From the Principal
Homework
Thank you to all of our families who were able to be at a ‘Fireside’ last week. These sessions are designed to provide parents with an insight into the fundamentals of the program for each class, to meet their child’s teachers - and to meet other families. The quality of the relationship between the teachers and each individual child is the key to the success of the learning, so it is important to have that relationship supported by parents who are actively engaged in their child’s education and who have a voice in the school community.
I know the Arlington teachers take these evenings very seriously and felt supported by the positive feedback they received. Preshil encourages everyone to have the courage to question and we hope parents are confident to do so.
I would also like to thank the teachers who make themselves available for these evenings and many other school events throughout the year. Arlington is blessed to have an outstanding team of teachers who are committed to the practice of working in pairs in multi-age classes. This approach demands intensive collaboration and planning, enabling teachers to focus on the needs of every child and to constantly review their progress.
Having Natalie Jensen in the role of Head of Campus has provided a wonderful opportunity for our teachers who relish the opportunity to work with her. Arlington is flourishing under her leadership and we are all benefitting.
Some of the topics that always come up during these evenings are School’s approach to managing behaviour and homework. Preshil avoids the imposition of arbitrary rules that require unquestioning obedience and that invoke automatic punishment when children fail to comply. In line with the approach of the International Baccalaureate our communities establish agreements in a consensus approach to protecting the rights of individuals and identifying the responsibilities to make this possible. Class discussions and discussions between teachers and children regularly monitor if the agreements are working, if individuals are adhering to the agreements and if they need to be changed.
Behaviour management at Arlington is based on the idea of ‘setting things right’ – a restorative approach, rather than a punitive one. However, this does not mean that negative interactions, bullying, aggression or abusive behavior are not taken seriously.
'Although the Preshil way is to try to understand and work with difficult behaviour it does not accept persistent transgressions. Strategies are employed at all age levels to promote behaviours that are pro-social and in the best interests of the whole school community. Preshil also has a Behaviour Management Policy and a Mutual Respect Policy that favour a model of restorative justice. When required, this policy can inform and shape very firm consequences.' Courage p.14
Parents always ask about homework at Arlington. At Preshil children are not expected to do set amounts of homework every night. More and more educational research shows that there is little if any positive impact on learning. Many educationalists accept that homework is more aligned with other conventional school practices that enforce rigid adherence to conformity, compliance and enforced discipline than encouraging a love of learning and individual motivation to master a particular challenge.
At Preshil we believe that any homework should be purposeful, differentiated to individual needs and personally relevant. Parents have the right to decide on how their children spend time outside of school and children have the right to playtime, extracurricular activities, downtime and adequate sleep.
No child should dread coming to school knowing that they were not able to complete a set task and that they will be punished. Children should be able to devote some time to the things they love; those things that nourish them and give them an individual experience of the real joy of learning.
Reading at home is a very powerful way to assist all children to learn and to build their confidence through reading material that is genuinely interesting to them and accessible. Too many school ‘readers’ considered ‘worthy’ by adults often fail these criteria, being both too hard and too boring at the same time!
It’s great, of course, if parents take the time to hear their children read, even better if parents also read books to their children that they cannot read themselves, but the real winner is when children get to see their parents - and other adults they love – reading themselves for the sheer pleasure of it.
Marilyn Smith
Principal