5 Tips for Great Parent-Teacher Conferences
1. Approach Parents with Positive Assumptions Parents want to partner with you. They want to see their child succeed more than anything else. Parent conferences might be an opportunity for you to surface your beliefs about parents and reflect on them but when you engage with parents, even if you hold some doubts about them, put those aside. Welcome every parent as your strongest ally in working with your student (their child). 2. Prepare, Prepare, Prepare What is your goal or objective for the time you have with parents? What exactly do you want to communicate? What would you like the outcome of this meeting to be? Here’s an example: My goal in Maria’s conference is for her mum to…
Is Your TO DO List Making You Sick?
Exercise more, eat better, spend more time with the family, connect more with friends, how much more can we do? I know I’m not alone by sharing that once or twice (okay way more times) in my life I have felt stressed. I’m hiding so no one would find me, yelling at my phone to be quiet and on the brink, wanting to rip up my TO DO list and run to the mountains. Anyone with me? If we stop and think about the events that lead up to these meltdowns, we play a big part in getting ourselves into the situation. We keep saying yes when we want to say no, we sleep in when knowing we need to…
Dealing with Difficult Parents
Dealing with difficult or demanding parents can certainly add to the stress of working in schools. Whilst staff in schools have the needs of multiple students to consider, most parents are only advocating for a small number of students, their own children. That’s understandable! Keeping the scale of the problem in perspective is important. What is known as the 80 / 20 rule generally applies. 80% of problems will come from 20% of parents. In most cases an even larger percentage of issues will come from an even smaller percentage of parents. This is not intended in any way to trivialise the issues. However keeping it in perspective is important. Whilst dealing with difficult parents may take a lot of…
Letting Go of Betrayals of Trust
What are you like at forgiving others and getting over hurts? Some of us find this extremely hard to do. However, over time unresolved, painful emotions can come at a major cost. Most of the hurts that we have are misunderstandings where we have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Many of these upsets are easy to get over. We calm down, find a kinder way to explain another’s behaviour and then find it easier to let go of any remaining hurt when the normal pattern of positive interactions resumes. But there are also major hurts, betrayals of trust or a long history of hurtful interactions that are much harder to let go of. Sometimes the change required is…
Live the Reputation You Want to Have
If asked for three words to describe YOU, what three words would your students use? What about parents? What three words would they choose? Finally, your colleagues, what is your reputation in their eyes? Each of us has a reputation in the eyes of others. This reputation may be accurate or ill informed. It may have been hard earned over many years, inherited through our position or even assumed based on first impressions. But our reputation impacts on our relationships with others and our effectiveness. This year I’d like you to think about the three words you’d LIKE your reputation to be. What would you like people to say about you at the end of the year? …
Get More Done – Productivity Hacks
Time is a precious commodity. Each year there seems to be more tasks that need to be completed in our work in schools, in the same amount of time. The start of the year is the ideal time to make sure that we are being as efficient as possible and using our time well. These productivity hacks can help get more done in less time. Focus – Multi-tasking is NOT the Answer Schools are such busy places, we often have many tasks on the go at one time. The ability to multi-task or “juggle many balls in the air” at one time is held in high esteem. However, research indicates that we aren’t actually multi-tasking, we are in fact…
Making 2020 Your Year
It’s relatively easy to start the year feeling refreshed and recharged and ready for the year ahead. It’s a little more difficult to maintain that energy level during the year. A little planning now can set you up to make 2020 your best year yet! Start by reflecting on last year and then identify key areas for action. Without reflection, we will continue to repeat the same mistakes of the past. Without action, nothing is achieved. Take a moment now to reflect on last year. What worked well and what contributed to higher levels of stress? Were you organised and prepared for peak periods eg report time? Were you efficient with your time or did you procrastinate or focus on…
10 Important Priorities For A Successful Year
Whether you are a novice teacher or an experienced classroom practitioner, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the bewildering amount of work that needs to be accomplished each school day. With this type of workplace pressure, it is crucial to prioritise your tasks so that you can accomplish everything you need to do, move forward in meeting your goals, reduce your own stress levels, and, most importantly, be the teacher your students need for you to be. While our daily tasks will change during the course of the year, our priorities will not. In the list below, you will find the ten most important priorities that all teachers, no matter what we teach, must pay careful attention to. 1.…
Three Gifts to Give Yourself this Christmas
Gift Number One – Presence You are about to take some well-earned time off to spend with loved ones, recharge your batteries and reconnect. This is often easier said than done as we struggle to wind down, to switch off and be fully present. Presence requires us to dig deep and fully savour those precious moments, such as children opening presents or a friend or relative sharing a story. Here are my tips for remaining present this season: Aim to minimise use of technology and devices. Instead play interactive games, engage in conversation, actively listen, turn the phone to silent, shhhhh. If you need to get some work done during the break, schedule time to do it, decide how long…
Building Quality Relationships
According to acclaimed education researcher John Hattie, “It is teachers who have created positive teacher-student relationships that are more likely to have the above average effects on student achievement.” Earlier this year, at the Positive Schools conferences, Charles Brunzell posed the question, “Is it your job to get your students to like you?” This is a question with many good answers. In short, when we foster positive connections with our students, they are more likely to feel positive about class and about school in general. They are also more willing to have a go at hard work, to risk making mistakes, and to ask for help when they need it. According to Rita Pierson in her great TED talk, “Kids…
Using Golden Rules to Protect Well-being
Working in schools can be overwhelming and all encompassing. It feels like there is always more that we could do and our work can feel never ending. It can also be difficult to disconnect and switch off. Thinking about work and the challenges we face at school can be all consuming. It is important to set boundaries and limits to stop school work from encroaching on the other things in our life that are important to us eg your partner, family, friends and other interests. Whilst developments in technology should help us, they have also resulted in us becoming more ‘connected’ than ever. For example, many staff members check their work emails at home at night, on the weekends and…
Change the Way You Look At Things
One of the key characteristics of highly resilient people is their ‘natural’ ability to reframe challenges as opportunities, to make lemonade out of lemons. I have used inverted commas for ‘natural’ because, whilst for many this is an intrinsic characteristic of optimism, for others it can be learned. Step 1 – Understand that Events can be Neutral – When something we perceive as challenging happens, we often label it as ‘bad’ or ‘negative’. However, upon reflection we sometimes realise that it wasn’t so bad after all or it may even have been ‘a blessing in disguise’. If we can check ourselves before labeling an experience as good or bad, we can change our response into something more resourceful. For example,…