New school year goal setting

Miss Abigail’s thought for the week: A New School Year!

I have always loved the cyclical nature of school.  I like the fact that the year has a shape and a rhythm that generally repeats, year on year.  And I like that every year is the chance to start afresh – a clean slate; a blank canvas.  Call it what you will, it’s the chance to lay down new positive habits and ditch the ones that don’t serve you any longer.  This is true for both adults and children, though perhaps it is more deliberate in adults!

Some children really need this, though.  To be able to leave old things behind and build new relationships is sometimes all that is needed to turn the school experience around, and our growth mindset attitude to learning means that there is no resting on our laurels: if we are doing well then we should be seeking opportunities to challenge ourselves and push forward out of our comfort zone.

Here are some people in our school discussing the start of the year: https://youtu.be/5-jB0sElrwo Miss Elaine; https://youtu.be/zyc2ZcfkkKg Year 2; https://youtu.be/2VEdMY-Lpmk Year 6.

So what’s your goal for this school year?  What will you achieve in relation to your child’s learning experience?  Could you spend more time talking to them about their learning?  Could you read more stories? Could you learn more about how your kids are learning at school (and the how and the why are always more important than the what)? Could you make more time to pursue and cultivate their interests and curiosities? Could you get more involved with the school?  It’s good to have a goal!

Talk to your children about their goals for this new year.  Try and push them beyond a facile response like, ‘I want to get better at maths.’ What exactly do they want to achieve? How will they achieve their goal?  Who do they want to be this year?  Who are their role models in this? Make sure that they know that a good goal should be challenging and should stretch them, and that it won’t come easy.  They will have to work hard at it, probably over a period of time, until they get better, and they will have to persevere when they fail or when things go wrong along the way.  But the sense of achievement when you meet a goal that you are striving for is pretty awesome.  Eureka!

A great song to finish with – turn the volume up loud! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3HxrW1qZk