PRIDE in the classroom

Neill O’Reilly, Principal:

PRIDE in the classroom is about our values and our vision. It’s also about our interpretation of the key competencies. We have really struggled with this in some ways. Do we just park our values and say we are going to be really explicit about the key competencies or do we say, actually, we know what our school is about and the key competencies are expressed through our values? So because of that partnership and participation, respect, responsibility – they dovetail really nicely. The only challenge for us is the thinking competency isn’t really expressed as well through our PRIDE values as we would like, so that is something that we are exploring.

Liz Haigh, Teacher:

I’m Liz Haigh and I’m teaching a group of five year-olds who have just been at school about ten/eleven weeks. When they arrive at Windsor School, we want to introduce them to the PRIDE values, part of the culture of the school. This fits in beautifully with the key competencies that are in the new curriculum. There is a very strong connection between each of the PRIDE values and each of the five key competencies. There is a huge integration too. I look on it as “thinking” is an overall umbrella to the other four competencies. 

Student:

Respect and responsibility.

Teacher:

Something we saw happening in that story didn’t we? Respect and responsibility. So let’s have a look now using our yellow and black hat thinking. What would be a responsible thing to do in this situation?

Liz Haigh, Teacher:

I think the benefits of incorporating these PRIDE values interconnected with the KCs is because they’re all stemming from a common experience really – the whole class and the whole school is all part of a common set of experiences. They are all values that people relate to very easily. They are all things that are very ordinary and part of your ordinary everyday life. They are things that adults value. So in order for children to get that idea, it is sort of a good grounding of what might have happened at home and then coming through into a school culture as well. 

Cindy Hardy, Teacher:

We were just saying the other day, we felt actually, at new entrants, they are probably the biggest risk takers at any level because every single thing that they meet in, probably, the first term at school is a new risk – down to using a book, holding a biro for some, and having a go at writing on the line. So everything is a risk. For us in the new entrant area it was important, we felt, that we have those values that are specific to our school taught, taught well, and that the children have gained that understanding, and then moving into the key competencies. So for the likes of being able to talk about “managing self”, they can actually tell me: “Oh that’s when I’m working with a partner, “That’s when I’m showing determination to learn something new”, “That’s when I’m working independently and showing respect for others”, “That’s when I’m doing some thinking”. So they are able to easily come back to me with what that competency means to them.

Kaye Royle, teacher:

I have spent a lot of time talking about “managing self” and ways that they can manage their distractions so that they become self-regulated learners, because I think that is really important. To me, perhaps, “managing self” is… I’m most passionate about that key competency because I think it overrides everything we do. I think children, if they are managing themselves, they are going to be able to participate and contribute in a group, they are going to be able to think and work together, and that sort of thing. I think that is a really important competency. We talk to the children about PRIDE language rather than key competency language. Although if we look at our PRIDE values of partnership that is intertwined with participating and contributing and relating to others, our managing self is our determination and how we show excellence in setting goals and reflecting on those goals. So it is all embedded; all the language of the PRIDE is embedded within those key competencies. Those PRIDE values are to the fore on a daily basis. We bring them into every learning experience.  

Vic Hygate, Teacher:

We decided, the teacher of the new entrant class (Glennys Hill) and I, that it was really important to us to build relationships across the school. We wanted those senior children to feel connected to the junior children and to have a responsibility for them. We wanted the junior children who were coming through to know some of those bigger children in the school. So we decided to set them up as buddy classes and start doing things with both classes together on Fridays. After we had started it, it has really lent itself quite naturally to that key competency of relating to others. So every Friday we get together and we do something different each week, and it is always about sharing our learning, but it comes back to that how we relate to each other, how we get on, how we support each other.  

Cindy Hardy, Teacher:

Having clear values that we are all working to has made it so much easier for talking to all children at the school regardless of the level, because they all know those values, they know those words, and they know what is underneath those words.