Personal Support@Peebles High School

We’re finally getting around to doing the second tranche of interviews, starting with S3.  Our schedule for interviews anticipated the problems that arose at the end of last term around absence, assemblies and such like as we had a couple of weeks unassigned.  We’d intended those for either catch-up interviews with absentees, or, had all gone to original plan, for a few ‘bespoke’ interviews with students who may have benefited from an extra wee chat.

We’ve put together another self-assessment tool;  it’s a questionnaire this time and focusses on key skills and attributes to support learning, wellbeing and confidence:

1. I manage deadlines for my work well.
2. I know where I am doing well and need to improve in each subject.
3. I know where to go to find help with my work.
4. I work well with others.
5. I am comfortable with change.
6. I make sure I have a healthy balance between my school work and other commitments
7. Engage with the work by actively participating in lessons.
8. I approach my learning with a positive mental attitude and I am open to new ideas.
9. I explore a range of strategies to help me learn.
10. I look after my physical and mental health.

It’ll be interesting to see how the pupils respond to this.

We also did an evaluation at the end of last term which is currently being analysed.  As the last thing teachers want or need, is extra workload, so we have not been going above and beyond by supporting individual pupils in specific pieces of work.  We’ve deliberately kept the content of the study sessions fairly hands-off in order to reflect a potential reality next session and so the results of the evaluation will hopefully show whether and how this is useful to the students, as well as let us know what impact the coaching is having.

Finally, in the first round two coaching session this week, the pupil voluntarily said that she had really noticed a difference in her ability to overcome a couple of her barriers to learning as a result of the coaching conversation.  I’ll be honest, I was surprised at this, as I expected results to be slower and less tangible to the pupils. I obviously underestimated the pupil’s understanding of the process and the benefits it offered to her.  We’ll see if that response is shared by others in the coming weeks.

Things have been ticking along fairly nicely over the past month or so.  Simon and I have been getting into the swing of coaching conversations and are beginning to relax into the role of coach more.

We’ve noticed, with pleasant surprise, how responsive the pupils are to the coaching concept.  They seem to noticeably switch into a different mode as soon as the conversation begins and a different rapport or relationship seems to develop.  This may be one of the key strengths of the initiative; the luxury of having some given time where you are listened to seems to be one which the pupils value.  It will be interesting to see what the pupil perception is though. The evaluation should offer us some valuable insights.

It feels like we’ve moved beyond the initial stages of the project and so we need to think very seriously about how to facilitate the successful roll-out of this time across the school next year.

These are the big questions to ponder:

• How do we provide for pupils with additional support needs?
• How do we fit in 4 coaching conversations per period
• Are the conversations frequent enough?
• Who will make up the vertical classes and what will happen if there is a particularly toxic mix in certain classes?
• How will the pairing of teachers be handled?  What if there are pairings that are incompatible?
• What should this time be called?

At the next Personal Support group we’ll explore these issues, or at least, the first two, and see if we can come up with some solutions.

S1 Conversations and a visit from Rae renwick

Today Mia and I wanted to mop up the outstanding S3 learning conversations and complete the S1 conversations in one period. This didn’t happen! Again, we are caught between our determination to stick to the agreed timeline (which requires four conversations a week so each year group has four conversations a year) and our determination to make the conversations as meaningful and pupil-led as possible. 

Rae wanted to see how we were putting our coaching into practice. She observed Mia’s conversations with S1 pupils and then offered feedback on the session.

I felt that the conversation I had were helpful to the students who engaged well with the experience and seemed to have put a lot of thought into their goals. The area which is most time-consuming is still the identification of options and it’s hard not to jump in and suggest possibilities yourself.

In the study class, some pupils are really using their time effectively while others are still struggling to remember to bring work with them. Some think that just staring at a textbook will help them remember their French verbs or physics formulae. Most were willing to try and become more active in their learning. Others (seniors) did not seem to know if they had homework or what work they had to do!