children themselves, as in the poem spontaneously presented by a seven year old participant to her parents as a gift:
The Think Tank is full of ideas,
If you listen with your ears, just peer through here,
And maybe you will see a pear,
You will see oysters and monsters.
But don’t worry you don’t need to say sorry.
Now watch this film (Ripples) and you will be surprised
With what your child has learnt.
Holly Warren is an atelierista, or art studio teacher, working in an international school in Italy. She is the creator of Think Tank – a new project environment that links the creative process of art with Montessori, Steiner and Reggio Emilia educational methodologies.
To learn more about her ideas see:
Images kindly provided by Holly
Daniel Shindler looks at the core values which has enabled him to take an optimistic view of what we all do.
For Felicity Gunn, enhanced intercultural mindedness, when practiced by the whole community, can take any school or business to new heights.
Young people in schools around the world are fighting back against Covid-19 with music. Laurie Lewin invites your school to join in.
Matthew Savage, creator of the #monalisaeffect® approach to personalised learning and wellbeing considers what other masks children will be wearing in 2020.
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If you are conducting a review of your school values and philosophy, Roger Sutcliffe suggests that you should do so philosophically.
Matt Harris Ed.D. reports how a significant gap in safeguarding training for schools is being filled by an innovative group of international educators.
Discovering CLT was a eureka moment for Steve Garnett – so important he felt compelled to write a new book for teachers. Here he shares 4 key ideas.
In the light of questions being asked about racism in 2020, Gwen Byrom thinks we all need to take a hard look at the cultural climate in which international learning is taking place.
Whether you are a teacher or a parent, wanting to help or protect the children for whom you are responsible is natural. But there are limits, says Nicola Pearson.
Statistics show that ‘Dropping out of uni’ is getting worse, not better. David Craggs thinks that schools have a major role to play in addressing the issue.
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Stephen Walshe argues that engaging young people in philosophical enquiry creates an environment conducive to building constructive confrontational skills and emotional intelligence.
Since children’s worries often interfere with their learning, it is helpful to understand their concerns. Sometime before lockdown, Leah Davies asked 320 third graders to list one or two things they think about when they cannot sleep. Perhaps these worries are even more important now.
Janice Ireland talks with Henk van Hout, Global Head of Shell Education Services, about how students and parents are coping with lockdown and the demands of remote learning.
Jason Tait, Director of Pastoral Care and Designated Safeguarding Lead at TASIS, The American School in England suggests that maintaining student wellbeing during the lockdown is possibly even more important than a school’s online academic programme.
Stephanie Quayle of ISC Research looks at how schools may be coming through the lockdown phase in China, and what we can all learn from their experience.
Does getting out of the classroom help you de-stress? Caroline Ferguson, Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) Leader at Bangkok Patana School looks into CAS and stress levels.
Making the most of being at home with a family during the lockdown may depend on getting everyone into a new routine. Easier said than done, but not impossible, thinks Orla Redmond.
Establishing an effective safeguarding regime can be challenging even on one campus. Primary Principal Graeme Chisholm looks at how his school took on the task of coordinating a consistent programme across four sites in the Czech Republic.
Leah Davies suggests ways to help children differentiate between ‘tattling’ and responsible ‘reporting’. Here”s her advice for teachers and parents.
Leah Davies offers educators ten tips for supporting children as they learn how to manage their feelings and grow emotionally.
Following a decision by the state of Victoria government in Australia to exclude smart phones from primary and secondary schools, Sam Chester looks at arguments for and against banning phones in school.
Emily Melynn Alexander considers how lack of sleep can impact on the lives of teens and young adults: can they study effectively without it?
