4:3 Be able to support learning activities

1. 4:3 Be able to support learning activities

2. Children Respond to a Positive Learning Environment • When students feel respected, supported, appreciated and valued, learning comes much more easily. These steps will help you create a positive environment in your classroom that helps each child reach their full potential. • Help Your Students Thrive • Students thrive in environments where they feel safe, nurtured and respected. All students, even those who have learning difficulties and extraordinary personal challenges, can do well when they are physically comfortable, mentally motivated and emotionally supported. • .

3. Creating a positive learning environment will optimize student learning, help you build a cohesive classroom community and create a pleasant work environment for both you and your students. • It is especially critical that you work proactively to create a positive learning environment when you have students who are foster children, have suffered abuse or neglect, have transferred schools multiple times, come from disadvantaged backgrounds or have severe academic, social or emotional difficulties

4. Get to know each student as a person as soon as possible after meeting them. Have each student complete a survey and/or write a biography. This can give you valuable information that will help you find out who he or she is as a person and how you can best teach and support them. • Spend time with students individually every day. It’s crucial to make personal connections with your students. They need to know they are important to you. • Fill your classroom with positive messages and quotes. Make it impossible for students in your classroom to not feel that they are each destined for greatness. • Provide frequent positive feedback. Let students know that they are doing a good job. Tell them that you notice their efforts and appreciate their hard work. Praise is a powerful positive motivational tool. • Give students outlets for expression. Create a special place to display student art and writing. Provide a box for students to place slips of paper with concerns written on them. Set up a mailbox where students can send you either signed or anonymous notes about classroom issues.

5. Conduct a daily community meeting with students. • Allow students to make appointments with you to talk privately about overwhelming problems, issues and dilemmas. • Make it clear that everyone in your classroom is to conduct themselves in a respectable manner, treat others with respect and respect the property of others.

6. Make discipline about accountability and growth instead of punishment. Give students who exhibit inappropriate behaviors a place to cool off and calm down. Have them reflect about the unacceptable behavior they engaged in, discuss other ways they could have handled the situation and commit to taking action steps to insure that it will not happen again. • Do everything you can to make the physical environment of your classroom as comfortable and cheerful as possible. Provide floor cushions, beanbag chairs and inspiring artwork. Clean out your attic, basement or garage. You will probably find tons of items to enliven your classroom collecting dust in those spaces. Local businesses and organizations may be willing to donate furnishings and other materials to help you create a positive learning environment.

7. Praise, Praise, Praise

8. Things around Newstart Aimed at producing a positive learning environment

9. Painted words of inspiration Aimed at improving self worth

10. Jump start showing resilience and young people pushing their boundaries Preparing young people for their day and what is expected of them

11. Inspirational words to promote resilience and inspiration

12. Staff notice board Warm, bright welcoming Everyone smiling

13. Inspirational posters

14. Individual timetables so everyone knows where they should be

15. Notice boards showing progression giving students a sense that they too can achieve

16. Words and saying for self improvement and positivity

17. Child protection poster, bright, colourful and welcoming staff here are smiling

18. Managing Behaviour Proactively developing relationships with students Chase me – what to do with secondary behaviours • Get in and get out quickly with your dignity intact • Closed requests • Get out and about

19. Encouraging group cohesion and collaboration • Collaborative learning is based on the view that knowledge is a social construct. Collaborative activities are most often based on four principles: • The learner or student is the primary focus of instruction. • Interaction and "doing" are of primary importance

20. Encouraging group cohesion and collaboration • Working in groups is an important mode of learning. • Collaborative learning can occur peer-to-peer or in larger groups. Peer learning, or peer instruction, is a type of collaborative learning that involves students working in pairs or small groups to discuss concepts, or find solutions to problems. This often occurs in a class session after students are introduced to a new topic. Similar to the idea that two or three heads are better than one, many teachers have found that through peer instruction, students teach each other by explaining things and clarifying points for others. • What is the impact of collaborative learning or group work?

21. Encouraging group cohesion and collaboration • Research shows that educational experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to deeper learning. The benefits of collaborative learning include: • The purpose • Development of higher-level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills. • Promotion of student/teacher/ classroom assistant interaction. • Increase in student retention, self-esteem, and responsibility. • Exposure to different opinions • Preparation for real life social and employment situations.

22. Prompting shy or reticent children • When Is Shyness a Problem? Shyness can be a normal, adaptive response to potentially overwhelming social experience. By being somewhat shy, children can withdraw temporarily and gain a sense of control. Generally, as children gain experience with unfamiliar people, shyness wanes. In the absence of other difficulties, shy children have not been found to be significantly at-risk for psychiatric or behaviour problems. In contrast, children who exhibit extreme shyness which is neither context-specific nor transient may be at some risk. Such children may lack social skills or have poor self-images. Shy children have been found to be less competent at initiating play with peers. School-age children who rate themselves as shy tend to like themselves less and consider themselves less friendly and more passive than their non-shy peers. Such factors negatively affect others’ perceptions. Zimbardo reports that shy people are often judged by peers to be less friendly and likeable than non-shy people. For all these reasons, shy children may be neglected by peers, and have few chances to develop social skills. Children who continue to be excessively shy into adolescence and adulthood describe themselves as being more lonely, and having fewer close friends and relationships with members of the opposite sex, than their peers.

23. Prompting shy or reticent children • Strategies for Helping a Shy Child • Know and Accept the Whole Child. Being sensitive to the child’s interests and feelings will allow you to build a relationship with the child and show that you respect the child. This can make the child more confident and less inhibited.

24. Prompting shy or reticent children • Build Self-Esteem. Shy children may have negative self-images and feel that they will not be accepted. Reinforce shy children for demonstrating skills and encourage their autonomy. Praise them often. “Children who feel good about themselves are not likely to be shy”. • Develop Social Skills. Reinforce shy children for social behaviour, even if it is only parallel play. One psychologist recommends teaching children “social skill words” (“Can I play, too?”) and role playing social entry techniques. Also, opportunities for play with young children in one-on-0one situations may allow shy children to become more assertive. Play with new groups of peers permits shy children to make a fresh start and achieve a higher peer status.

25. Prompting shy or reticent children • Allow the Shy Child to Warm Up to New Situations. Pushing a child into a situation which he or she sees as threatening is not likely to help the child build social skill. Help the child feel secure and provide interesting materials to lure him or her into social interactions. • Remember That Shyness Is Not All Bad. Not every child needs to be the focus of attention. Some qualities of shyness, such as modesty and reserve, are viewed as positive (Jones, Cheek, and Briggs, 1986). As long as a child does not seem excessively uncomfortable or neglected around others, drastic interventions are not necessary.

26. Evidence for 4:3.1 • Write a piece on how to create a positive learning environment and how you can contribute to this alongside the teacher. • Write a few lines explaining each point on the list below explaining why it is important to follow the different learning strategies and how you can incorporate this into your work. Where possible give a brief example. • Managing Behaviour • Encouraging group cohesion and collaboration • Prompting shy or reticent children • Translating or explaining words and phrases • Reminding learners of teaching points made by the teacher • Modelling correct use of vocabulary • Ensuring the learners understand the learners task • Helping learners to use resources relevant to the activity • Providing individual attention, reassurance and help learning tasks as appropriate to leaners needs.

29. 4.3.2 Explain how social organisation and relationships may affect the learning process. • In schools Children are grouped to ensure that they learn the best for them. In primary school they are grouped in age groups and then in the classroom often grouped in tables of young people who are learning at the same level. This aids in group work activities and reading groups.

30. 4.3.2 Explain how social organisation and relationships may affect the learning process. • In secondary school young people are usually grouped in classes according to ability. They are usually tested prior to entry of the school and streamed into the appropriate class according to the results. The comprehensive model opposes this in theory as they do not take academic requirements into account for a place in the school, and do not stream young people according to ability but mix abilities. • Children and young people can also be grouped according to Special educational needs, nurture groups or if the have English as a second language.

31. Groups with children of varying ability in some subjects can encourage them to help and motivate each other, increasing their self confidence. Some children would feel a great sense of achievement knowing they have helped another child.

32. Some children can be easily distracted, so would work better in a smaller group with adult attention to keep them on task and encouragement to keep them focused. • Some children are removed for special group work to focus on subjects they struggle with for example reading.

33. 4.3.2 Explain how social organisation and relationships may affect the learning process.

35. Relationships in the classroom • Relationships in a classroom are very important and the key adults in the room must ensure to be inclusive of everyone. They must encourage participation and use praise as a method to encourage and support the individual or group. • As a CA it is vital that you build positive working relationships with the class or individual young person that you are working with.

36. Evidence • Write a short piece on how relationships and interactions in the classroom may affect the learner. • Look at different ages and development • Explore peer on peer relationships • Explore relationships with the learner and the adults in the classroom

38. Evidence 4.3.2 • Complete 2 worksheets • Write a short piece explaining how social organisation and relationships may affect the learning process.

39. 4.3.3 Give attention to learners that balances the needs of individuals and the group as a whole. Recognising children's individuality is the basis of anti bias practice, children have different strengths talents, interests and needs, when a setting is well resourced it is easier to balance individual needs with group needs. It is important to adopt a style of working with children that is not restrictive and that looks for ways of promoting individual children's needs and interests treating all children the same is not treating them fairly as children have different needs, the following strategies may help to give attention to individuals that is fair to them and as a whole group:-

40. Develop an awareness of the attention that is given to individual children • Develop an awareness of behaviour that attracts attention • Planning strategies for handling attention seeking • Considering how the attention given to individuals affects the group as a whole • Paying attention to those who do not demand it • Operating a key worker system so each child's welfare is given special consideration by one person who knows them well _ Newstart has this • Planning time to work on a one to one basis with each child • Avoiding displays of favouritism • Taking into consideration that some children will want physical contact while others will want to be more independent

41. Ensure instruction at the start of the class are clear and all learners understand what is required from them. • Be clear of the ground rules and set expectations of behaviour. • Give learners time to familiarise themselves with any resources they are going to use. • Once this is done focus on the learners who are not grasping the task. Once they understand what is expected make your way around the class checking on the rest of the group. • Ensure full class participation.

42. There will be times when a child's needs can not be met because of what is required by the rest of the group but when this occurs it is important to explain the reasons to the child such as safety aspects or being quiet for example as being noisy will ruin others enjoyment as they can not hear.

43. Evidence • Write a short piece on how explaining the difficulties when working with groups or a whole class, when it comes to giving attention to all learners. What issues may occur and what can you and the class teacher do to ensure attention is shared. This last section can be in bullet points.

44. 4.3.4 Demonstrate way of encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own learning. Source hand-out

45. Hand-out 10 ways to help learners take responsibility for their learning

46. Evidence WRITE A SHORT PIECE ON WHY IT IS IMPORTANT FOR LEARNERS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIRE OWN LEARNING AND WAYS IN WHICH THIS CAN BE ACHIEVED.

47. Evidence for 4.3.4 • Read the source and highlight important parts annotate the source or make notes on the back that you will find useful. • Write a reflection which will incorporate 4.3.1-4.3.5 pick one subject i.e. Essential skills English will possibly incorporate ICT skills and problem solving

48. 4.3.5 Demonstrate ways of supporting learners to develop • Literacy skills • Numeracy skills • ICT skills • Problem solving

49. A focus on literacy

50. A focus on numeracy