‘Our praise poems were great because it had everything we like in it. It made us happy because it was about ourselves. We liked how our classmates came up positive words to describe people – like in my case ‘sassy’, which makes me sound like I own it! We will share it with our friends and family.’
Faith, Manisha and Caitlin
Manor Park P5/6 have been thinking about a healthy, happy and safe school where everyone was doing their best. Here is what they imagine:
We’ve been doing Children’s Parliament work and this week we were doing learning treasure maps. We open the learning treasure, on person reads it out while we listen. Then we decide where to put it on our map. The left is what sounds like you like a learner, the right is what doesn’t sound like you as a learner. There is also the middle.
‘The learning treasure I’d like more in learning is ‘I get on well with others’ because if I stopped arguing I’d find a solution to helping me be more calm and focus. If you start arguing over tiny things it can disturb others too if it gets too loud.’
‘I’d also choose ‘I get on well with others’ and will work on less fallouts with classmates – this would help me do my best. When I fallout I don’t get a lot of work done as I think only about upsetting my friends and this distracts me. Our teacher has put different faces up on the wall so we can show how we are feeling. If I move it to sad and angry the teacher notices and comes and asks me questions. I don’t want to answer as it makes me sad. Getting on well with others would make me choose the happy face.’
Cadhla and Madison
‘I’d choose ‘I keep going’. When I’m doing something and it is good and fun I never give up. I get really into it. I give up on maths. I like doing it but sometimes the teacher thinks you can do it but it is too hard to understand and you give up. If it was easier to understand or I knew the way to figure it out then I could keep going. I will try to do this.’
‘I would pick this too because I give up easily. Sometimes work is really hard and I can’t concentrate properly. I am going to try and not get distracted by ignoring people, this will allow me to catch up.’
Sophie-Lea and Tegan R
Over the last two weeks we have been on a treasure hunt. We have been searching for learning treasures.
‘The treasure maps showed us what we were good at and bad at learning.’
– Nicola
We used our treasure maps to identify the learning skills we were good at and used a lot as well as those we found harder.
When we thought about how this activity made us feel, we used adjectives such as fun, peaceful, joyful and calm.
Abigail found that this activity reinforced what she had already learned in previous weeks which was a helpful reminder.
We agreed to try and use one of the treasures we found harder but would like to get better at this week.
‘We have been plotting learning treasures on our map. If it is like me as a learner we put it on the left of the island. If it is not like me as a learner we put it on the right.’
‘I make a plan when I’m in my house and my mum says “tidy up your room”. I gather all toys and put them in a pile where they belong. At school I’d make a plan when using timetables. If I was doing 2 x 1, I would draw out two squares and then write 1 in each of the squares. I can then add them up. Making a plan helps me get everything done. I also use watch and learn a lot. When I was five I came to Scotland. I couldn’t speak English. I watched everyone else and copied what they were saying. This helped me learn.’
Daniels
‘I like to work things out carefully like maths and writing. If I am doing 8 x 8 I’d use my brain and my fingers to count it out and get the right answer.’
Owen
‘I listen and understand how others feel. When other people don’t know the answers I know how they are feeling; sad, stressed and angry. I’d give them a number line if I was doing maths. This can help them.’
‘I do not get on with others because sometimes I get annoyed by people and annoy them back. This then gets us into trouble by the PSA, teacher or Head Teacher.’
‘Making a plan is not like me. I usually never come up with stuff in advance. I need to work on this as school work could be easier if you knew what I had to do.’
Katrina and Dexter
‘I don’t keep going when doing maths. I skip the hard questions and go onto the easy questions.’
Leah
‘These are our learnometers. They show what helps us learn and what gets in the way of doing our best.’
‘My AHDH and autism get in the way. Whenever I try to get on with work I get hyper for no reason. I find it hard to listen. When this happens to me I go crazy and walk out the classroom.’
‘Art helps me cope with being at school. That and P.E. is what I like.’
‘Lunchtime helps me because I am always hungry. Food refuels my belly and gives me the energy to learn.’
‘When people listen to you it helps me learn. It makes me feel good that they are listening. I feel important and special.’
‘Being in a good mood in the morning helps me start school. If you’ve woken up and are happy, it makes me ready to start my day.’
‘People shouting makes me go off my work as it annoys and disturbs me.’
‘My friends help me learn. Working in a group is great as we can help each other with ideas.’
This week we did learnometers. ‘One side which is nice things and one side which is not nice things.’ These things are ‘things that stop you from learning and things that keep you going.’
– Keira and Megan
‘You can do the good things and not the bad things [because] when we’re doing bad things we’re stopping people from learning.’
– Jnr and Megan
I learnt ‘to listen to instructions and don’t talk when your not supposed to.’
– Hana
Also, ‘don’t talk over other people.’
– Jnr
We agreed that learnometers can be a helpful reminder of the tools we have to help us learn and they can help us see what can make learning difficult. We also learnt that if we do the helpful things then we get to do more activities we enjoy.
‘We described ourselves a the characters, what is like us and what is not like us. I described myself as the reflective person because I think carefully about something before I do it. I did sound a bit like Ruby, Rebecca and Robert. I picked Ruby because I think that I am exactly the same. I always ask questions and know where to look for answers but if I can’t find what I need I ask for help. I am like Robert because when I have completed one challenge, I like to challenge myself again.’
Reece, Cadhla and Sophie-Lea
We learned all about how learn-o-meters can change our feelings. A learn-o-meter has a good side and a bad side. The good side is what helps us learn and the bad side is what makes learning difficult.
“If you don’t want to speak you can point to how you feel at school.”
Harvey-Lee
“I felt a bit scared at the start but at the end I felt quite good because it wasn’t so scary.”
Leah
“I felt like I could do this bit but then I couldn’t so I asked for help and that made me feel happy.”
Krista
“I felt like I was going to take ages and then it didn’t. and that made me feel good.”
Harvey-Lee
Today we have been looking at some people with different learning personalities.
This was a fun activity because you learnt how to describe yourself and what your actual learning personality is. When we looked at the cards our personalities where kind of the same. Some of us were very like one character and others of us could relate to two or three!
