Education News
Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships
This week’s Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships spotlight is on ‘Positive Coping’.
What is covered in the topic of “Positive Coping”?
Learning activities in this topic provide opportunities for students to identify and discuss different types of coping strategies. When children and young people develop a language around coping, they are more likely to be able to understand and deliberately utilise a range of productive coping strategies and diminish their use of unproductive coping strategies. Students learn to extend their repertoire of coping strategies and benefit from critically reflecting on their own choices and being exposed to alternative options.
Activities introduce students to the concept of self-talk and practice using positive self-talk to approach and manage challenging situations. Positive self-talk is a key strategy for coping with negative thoughts, emotions and challenging events. It is associated with greater persistence in the face of challenge, and can be learnt or strengthened through practice. Adults can support children with learning about positive coping by:
· Acknowledging that everyone uses coping skills and that often these are in response to challenging situations
· Helping children to identify coping skills that they are already successfully using (or used in the past) in their own lives
· Acknowledging that using coping skills takes practise and persistence
· Talking about situations that children find challenging and identifying a coping skill or assistance that might be needed
· Providing examples of when an adult has used coping skills and a positive mindset to manage a challenging situation
Our Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students have focused on the topic of ‘Positive Coping’ this term. Here are some samples of our learning to identify positive coping strategies and develop our own calm chart!
Information for parents about the Respectful Relationships initiative is available at https://www.vic.gov.au/respectful-relationships
Professional Learning – ‘Reading to Write’ with Associate Professor Misty Adoniou
At the recent Curriculum Day, held on Monday 14th August staff were engaged in professional learning facilitated by Associate Professor Misty Adoniou. The learning built on previous learnings with Misty in 2022 about ‘Reading to Write’, with a focus on reading and writing non-narrative texts through the exploration of quality literature.
Using Misty’s integrated approach to reading, writing and spelling, staff collaborated in professional learning teams to explore literature linked to Inquiry units. We thank Misty for sharing her extensive expert knowledge in such an engaging and inspiring day. Professional Learning Teams look forward to continuing this work as part of MPW’s approach to the teaching and learning of literacy. Room 19 and Room 8 have shared their learning at recent assemblies about patterned writing using this approach, and we look forward to sharing more of this work in future newsletters.
