Understanding conditions

Corinne Hansell, principal of Tamaki Primary School, talks about the importance of understanding children's home lives to better optimise learning, and to highlight where communication with parents might be needed to strengthen conditions for learning.

Transcript

What is also important to us and has proved to be very important is knowing where the child sleeps. We took our year 6 children on camp last year and out of 21 children 7 slept on a mattress in the sitting room. And they found it really hard to get sleep at a time that was appropriate for optimum conditions for learning. So that helps us understand why some children take a long time to settle in the morning and some of the conversations we need to have with the parents about strengthening those conditions for learning.

Published on: 23 Aug 2011