WELLBEING PRIORITY - WHAT'S NEW AT CALLIOPE SS?
'You Can Do It' Program
The ‘You Can Do It’ (YCDI) Education Program for children is a whole school approach to social and emotional learning. It was developed in Australia at the University of Melbourne by psychologist Professor Michael Bernard. It has been used extensively in the US, the UK and across Australia.
We are implementing the YCDI program as part of our Wellbeing journey. The program will teach your child a number of different skills that he or she should know in order to be happy and successful in school and experience positive relationships.
YCDI! Education Parents contains the latest information on positive parenting and how parents can support their children's success and happiness.
The five core social and emotional skills taught in a variety of ways in YCDI are:
- Confidence
- Persistence
- Organisation
- Getting Along
- Resilience
YCDI helps students develop 12 positive Habits of the Mind (e.g., self-acceptance, high frustration tolerance, acceptance of others) and eliminate negative Habits of the Mind (e.g., self-depreciation, low frustration tolerance, lack of other acceptance) as well as teaches students how by changing their thinking, they can influence their emotions and behaviours.
The program plays an important role in daily life at our school. You can learn more about this program and check out the valuable parenting resources on the following websites http://www.youcandoit.com.au/ , youcandoiteducation.com.au/parents
Calliope State School is a ‘YOU CAN DO IT’ school!
YCDI! Education Parents contains the latest information on positive parenting and how parents can support their children's success and happiness.
YCDI Parents covers three main areas:
- Positive Parents - How to be a positive role model, manage stress and enjoy parenting.
- Effective Parents - Skills for effective discipline, motivation and relationship building.
- Positive Children – How to develop children’s resilience, confidence, persistence, organisation, getting along skills, positive attitudes and values of good character.
YCDI! Parents offers a large number of E-learning programs for parents on ‘best’ practices of parents, and E-learning video and audio E-learning programs for children and adolescents that help build a variety of personal and social skills and positive attitudes.
You Can Do It (YCDI)
Organisation - Setting Goals
ORGANISATION
Organisation is a very broad, embracing foundation that underpins success in many aspects of life. Planning for a successful trip provides us with a good metaphor to demonstrate the key elements of organisation:
- Destination (goal)
- Road Map (time management)
- Transport (the materials and a place to work)
Program Achieve is designed to increase student awareness of the important elements of organisation. Goal setting is one such habit practised at school. Research indicates that students who set goals tend to be more committed, make more of an effort and learn to monitor their own learning progress and as a result, achieve better than students who do not set goals. Goal setting is quite straight forward.
‘Good Goals’
It has been found that the most effective goals for students are:
- Moderately challenging
- Concrete/Specific (e.g. a particular task to accomplish or a score to achieve in a test )
- Short Term ( one to two weeks)
The more such habits can be reinforced, both at school and at home, the more effective and ‘automatic’ they will become for students. So what can you do to help? Here are a few suggestions to help develop your child’s organisation skills.
- Set goals yourself and share the success or otherwise of them with your children.
- Set up a list of morning or afternoon routines for kids to follow, which are age specific, on the fridge and organise small rewards when goals or responsibilities are achieved. A realistic expectation might be Prep-2 students having two responsibilities before and after school while those in Year 3-7 can work on three tasks. These tasks, which can take 10 to 15 minutes to complete, help children, learn organisation skills.
- Organise a quiet, well-lit space for your kids to complete homework.
- Insist on the ‘pain before pleasure’ motto. This ensures that homework is completed before any playtime.
- Use some behaviour specific feedback when you catch your kids being organised, such as:
- I can see you are intent on achieving your goal.
- without goals, it is harder to do your best.
- I see you have all your things ready. You are planning ahead.
Communication books, diaries and reading logs are all tools that help kids to be prepared. With all new learning come some hiccups. Keep persisting and insisting on your children being organised at home and at school. We urge you not just to read this but actually be proactive and do it with your children.