Mental Health And Wellbeing

MPS Re-engagement Process

You may have heard your child talking about Refocus, Adjust, Support and Restore recently. These are the four parts of our MPS Re-engagement Process, which has now been introduced to students across the school by members of our Wellbeing Leadership Team.

The Re-engagement Process is a simple, consistent approach our teachers are using to help students recognise when they have become distracted, unsettled or disconnected from their learning and, importantly, learn what they can do to get themselves back on track.

Rather than the focus being on “getting in trouble”, the focus is on what happens next. Teachers will model and explicitly teach students how to Refocus (regulate, remind and re-teach) or Adjust (make a change) to re-engage in the learning.  At times, teachers can ask for Support when needed, and most importantly Restore relationships along the way.

Our goal is that, over time, students become increasingly able to recognise “I’m not ready for learning right now, what can I do to change that?” Being able to refocus or make an adjustment, and return to what we are doing is an important skill for learning and for life!

This is what we call a Tier 1 practice, which simply means it is a consistent approach available to all students in all classrooms. Of course, we also know that children are wonderfully different! Some students require additional adjustments or have their own individual plans and strategies to support their regulation and re-engagement. These continue alongside our whole-school approach.

When we created our student visuals, we designed a frog and lily pad version for our younger students and a more grown-up version for our older students. However, the older students voted overwhelmingly for the frogs too! So, it seems the frogs are here to stay.

You may even like to ask your child about the four parts and what Refocus, Adjust, Support and Restore might look like in their classroom.

At MPS, we are not expecting students to get it right all the time. We are teaching them what they can do to get back to learning when things don’t quite go to plan.

Ms Emily Kurts 

Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader