Creating Conditions for Learning

Provocation: If you frame education as an interaction, something that touches and shapes all of the participants, the interaction will support everybody’s learning; adult and child.

Our image of the child influences how we engage with children.

If as educators we believe a child is capable and competent then we engage them; we design learning experiences that position children as powerful learners. When we hold limiting judgements about children and families we create a self fulfilling prophecy. The most important thing we can do as educators to shape children as learners is to believe in them and their potential.

Our belief changes everything.

Working in a group is much more than just a functional tool: it is a cultural context that includes a vitality and an endless network of possibilities. -L. Malaguzzi

The majority of our work is based around groups of children working together; groupings allow children to observe how others learn and expose them to opportunities, skills and knowledge outside their proximal zone of development. Groups provide opportunity for dialogic encounters which builds oral language and supports stretch. Group work requires social competence and where these skills are still being mastered there is potential for conflict.

All behaviour is communication. To understand the behaviour you need to listen to what the children are telling you in their interactions. Analyse the situation, consider what the child is seeking. Once we have identified what the child is communicating then we can be responsive to their developmental, social and emotional needs.

When we create the conditions and space for learning we support children in their development. That is why the first step of our Behaviour Learning process is :

• Establish a safe, calm and productive learning environment. Incorporate behaviour learning into the learning program to teach children the skills required for self-regulation and social situations.

This was developed based on trauma informed practice in the formative stages of our journey. It has since been strengthened by our whole school Nurture & Wellbeing for Learning Agreement. We began this work within the context of setting high expectations for learning alongside the provision of appropriate support.

As a whole staff we recently strengthened our work in this area by attending professional development as a whole school with Phil Beadle on Behaviour Management, Engagement & Relationship Building. Participating in interactions that are designed to strengthen the various aspects of our project helps us to hold onto the threads that form the basis of our work.

Working with children is tiring, working with children is hard. Working with children is hardest when doing it alone because then the conditions easily give way to judgement of children and families.

Education needs the right conditions and we are responsible for creating those conditions.

Wellbeing & Nurture for Learning

Provocation: The image of the child is reflective of the cultural values beliefs and aspirations of a community.

Children who have the opportunity to develop secure attachments and have nurturing experiences with a significant adult in their earliest years have a great start in life. Humans are big, hairy (or not so hairy) mammals, and are most vulnerable at birth. What is known as attachment behaviour keeps an infant close to a primary caregiver; usually, but not necessarily, the mother.

Attachment Theory provides an explanation of normal development. Initially infants cry to attract attention in order to have basic needs met. Babies learn a range of strategies (as revealed through the still face experiment) based on their experience and the responses they receive from significant adults.

What we know from neuroscience is that

if the survival parts of the brain are activated too much or too intensively at a very early stage, the process of neural proliferation to the frontal system becomes compromised (Rossouw, 2014, p.11).

The instinctive stress responses that are controlled by the primitive or survival parts of the brain are to: fight, flight, flock and freeze.

Children with positive early nurturing experiences are generally successful at school, have higher rates of school attendance, interact positively with their peers and are much less likely to offend and experience mental health problems.

Educators who approach children’s learning holistically understand each child’s developmental needs. By intentionally designing experiences that stretch every child within their respective zones of proximal development educators can provide opportunities for children who lack early nurturing experiences to develop the social, emotional and behavioural skills they are otherwise lacking.

This is why one thread of our educational project is Wellbeing & Nurture for Learning.

Inspired by our context, our children, our community and our educators we design interactions that create the space for learning to occur.

An increasing vulnerability exists within our community (reflected in AEDC data). This presents as an increasing number of our children affected by complex trauma, evident in acting out behaviour, including violence, and disengagement from learning. Working with Support Services through a Team Around the Site we drew upon the expertise of Alina Page to increase our repertoire of skill to better respond to our children’s developmental needs.

We hold high expectations for all our students and implement appropriate support to create the right conditions for learning. Nothing is taken for granted and support for some of our children comes in the form of targeted intervention focused on meeting children’s developmental needs. For children experiencing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties we identify these needs using the Boxall Profile.

Small group intervention is then designed based on The Six Principles of Nurture:

1. Children’s learning is understood developmentally.

2. The classroom offers a safe base.

3. The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing.

4. Language is a vital means of communication.

5. All behaviour is communication.

6. The importance of transition in children’s lives.

Intervention is undertaken in partnership with families with the aim of providing a consistent approach between home and school, always within a strengths based framework.

Educators create nurturing spaces in our school, environments that are designed to be safe places for learning. Spaces where children can play and connect with adults who always respond with care, are always supportive and model positive talk and interactions. Adults who support children to co-regulate and teach children the skills to recognise their own emotions and regulate their response when experiencing negative affects. Adults who are always nurturing and who take nothing for granted; who will begin from where children are at to get them to where they need to be; no matter what the path or how long the journey.

High Expectations

Provocation:

the professional challenge for classroom teachers and their support infrastructure is to reflect inwards and evaluate the effectiveness of their own teaching practice and ask what it is that they are doing or not doing as a teacher that contributes to Indigenous student failure. (Sarra, 2011a, p.161).

The position paper High Expectations Relationships and snippets from Chris Sarra on Indigenous Education provided the stimulus for educators to engage in dialogic encounters and reflect upon their values, assumptions and beliefs about indigenous learners. Along side this educators considered what:

• is happening in my learning space that is of value and interest to my students?
• can I do to promote children’s engagement in learning?
• can I do to strengthen high expectations relationships within my learning community?

Our image of the powerful learner is the image we hold for all our learners. We know that high yield strategies (evidenced as effective for students) work for all learners when implemented through a high expectations relationship.

Increased engagement of children and their families in learning is one thread of our educational project. This involves educators engaging with families from a strengths base and through a relational lens; with the aim of avoiding opposition, approaching things with reciprocity and through dialogue with each other. We are in community with each other and we are each the subject of rights; parents, children and educators. This is important work. These are our children. Interactions can be challenging when we are focussed on challenging ourselves and each other, but we need to create a safe space to have the conversations.

Stronger Smarter Institute Limited (2014). High-Expectations Relationships: a foundation for quality learning environments in all Australian schools. Stronger Smarter Institute Limited Position Paper.

Documentation, Observations and Involvement

Provocation: Do I know who my children are and where their zones of proximal developmental are?

This is the responsibility of the educator.

In order to know what children are capable of and what their potential could be we need to observe children in a range of contexts.

Observing children’s engagement in learning provides opportunity for educators to reflect on children’s involvement and is a basis for thinking and taking action.

It is the process the teacher uses in designing, reflecting upon and relaunching rich learning experiences that is valued. This is developed through professional learning focussed on the design of purposeful and intentional learning experiences posed for children.

Documentation of children’s learning has a purpose; it is clear what the educator is observing in a particular context. If we do not have a purpose we can not synthesise what we are observing and the learning that is occurring.

Our purpose in documenting children’s learning this week was to understand children’s involvement in their literacy learning. Our dialogue and reflections will now inform our design of learning experiences to support children’s development as capable and competent readers.

Educator teams identified 3 children to track and monitor throughout the year. We videoed each child, capturing 6, 2 minute videos. We are now in the process of viewing this documentation for the purpose of measuring children’s engagement against the Involvement Scale.

This process engages educators in reflective practice focussed on student learning. This work is challenging and powerful. Educators engage in vigorous discussion, pose ideas and disagree with each other’s point of view toward a shared position and way forward.

The starting point is always with the child.

Going Deeper: Educators as Learners

Provocation: How are you going to plan to incorporate opportunities for students to practise strategies for comprehending a range of texts?

Comprehension, meaning making, inference. This is our narrative for improving student learning; and a story that is familiar to many of our colleagues in schools throughout our state. Over time much dialogue has been had by educators within our site with regard to improving student reading comprehension. And with each cohort educators work to know their children intimately as learners and design a path that will support them to get there.

Teaching is not about delivering knowledge but rather finding the best strategy to benefit your unique cohort of children. Leading educators is much the same.

As Inquiry Leaders we reflected upon the clarifying behaviour tools developed by our teams as a part of our site inquiry.

We determined that there was more work to be done with respect to the ‘what’ for the abstract goal “Children to see themselves as capable and competent readers”. With this entry point, time was dedicated this week to our middle and upper primary educators revisiting their 100,000 ft goal and narrowing the focus. To this end educators worked collaboratively within discreet home groups to identify specific actions and strategies to progress their unique cohorts.

Through these efforts educators have taken this

and redefined their goals as follows:

This will now drive teacher practice throughout the next 4 weeks with respect to children’s meaning making through text. Being clear and intentional is intrinsic to the design of learning experiences that are flexible and responsive to the children’s needs.

The professional manner in which we engage and consider ourselves as both educators and learners along with the considered and intentional way we approach our work informs the learning of our children.

We frame education as an interaction, something that touches and shapes all of the participants, the interaction supports everybody’s learning; adult and child.

Clarifying Behaviours

Provocation: What can be done individually and collectively within our teams and learning communities to build learner dispositions together with improved learning for all children.

Educators are engaging as learners and researchers in order to be intentional in their practice and to inform the children’s learning. Educators consider how to frame the learning, invite curiosity and begin a dialogue with children. It is the responsibility of the educator to identify how to pose the learning experience.

We use our research as a basis for thinking to inform action; staff meetings are democratic places to share and debate ideas, hypothesise and collectively agree to our commitment to action. Dedicated time in teams was scheduled at the staff meeting this week to provide educators with the space to consider and share the what:

• what we have done throughout the latter part of 2017.
• what we are learning through our focussed professional development, recently in relation to meaning making and comprehension.
• what we will go after in 2018.
• what we will implement in our learning communities over a the next 4 week period.

Teams are constructing abstract goals for 2018 using the clarifying behaviours tool; the challenge is to be specific and narrow the ‘what’ before moving to the ‘how’ of the actions and practices that will become the focus for our work.

Intentionality is the emphasis.

Educators are given time in teams to:

• reflect on the evidence of children’s learning thus far;
• consider current research;
• identify the practice that will be implemented to improve learning;
• hypothesise about what will be seen in terms of our children’s learning.

Our abstract goals for what we want to achieve across each learning community have been developed as follows:

• Children to see themselves as capable and competent readers.
• For children to make meaning from text.
• Children and families identify as readers and demonstrate their meaning/understanding of text.

The intent is to revisit these goals each month and sharpen our focus as we strengthen our inquiry and reflect on the documentation of children’s learning. Watch this space.

Inquiry Leaders

Provocation: How can we support children (and their families) to see themselves as capable and competent readers?

This provocation was formed through the collective inquiry of educators within our site throughout 2017. We arrived at this point after 12 months of professional dialogue accompanied by 6 months of focussed learning led by Professor Pauline Harris and our colleagues in Learning Improvement. Our shared learning has provided a strong foundation and some visible shifts in our values, beliefs and practices alongside positive outcomes for our learners. It was a deliberate decision for all educators to be involved in this learning together. The intent was to leverage the pedagogic shift from K-3 into the middle and upper primary learning communities. What we had learned through our playful pedagogies project work is that sharing the learning journey and investing in shared professional learning is successful in building educator confidence. Our reflections of 2017…

were influenced by the following key learnings:

• intentionality in providing continuity between the home and school environments through the creation of a third space that welcomes families and gives value to children’s language, culture and experiences;
• educators engaging with children in their learning through Discovery Learning;
• the role of professional dialogue in noticing the learning;
• promoting children as readers through intentional planning using the 4 Resources Model.

The shifts in practice and evidence of progress is visible…

which now frames the beginning of our learning for 2018.

What we know is that our children are where they are at. From our reflections of our data we notice that comprehension, specifically inference and meaning making, as areas for growth.

What we want to see is growth for every learner; and one year’s growth for one year’s effort.

How we will achieve this is by strengthening educators as researchers of children’s learning through:

• focussed noticing
• professional dialogue
• intentional planning (informed by the noticing, considering what other invitations can be offered to children and understanding how educators can enrich the possibilities for learning to stretch children from where they are at toward where they need to go next)
• engagement with children
• continuity of learning (connections through transition)

and by creating space to engage families in conversations about their children as readers.

Educators as Researchers

Provocation: What can I do to support my educators’ thinking and reflections of children’s learning in order for educators to be intentional in designing experiences that grow all children as capable and competent learners?

This is the provocation that spurs my thinking and will drive the work of the lead educators within our site. This inquiry pulls together the threads of our professional learning to weave the rich tapestry of our educating community. Our intent is that educators reflect on their individual and collective responsibilities, consider themselves as both educators and learners, are intentional and that their intentionality informs the learning of the children.

We set the following provocation for our teams at the beginning of the school year: What can be done individually and collectively within my teaching team and learning community to build learner dispositions together with improved learning for all children. Thus focussing their work within an educating community where all members have responsibilities and each member is connected to the community.

Our starting point is always with the child. It is with this in mind that we follow on from this provocation by returning to our image of the child through Loris Malaguzzi’s work Your image of the child: Where teaching begins. Educators then share their reflections. The risk takers have launched straight in whilst others take a little more encouragement to share their insights; as with our children it is about creating safe conditions for learning. We want to develop educators who are reflective of their practice and dialogue with eachother.

In engaging educators as researchers we foster a disposition of inquiry, create fertile ground in which to reflect upon our practice and begin to nudge adults in their thinking so that they begin to test hypotheses such as:

• if we make every child’s learning visible and we make the process visible, by giving value to the children’s processes rather than focussing on products, we then enhance every child’s learning.
• adults who give space and time for learning and who take responsibility for the intentionality of the learning and shape the contexts in which the children are learning build learner dispositions together with improved learning.

Such hypotheses will engage educators in thinking and reflecting upon their practice and ultimately as researchers of children’s learning.

Processes of Participation

Provocation: If we view families as competent, if we believe that parents know and love their children, then we will give time to building community, engaging in dialogue, and sharing the children’s learning and pieces of life in the classroom with families.

As we commence the school year we pause to revisit our image of the child, alongside our image of the adult; both the educator and the parent.

Drawing upon theories of socio constructivism and contemporary research including neuroscience, we understand that learning happens in relationship with others; there is a social element to education and educators need to look for ways to connect families. Processes of participation build a sense of belonging to the community. When we actively engage parents in thinking with educators we build an educating community.

Our educational project evolved out of the Preschool outdoor learning project. Through the work of Suzie Cottle and Fiona Pulford we engaged our community in consultation. Consequently our parents participate more in school life because they have been a part of the conversation, design and development; the ideas are theirs and they have identified what they would like their school to be. Whilst we began our project with community consultation we have been intentional in creating an educating community and shifting from consultation toward processes of participation. It is about doing the business of education with families rather than to, for or in spite of. This is because we ascribe to the systemic idea of the interdependent and connected nature of our community; that we each affect all of the others within our community.

We are intentional in using a strengths based framework in our work with families. We understand the interconnected and interdependent nature of learning. Educators engage with families and establish open lines of communication. We acknowledge that not every relationship is perfect, all of the time, but we aim to avoid opposition and instead approach things with reciprocity and through dialogue with each other.

Interactions with parents can at times be challenging. If we believe that parents have a right to their opinion and fundamentally love their children we will work from that basis and a common ground can be reached. We then have a starting point for working together.

By working with others we can look at ourselves in a different way.

We build community by welcoming families in to our spaces and creating spaces that act as a bridge between the home and school environments. An open invitation exists for parents and caregivers to participate in our Discovery Learning each morning, time dedicated to purposeful play. During this time families are encouraged to participate with children and strengthen relationships with educators. We share snippets of the day long with children’s learning progress through learning stories and communicate these with families (using the Seesaw: the learning journal app). This year we intend to strengthen these connections whole school from our youngest children through to families of our young adolescents.

We trust the children, we trust the parents and we trust with others; and together we learn.

Inspired Learning Spaces

Provocation: If you believe that every space is an extension of our sensory learning experiences, then what goes in to the space is essential.

As we design our learning spaces in preparation for the beginning of the school year, we give consideration to creating environments that:

• promote relationships amongst children;
• promote explorations;
• promote the possibility to learn in groups;
• promote independence;
• make materials visible and readily available for children to use;
• incorporate unexpected surprises;
• offer a dialogue between indoor and outdoor spaces;
• create many places within spaces – small places that belong to big spaces;
• highlight the value of children making their own choices about what they want to learn.

Our learning environments are not places where children come to be taught; they are spaces where children create their own culture, as learners. A space where they can take risks as scientists, historians, writers, adventurers, artists, inventors and designers. An environment where they can follow their own unique rhythms of growth and development.

The first steps of our learning journey began by reflecting on the learning environments we offered our children. The way desks and seating are grouped in the space say something about how we belong to and interact within a space. Desks placed in rows say something. Desks grouped together also say something, they say “we can learn together”.

We inquired, we decluttered and we were inspired.

We are intentional in the way we design our spaces because we understand that the organisation of the learning environment can welcome children and families in the same way it can alienate them. We aim to minimise visual noise and design aesthetically pleasing environments. If the environment gives pleasure and joy it will inspire learning. We give consideration to our outdoor environments in the same way and look for opportunities to connect the indoors and the outdoors.

When we began our journey, educators were challenged by educational consultant Lisa Burman to change one thing within their learning space. They looked at their classrooms through the eyes of their children in order to identify how they could declutter and remove the visual noise from the space.

The beginning of a school year provides the opportunity to remove everything from the space and start afresh; to design an environment that will inspire children, welcome families and enrich the learning experiences that will invite children’s curiosity. And sometimes it is what you don’t put in that has the biggest impact.