Incredible Years Training 2014

I was lucky enough to go on the IY training course this year. What an exciting professional development opportunity. 4, 2, 7

Key things I learnt:

• How to focus on the positives
• How to build and maintain relationships with whānau
• How to create learners who feel confident, who are able to self regulate, who are proud to share their successes and who feel their teacher invests their time in them
• What low level undesired behaviours can be avoided by using strategies such as proximal praise
• Overall be a proactive teacher

Early in the course we all had to develop a behaviour plan for a child in our class. My child's behaviour was not extreme, rather he was inattentive, not completing work, calling out and distracting others, which was getting frustrating as it was affecting his learning and that of his peers. Through developing the behaviour plan for this child, I was able to really focus on what triggers were causing the behaviour and then to work out how I could attend to it. I initially started by really trying to build up a relationship with the child- making time to ask how his day was, getting him to do extra tasks for me (deliver notes etc) which I felt was the start of letting the child know I was aware of him as a learner 1. I initially recorded some data about how often the behaviours were occurring, where and when 11, 12. I then developed the next steps in the behaviour plan and over several weeks push the frequency at which the child exhibited the undesired behaviours decreased significantly. The behaviour plan is still in place but is ingrained in my everyday practice with this child so it is less of a focused drive from my point.

Key thing I noted throughout the focus on this behaviour plan is that the benefits of using the IY strategies actually led to a decrease in the undesired behaviours of other children too. The children are more supportive of each other and they are able to recognise strengths in others and equity is an understood and practised value. Children have taken on much more responsibility for their own actions and learning 7, 8

I had two observations by Vicki Scouller (RTLB and IY Group Leader) who was pleased with my development using the strategies. It was great to hear the positives from a professional colleague and IY mentor and she gave me a couple of things to work on which I appreciated 1, 12. The 7 sessions made for amazing PD. The collection of teachers gathered really inspired me to make changes for the better in my classroom. Teachers are a wealth of knowledge and it was great to work with others (all were from wider Taranaki schools) and hear that we all have trials and tribulations and that we could focus on building up the positives for each other 1. Each time I went, I came back refreshed and ready to crack on.  Coming back to school meant trying new things and sharing some of the strategies with a colleague who has not been IY trained. This hopefully made some impact in some small way to her practice.