16 February 2024
Very soon you will find yourselves involved in a chat about goals for 2024 with your child/ren and your Base Group teacher. We really want this to be a time when we ask those searching questions to see what is meaningful for the child with plenty of support (in our world, we call it scaffolding - ironic that the school has seen plenty of this over the last few years!) It is actually the scaffolding that is the important thing - the steps to getting there - the waypower.
The whole thing with goal setting is tricky - a bit like Goldilocks. Hard to get just right - as we can make things too big, audacious and lofty, or too achievable like it will be achieved in 5 minutes!
It's the chance to chat which is so good and support the children to take some ownership and have a voice without causing alarm and making it all too adult! We also have to focus on things that we have some influence over at school!
As a staff, we have set team intentions and unpacked each individuals part to play in supporting the direction of travel for the year. Getting these voiced, shared and visual can be a way for some stickability......!
Teachers will have been having chats at school with your child/ren about this. Have a bit of a play with these ideas at home too before you come to the meeting, please. Focus on strengths goals too - things that are already going well and could just be that bit improved.
It's all about the whole child - academic, social, emotional, physical.......
To get you started - scaled to age and stage, of course! Something like:
What's important for you to work on this year?
What excites you about that?
What are all the little things that might have to happen to move towards that?
What help do you need?
Often, we also have a focus word for the year too. Mine is PAUSE - although the children thought I meant PAWS (as in Frank's!) Hmmmmmm, let's see how I go with that one!!