April 2012 Education Support Resources for Teacher Aides by Tricia Velthuizen

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

Education Support Resources for Teacher Aides... Introduction Welcome to term 2, I hope this finds you well rested after the extended Easter break. I have had the pleasure of delivering tool box workshops to several schools over the last week, and I am receiving the same message - that the role of a teacher aide is a busy and demanding one. You are the unsung heroes in our schools and we hope that this month's edition will bring inspiration for the weeks ahead and help you to make time ... just for you! Starting a new term is an anxious time for many students and as a teacher aide you may need to spend some time re-establishing relationships, revisiting rules and re-filling your tool boxes. A key strategy in assisting students who are experiencing stress and anxiety is to help them to recognise and mange their stressors. Our Activity Space, Michael Grose articles and Insights section all contain information to support an anxious child. In the Diary is full of ideas to inspire you, and while you are opening your calendars, make sure you have circled Monday, October 22 as this is the day of our second Churchill Education Teacher Aide Retreat. Planning is underway so please let us know the topics you would like to see covered to support you in your role as an Education Support worker.

Many of you would have had the pleasure of meeting Annie Balzat, from The Gap state School in QLD, at last year's Retreat. Annie's work as a teacher aide, in the area of Gifted and Talented, was warmly received and we are thrilled to be sharing her story in our Profile section. Our articles tend to burst at the seams and many of you have asked to revisit earlier editions so we have started to include more resources at www.teacheraidecources.com.au ... have a look and see what is there. So it is time once again to sit back and relax, and enjoy this month's Education Support newsletter ... resources just for you.

Have a wonderful month ... Ruth

Tuesday 5 June, 1:30 – 3pm at The White House, Samford Village. Book Now by calling 1300 793 002 or email ruth@churchilleducation.edu.au

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

Understand it: Help kids understand the events and situations that trigger angry responses. These situations will vary, but may include, playing rough games, not getting their own way and being teased by others. Help kids to reflect on the events that trigger a ‘wobbly’, so they can take preventative measures. This type of self-knowledge is really helpful for older primary school children and teenagers. Name it: Help them recognise the physical signs of anger, such as clenched fists and teeth, tension around their shoulders and heavy breathing. Then assist them to develop a vocabulary around anger. “Mad as a snake”, “about to lose it”, “throwing a tanty” are some possibilities. Children can probably generate more! Naming emotions promotes good emotional literacy in kids. Diffuse it: You need some strategies to diffuse anger and bring down emotional levels in kids. Distraction and time out can be effective for toddlers with short fuses, and even shorter attention spans. For older children, parents should use diplomacy rather than discipline. You may need to give some kids some space on their own before attempting to talk. Listening to their story, validating their right to be mad and focusing on feelings are some ways to diffuse anger. Sometimes knowing that someone else knows how you feel is enough to make anger go away. Choose it: Help children understand that they do have a choice about how they respond to their anger. They may feel like lashing out, but they don’t have to get physical or verbally aggressive when they get angry. Let kids know in clear terms that slamming doors, throwing things and refusing to cooperate are the wrong ways to display anger. Help them understand that while you are on their side, as they mature they need to choose socially acceptable ways of handling anger. Say it: Encourage children to express how they feel verbally, rather than bottle things up or become aggressive. The use of I statements is one way of letting others know how they feel. ‘I feel really mad when you say nasty things to me. I absolutely hate it! ’ is one way of being heard and letting the anger out.

Learning Support Leadership Workshop This FREE workshop will share Simple Strategies Learning Support Co-Ordinators can implement to get the best out of your Teacher Aides. Places are limited with just 8 spaces free for this Inspiring workshop, led by resident expert, Ruth Kirkby.

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

P.S: If you are reading a copy of of our paper edition and would like an electronic version, simply email me or give me a call and I will put you on our mailing list. While I love the feel of the paper edition and the opportunity to hole punch it and add to my resource folder, the electronic version makes it easier to utilise the website links.

Let it out safely: Boys, in particular, need physical outlets for pent anger. They may go for a run, belt a pillow or play a physical game to let their frustration out. Some kids may even pour their anger into a letter, some work or a productive activity. Help children find legitimate outlets for their anger. Parents need to role model healthy anger management so children see firsthand how adults handle anger in mature ways. That means parents take time to listen to each other, talk things through and find healthy physical ways to let off steam when you feel yourself getting to boiling point. The maxim for families who want to learn to manage anger in healthy ways should be: “There is nothing so bad that we can’t talk about it. However there are behaviours that are not acceptable.”

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IN THE DIARY 1 May – World Asthma Day www.nationalasthma.org.au/ 1-31 May – Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month - Raise community awareness of the social and personal impacts of domestic and family violence, and the support available to those affected. 13 May – Mothers Day Mothers Day is the annual celebration of mothers and the hard work they do. 13 – 19 May - Food Allergy Awareness Week - Raise awareness of severe food allergies in Australia. Some food allergies can be severe, causing life-threatening reactions known as anaphylaxis. www.allergyfacts.org.au/ 14-20 May National Volunteer Week An opportunity to thank those people for their contribution to the community. www.volunteeringaustralia.org 14-20 May - National Career Development Week Dedicated to promoting and encouraging Australians to take personal responsibility and 'ownership' in the management of their own careers. www.getthelifeyoulove.com.au 18 May - Walk Safely To School Day - Aims to encourage parents and carers to walk to school with primary school-aged children to instil healthy lifestyle habits at a young age. www.walk.com.au/WSTSD01/ page.asp?PageID=260 27 May - 3 June -National Reconciliation Week celebrates the rich cultural heritage of Australia's Aborigines, and aims to continue reconciliatory efforts. w w w. r e c o n c i l i a t i o n . o r g . a u / i cms.isp

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

Tool Box Tips

LEARNING STYLES

Time for another easy, low cost addition to your tool box: behavior management sticks! You come up with picture signs that you can accompany with instructions and stick them on popsicle sticks.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

As a teacher aide, you will be aware that the students you support experience stress frequently. Being aware of this and teaching the child ways of recognising and reducing his stress levels must be a significant component of your teaching and learning programs.

You can raise the sign to let the student know what they need to do, and you could accompany the sign with verbal instructions, so you communicate better with a range of learning styles.

The literal definition of stress is “demand on physical and mental energy”. As well as being a thoroughly unpleasant situation, (causing physical signs such as headaches, illness and emotional instability), stress is undesirable for a number of other reasons.

You could even use the sign to let a student know to wait quietly, without you having to stop your talking. And make them double-sided!

The brain deals with stress by automatically restricting activity to primitive, “survival responses”. These responses keep people alert and alive, but unable to think or learn. Such responses are appropriate to a situation where there is a physical threat to safety but are not helpful where stress is a response to physical, mental or emotional overload.

Thanks to kindertastic.blogspot.com.au for the inspiration.

In these situations, stress is very much a barrier to learning and problem – solving.

Teaching appropriate stress- reducing techniques

Behavior Management-Quick Tips Building confidence in a child can be a circuit breaker in dealing with negative classroom behaviors. Our students need to look in the mirror and like the person looking back. The aim is to have each student look inside him/herself and know that he/she can make things happen and is worthy of love. This all comes down to building self-confidence and the direct link between self-confidence and discipline. In our reading, we came across a teacher who has turned a time-out corner into a Pride Pitstop. This is an opportunity for a student to reminded of all that can give them pride … classroom achievements, values, commitments by students and by the teacher to them. The Pride Pitstop gave us an idea for a portable concept for teacher aides to use for individual students. Decorate a manila folder with a photo of your student … or have them decorate it in advance, knowing that this will be their Confessions of a Champion! Then, inside the manila folder, include a fold out time line with each month having a box … then record achievements, big & small, along the way. Staple work that deserved recognition in the folder, take snapshots of special moments and have the student add their thoughts around events that made them feel good. Then, this folder becomes your portable Pride Pitstop to help students reflect upon what they want to do and how they feel when they celebrate. Teachers could have a dedicated folder with each student and allow students to add to it during the year … a word that they worked hard to learn to spell, an oral presentation that they prepared well for, a race that they ran as a team and won, a fun excursion that Thank you teachersol.blogspot.com.au they remember. for this idea. Focus on remembering, recording and celebrating the positives and use these memories to re-centre students who are struggling with their behavior. It can be our job to bear witness to their champion moments! And while we are on the topic of celebrating, make sure you start your own personal Confessions of a Champion … celebrate your victories & achievements and be sure to read back over them as the year unfolds.

Appropriate stress-reducing techniques range from learning communication strategies, such as asking for help, to learning relaxation and coping techniques. - Teach and practice simple communication phrases such as “I need some help”, “May I leave the room?” or “I need a break.” - Initially always respond positively to any requests to leave or finish as this will help him to defuse his tension. Later, when the child has more coping strategies at his disposal, work may begin on increasing his tolerance to disliked or stressful tasks. - Teach relaxation techniques. Many children will have been told to relax, calm down, take a big breath, etc but they need to be taught how to relax, step by step, and practice it over and over. (see www.calmforkids.com.au for some great ideas) - Direct the child to physical exercises at set times during the day. Physical exertion such as running, jumping, throwing a ball, are all ways of letting out accumulated stress and returning the child to a calmer, more efficient state of functioning. - Establish a routine where relaxation techniques and physical exertion are combined to keep a child at an optimal level of stress. These are particularly effective when used before a potentially stressful situation or when new learning takes place. A relaxed brain learns far more quickly and easily than a stressed one. - Introduce and encourage the use of stress-reducing techniques and tools such as a stress ball or fidget toy. - If possible, set up an area specifically for the child when he needs to calm down and gain control of himself. There may be times when a child finds it very difficult to cope and you may need to find a way for the child to “legitimately” avoid that activity, (e.g. return books to the Library), which is more effective in terms of the child’s overall functioning. © Churchill Education Pty Ltd

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

CHURCHILL EDUCATION

EDUCATION SUPPORT NEWSLETTER APRIL 2012

Profile:

Activity Space Digging Deeper Anchor Chart

Annie Balzat works as the Gifted Enrichment Program coordinator at The Gap State School, in a Teacher aide position. She is a life member of the Queensland Association of the Gifted and Talented Children. Annie has worked with Gifted and Talented students for nearly 20 years, driven by a passion for seeing young children reach their own potential. She enjoys creating diverse extension and enrichment activities designed for students from Year 1 to Year 7, and involve stimulating creative responses in both individual and group activities. Annie also coordinates Opti-Minds Challenge, Robotics, Maths and Literacy competitions at her school.

Last month, we looked at the concertina-style expanding sentence. This month, we have another approach to getting more out of your students in their communication. This strategy could be used for written work and also preparing for oral presentations. You could prepare your own example anchor chart based on a story you are happy to tell … perhaps a holiday story. Students could spend time drawing their anchor charts and leave room to fill their holes with their extended stories. We think this approach could also assist students who are struggling to prepare for oral presentations. The shallow hole could introduce the topic, and then there could be 3 deeper holes to focus on a different aspect of the topic.

Peter Cooper, School Principal, commented... "We are indeed very lucky to have a teacher aide with the skills, knowledge and abilities of Annie. Her ability to draw the best out of gifted children is outstanding and she plays a vital role in the range of programs offered to children at the school."

Holding the chart during the presentation could help keep students focused and give them a visual reference point. These charts could even reflect drawings relating to the topic for extra visual interest. And if you let the student’s imagination run wild, you could extend beyond just deep holes. You could have bigger waves in the ocean, or mountains, or bigger spoons dishing out more helpings of information. Similarly, Thanks to mrsmeachamclassroom.wordpress.com you could apply this approach to assisting students struggling for inspiration. to know how to format a project or report. Each hole could be filled with another step in a project plan and could be a take-home aid to assist student and parent during the project. The opportunity to draw the chart while discussing ideas with you can give the student a safe space to concentrate on the motion of drawing, whilst chatting, without worrying about getting something ‘wrong’.

Communication Flipcharts A key strategy in assisting students who are experiencing stress and anxiety is to help them to recognize and manage their stressors. This is going to require clear communication between you. We saw this simple communication tool for just indicating how students are progressing working through tasks in class and thought we could use it to assist students in other ways too. For example, as an aid to help you determine how students are working on a task, you can take a cardboard sheet, fold it into a triangular prism (check out the photo) and have each side labeled “I need help”, “I’m working hard” and “I’m finished”. Using a simple Velcro strip (those sticky dot velcros are great) or a ribbon, you could make your prism double-sided and able to be secured. On the other side, you could have emotional communication strategies; for example, “I’m happy”, “I’m worried”, “I’m frustrated”, combined with an emoticon for each. Students could simple rotate the prism to reflect what they are feeling and signal to you when a student needs

Annie Balzat

Characteristics of giftedness Children who are gifted are diverse and individual and distinguishing features of the gifted become apparent from an early age. To know who the gifted are, the cognitive and affective characteristics commonly displayed by them should be explored. As giftedness is both developmental and diverse, not all gifted students will display all of these characteristics. Common cognitive (learning) characteristics include: • ability to understand and use abstract symbol systems at much younger ages than usual • • • • • • • • • •

ability to ask reflective and probing questions being absorbed in work that they find interesting exceptional memory rapid pace of learning dislike of slow-paced work advanced reasoning ability complex thought processes vivid imagination passion for learning capacity for reflection.

Common affective (social emotional) characteristics include: • emotional intensity • • • • • •

well developed sense of justice and fairness ability to empathise with the feelings of others unusually mature sense of humour preference for the companionship of older children perfectionist tendencies acute self awareness.

The Learning Place : www.learningplace.com.au/en/g&t Thanks to mrshawksnest.blogspot.com.au for inspiration.

extra attention. This process could also trigger a process for the student to identify what he/she is feeling and then take the next steps in the strategy for managing their feeling. © Churchill Education Pty Ltd

Annie raised the importance of supporting Gifted and Talented students at the 2011 Teacher Aide Retreat - ensuring that every child has the opportunity to reach his or her potential. You asked for more information about Gifted & Talented support at our 2012 Retreat and we are ready to listen...Email me at ruth@churchilleducation.edu.au and tell me what you would like to know more about.

National Year of Reading Reading Recommendations … set up a board or running sheet where students and teachers can record their reading recommendations. The recommendation could be for a particular person or for a whole class.

There was a great example we found on mrscarterscalling.blogspot.com.au. The initial idea included who was making the recommendation, the person the recommendation was directed at, the title of the book and then, the why? of the recommendation. Then, this was whipped into a mail chart, using open-cut envelope sleeves with each student’s name on it.

Recommendations could be delivered like mail direct to another student. It would be great fun to look in your envelope for another message. You could always extend the idea even further by letting students reply to the recommendation. A whole new snail mail revolution! Think where this journey could take a class in a year of reading!