Leadership Report

As our fourth week of term rolls to an end, it's certainly all systems go here. Schools are busy places, the opportunities and experiences we offer children on a daily basis are overwhelming to say the least.

Many of us want to engage in conversation with our children in respect to their day. What did they do? Who did they play with? How are they feeling? However, I'm sure you are one of the many parents, which includes myself, whose questions have been rebuffed with the usual 'fine', 'okay', and of course the very popular 'nothing much' response to what had they done during the day! 

Now as an educator, I know that there was a lot that happened in my child's day, and the 'nothing much' was not an accurate reflection of the learning and experiences with which my child had engaged with. However, it was an accurate reflection of the cognitive load my child was feeling at the time, that they just couldn't think and their brains had done enough work for the day. The open-ended questions that I was asking were just too much to filter through in order to find an appropriate response. 

I love learning about the brain, the neuroscience behind learning and how the brain reacts and responds to learning. With this in mind, I changed our after school routine and changed how and when I engaged in conversation about school with my children. I implemented the following after school routine:

1. I made sure that they ate - the after school food intake was important
2. I made sure that they had downtime before tackling anything school-related - something between 30 mins to an hour was ideal in our case
3. I asked specific questions, in the comfort and safety of our home, after both of the above activities had happened. 

So what did I ask? I asked questions such as:

• What do you know now that you didn't know this morning?
• What is something kind you did for someone else today?
• What made you laugh today?
• What frustrated you today?
• What is something you wish you had done differently today?
• What's one question that you asked today? 

and my personal favourite... If you were the teacher today, what is one thing you would have done differently?

There are a lot of resources out there for you to build your question bank, asking the same questions over and over again will become monotonous for your child/ren and you'll start to get the same responses and be back at the beginning again. 

If you'd like somewhere to start with your child/ren, here's some questions which are designed to be placed in a container. One question is drawn out each day, or however regularly you wish to use the question prompts, and then the question is returned for possible use again at another time.

I hope this helps develop and strengthen your conversations with your child/ren. I assure you that students are working hard each and every day and hopefully with a bit of strategic questioning they'll be able to share a little piece of each day with you.

Kind regards,

Kasey Thorne

Assistant Principal