Brief Reflection on Professional Standard 4 for Teacher Self Check Survey

Reflect & comment on Professional Standard 4: Develop a culture that is focused on learning, and is characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy, collaboration and safety. *

Here are some of the ways I did this….

1. First few weeks of school, you had to sit next to a minimum of 2 different people each day, to develop of culture where it is okay to sit next to anyone. It should be okay in the morning, put your stuff on any table and know it won’t matter who sits there because we are all one class and we can all work together.When you had sat next to every member of the class, you were allowed to choose to sit with whoever you like. I wanted people to all feel comfortable with each other and know that no matter who you were sitting with in the class, it would be safe, people would be kind and people would include you. It made it less awkward for those people that are afraid to sit with new people because they knew that you wouldn’t be rejected (unless you’d sat with all the people before) and that everyone was in the same boat.
2. STEAM challenges- We did many group STEAM challenges in the first few weeks of school. I chose the groups and changed them every day so everyone was forced to work with different people. Again I was trying to foster the idea that we are all one in the class and it should be safe for you to work with anyone in the class and know that they will be kind and they will include you. Obviously some children found this difficult but mostly it was the children who needed this that found it difficult because it took them out of their comfort zone. You can’t develop new relationships with new people if you are to afraid to leave the comfort of the relationships you have already established with people you consider safe and ok.
3. Collaborative Art- We did a collaborative piece of art with popsicles sticks. Again this was to get the message across that we are all one. We also started our 2nd collaborative piece which we will work on next term. It’s an outdoor piece of art to be made with recycled bottle caps.
4. Established a system of leadership and ownership over our class through the use of BANQER. Not only does this app cover key learning in the area of financial literacy but it provides other opportunities as well. It is linked to our values, behaviour management and roles within the class. Everyone contributes- everyone does their part-we all work together and respect each other and our environment.