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!!