3 SHE JIE MAGAZINE – AUTUMN
On the search for positivity……
2016
The Dalai Lama once said, “In order to carry a positive action we must develop a positive vision”. At the beginning of the school year, each primary classroom aimed to develop a positive vision through the implementation of Positive Detectives.
M ain F ocus – D eveloping the whole student
Positive Detectives, a school wellbeing and positive education programme created by Professor Lea Waters (Ph.D) and Lela McGregor (MAPP), aims to encourage students to seek, acknowledge and spread the wonderful good that exists in their lives everyday. Through the programme our goals as a school were to support students to: 1. Seek what is good by looking for evidence in their world
2. Connect positively with classmates, teachers and their school 3. Practice inquiry based learning through discussion and activities 4. Conclude whether the good evidence they have found makes them happy 5. Recognise and connect their intentional actions to their emotions and mood 6. Create a positive connection between school and home At the start of Term One every primary student (and let’s not forget multiple versions of Sherlock the dog) went on the search for good in their lives; at home, their classroom, with their family & friends and within the environment
they live. Students created positive journals, sent gratitude cards, participated in home inquiries and school discussions about positive experiences. Within individual classrooms, students and staff identified what a positive classroom environment might look like, sound like and feel like. They began to collaboratively design the way their classrooms will run this year and the types of relationships they will value within each room. We continue to see evidence of positivity in classrooms and both students and staff have reported a positive start to the school year as a result. Chris Barr, Head of Primary
Visible Learning at Discovery College The ‘visible’ aspect refers to making student learning visible to teachers, ensuring clear identification of the attributes that make a difference to student learning, and all in the school knowing the impact they have on student learning. The ‘visible’ aspect also refers to making teaching visible to the student such that they learn to become their own teachers, which is the core attribute of lifelong learning that we value.
Visible learning is a fundamental and core belief to the learning and teaching at Discovery College. Visible learning was founded on the research of John Hattie and was developed by him in partnership with the Cognition Education team of professional facilitators.
The ‘learning’ aspect refers to how we go all go about knowing, understanding and doing something about student learning. (John Hattie Visible learning for teachers, 2012) On 23 and 24 September, DC Primary & Secondary teachers participated in two Continuous Professional Development (CPD) days themed around visible learning as part of the annual development plan. The training was facilitated by Jayne-Ann