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Newsletter May 2010
Contents
Welcome
Eyjafjallajokull
The Behaviour Challenge
SEAL network meeting
The social brain
Overschooled but Undereducated by John Abbot
Register With Us
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Welcome everyone
It seems to be a time of change and uncertainty, with an election coming up and the recent disruptions to normal travel patterns creating havoc at the start of the summer term for many teachers and students. Perhaps it is also a time to use our emotional literacy skills to take a few deep breaths and calmly take one step at a time, remembering our relationships with others
as much as our to-do lists.
Best wishes, Sue Allen |
Eyjafjallajokull
 How many of us, I wonder, will remember what we were doing
when we first heard that all planes had been grounded for the
unforeseeable future, due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull?
Thousands have stories to tell. Mine is that my husband was
about to whisk me away for a surprise birthday weekend in the
South of France. When we heard we would not be flying, I was philosophical and not best pleased when he suggested we get the ferry and drive down. He looked rather tense about the whole thing so we bit the bullet and booked the ferry. What I didn't know, but he did, was that there were already 8 people ensconced in St Tropez, waiting for us. (Yes, it was a BIG birthday... and we had a great time,
thank you.)
But once the challenge of getting/not getting somewhere had been faced people began to feel a sense of wonder; so this is what it's like to have no aeroplanes. Life in the fast lane is reduced to high-speed trains at best; pollution is drastically reduced; birdsong is heard for the first time in decades at peak times on runways; on sunny days the sky is pure blue with no vapour trails; we are at the mercy of nature and uncertainty rules. We saw a different way of doing things. It wasn't necessarily better but it was different.
For so much of the world to be brought to a standstill - by one volcano for goodness sake! - is surely an opportunity for discussion with students of any age.
Janet Grant |
The Behaviour Challenge
 By September 2010 the DCSF intend to have identified 100 Lead Behaviour Schools and each of these will receive an extra £40,400 per annum whilst they remain in The Behaviour Challenge programme. Launched in 2009, the challenge set was that by 2012 all schools will either have a good or outstanding rating for behaviour, or be on track to reach this target at their next inspection.
It is now widely acknowledged that improving emotional literacy also improves behaviour; some schools using the VisionWorks programme have recorded a dramatic reduction in bad behaviour incidents as well as improvements in attendance figures.
To find out more about how developing students' emotional literacy can dramatically improve their behaviour and learning, either visit our website www.vision-works.net
or call Sue Allen or Ruthie Alexander-Morgan on 01249 409001.
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SEAL network meeting
Last month I attended a Southampton SEAL network meeting and was fascinated to hear details of a variety of initiatives supporting emotional literacy in primary and secondary schools. A group of Yr 9 students from Cantell Maths and Computing College told how they are leading an emotional literacy campaign in the school. And a deputy head from Townhill Infants talked about how involving parents and grandparents in teaching and behaviour is transforming the collaborative spirit of the school.
Sue Allen
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The social brain
 The RSA recently held a seminar focusing on the relationship between new findings from neuroscience on the "social brain" and the school curriculum.
"Insights drawn from a range of disciplines - such as behavioural economics, neuroscience and psychology - strongly suggest that the brain is essentially social, having evolved to function within group settings. Moreover, it seems altruism and empathy have a basis in the evolved functions of the brain. And strikingly, much of our 'thinking' and decision-making seems to happen 'unconsciously' - outside the parts of the brain usually associated with conscious reasoning. Finally, our emotions, far from being irrational, seem to play a central role in 'rational' thought."
For more information click here
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Overschooled but Undereducated by John Abbott
Increasingly, neuroscience is discovering that our emotions drive our rational, thinking part of the brain yet our curriculum still only pays lip service to Emotional Literacy. This is an ongoing source of frustration for us, especially as we know it is a skill that everyone can learn.
If you too share our frustration, you may be interested in Overschooled but Undereducated by John Abbott. Abbott has a long history in education and in this book he explores our current education system, questioning what it does for both the individual and for society.
For me, the most interesting part about this book is the clear history of education in the UK. It transpires that the current system is the accumulation of hundreds of years of baggage and bolt-ons. Now that we know so much more about how the brain works, don't we owe it to our children to give them a better deal?
In Overschooled but Undereducated, says the blurb, John Abbott examines the increasing need to revolutionise the education system in England and globally. It's simple: education has to be about preparing children to be good citizens - not merely successful pupils - and become adults who will thrive at unstructured tasks. In this lies society's - and the planet's - best assurance of a positive future.
Definitely an interesting read.
Janet Grant
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Register with VisionWorks
If
you haven't already registered you're missing out on a host of downloadable
resources, assembly ideas and sample modules from our programmes. Register at www.vision-works.net
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