Random Acts of Kindness

I have a Pastoral Care group of Year 7, 8 and 9 students that I see twice a day, in what is known at our College as Home Group.  In the mornings we mark the roll and announce the notices, in the afternoons we check that no-one left school early, and that everyone has their hats for the trip home.  For each House, there are 2 middle school Home Groups, and students stay in their assigned HG until the end of Year 9.  They are then distributed through the 3 senior HGs for Years 10, 11 and 12.

The morning HG time is very unstructured, and that is something that my HG (BR.1) and I have been working hard to change (at least in our room) over the past 3 years.  We only have 10-20mins each morning, but we have been trying to make the most of it.  We have competitions, we hold discussions, we have 'Bad Joke Friday', we do stuff together.  I have noticed that my ex-BR.1s tend to hold that identity even into their senior years, even after spending as much time in BR.3/4/5.

We're starting some new things this year, and the first that we've managed to get off the ground is our 'Roll and Random Act of Kindness' challenge.  On Monday I asked the students to come up with a list of 11 things that they could do around College as a Random Act of Kindness (RAK).  I know RAKs aren't new, but in my experience they are rarely used in a consistent way - usually there'll be a one week focus or something similiar.  Here's what my guys came up with:

 We started at '2' as every Monday each member of BR.1 (including me) is going to roll 2 dice to determine which RAK is theirs for the week, and with 2 dice you can't roll a '1'.  We then have until Friday to complete our RAK.

The Acts that the HG decided on were converted to a poster and pinned up on our noticeboard just inside the classroom door, and the students wrote their name on a tally ticket.  Each week, they get to add to their tally if they have completed their assigned RAK, sometimes multiple times.  

We have also started HG blogs, one for each student, and one for me.  On Friday morning the students blogging topic was about our 'Roll a RAK' - how they felt about the initiative in general, and how they felt about the RAK they had that week.  I was blown away by the students responses, both in their simple blog posts, but also in the conversations we had as they filled in their tally tickets.  The boys, in particular, were very proud of their RAKs and delighted in telling me how good they felt doing something for someone else.

There is no competition here, no reward, except the feeling that we have put some positive energy into the world, and perhaps made someones day a little easier, or brighter.  The tally tickets are for when we are having a tough day, to remind us of the good things we've done, and to consolidate the BR.1 identity as people who make a difference, no matter how small.

Adding some music to History

A majority of my students have heard of Horrible Histories before they enter my classroom, however, not many have heard of historyteachers.  While the HH songs are catchy in their own way, Amy Burvall and Herb Mahelona set their parodies to songs that the students and teachers are familiar with from popular culture.

Check out the reason my students draw musical notes next to some of their Medieval Europe exam answers, and not a one has ever misspelled bubonic!

I'm looking forward to introducing my Year 7 class to historyteachers well-researched, produced and catchy work.

Head on over to arttrav by Alexandra Korey to read how Amy used the songs in her own teaching.

Picking up the assessment ball and running with it.

Last year I took a big step and volunteered to re-write a Year 8 English assessment.  This was a big deal for me for a few reasons:
* I only have one English class,
* some really experienced teachers were also teaching that cohort, and
* the assessment I was wanting to replace was written by the Head of Department.

However, I went through with it and we ended up with an assessment piece that I'm really happy with, and the students seemed to enjoy.  This year, one student in particular has taken this assessment ball and run further than I could have dared to hope just over 12 months ago.

I was inspired by Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - a play that my own English teacher in Year 11/12 set for my class, and which is to this day nearly 20 years later still one of my favourites.  For those of you who haven't heard of it, it tells the story of two characters from Hamlet that we don't encounter much in Shakespeare's play.  Tom Stoppard lets us into their world and shows us what they are up to when they are not on Shakespeare's stage.

We've been reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and this final task involves the students giving a character a voice.  We know Katniss' story, we know most of Peeta's, and a fair amount of Rue's - but what about the other 21 Tributes of the 74th Hunger Games?  The students need to choose one of the remaining 21 tributes, and produce 2 blog entries a la reality show contestant 'piece to camera' insights.  The first piece needs to be set before the tribute enters the arena, and the second is set after.  Each entry is limited to 300 words, and needs to make the audience 'feel' something.  I gave the students the example of Survivor or Masterchef - there are always one or two contestants we really love, there are two or three we can't wait to see eliminated, and the rest are 'meh' - the students need to ensure their chosen tribute isn't 'meh'.

One of my students this year has decided that he wanted to tell us more for his tribute.  He has written his 300 word first post for the assessment, but he has also written 4 more (word unlimited) installments from his tribute 'because I felt like it Miss, I wanted to tell people their story.'

Year 8.  Boy.  English subject.  Way more work than required.  Highlight of my year.