Leader in Me – Habit 5
‘Seek First to Understand then to be Understood’ is Habit 5 from ‘The Leader in Me’ whole school programme that aims to promote social and emotional learning for our pupils which we hope will empower our pupils with leadership and general life skills. Our boys in Rannoch Class are beginning to make connections with the some of what they have learned from working on each of the ‘Habits’ and general life itself – lovely to witness some ‘light bulb’ moments when this is highlighted.
Our weekly Virtual whole school Assembly led by Miss Pritchard, our Head Teacher, focused on Habit 5 – ‘Seek first to understand…’ It has been a focus for us the past couple of weeks – she asked the classes to focus on what was happening in pictures shown through Assembly or what they thought was happening in the pictures. In other words, the first impressions that are created when one looks at a picture, sometimes it don’t always look good, but on understanding the ‘full picture’ of what happened, ‘seeking to find out and understand,’ – the picture become clearer and things don’t seem so bad after all. Sometimes people can jump to conclusions! it’s a valuable life skill, and a very valuable life skill for our boys in ASD who view our World differently already!
Sign-a-Long
Some of the boys in Rannoch Class have learned a lot of ‘Sign-a-Long’ this session because they want to be able to understand and communicate (seek to understand) with one of their peers who is not as able to verbalise his needs and wants in the same way as they do – actively doing this, and taking an interest is helping and encouraging everybody in class. Thank you so much to Miss De in Rannoch Class for this tremendous work.
Arts & Crafts/Technology – ‘Light bulb Moment’ – ‘Begin with the end in Mind’ – Habit 2
This week there was a ‘light bulb moment’ some of the boys when they made a link to one of the ‘Habits’ already learned. The main learning intention was to ‘design & plan’ their own Planet, but in order to be successful, the teacher showed the boys a video of the ‘end product’ the ‘finished piece’ and materials needed,. The video showed how to make a small 3-D model of a planet out of recycled materials –‘begin with the end in mind’ ! The boys designed and planned their own planet this week, and are to start work on this next week following their plan.
Weeding & Planting
Our class discovered this week that the onion seeds planted in late March must have failed because there is no sign of them growing yet –only weeds! They learned week that seeds do not thrive in the frost and very cold weather. In April we had quite a few days of frost and this would result in the seeds ‘dying’ (it was a chance we took!!) and not going through the ‘germination’ process with how cold the soil would get at that time – we’re not supposed to get frost, sleet and snow in April time- a further sign that our seasons are a bit upside up-down due to Global Warming- another lesson for another time!
We re-planted these 2 raised beds with Beetroot seed, and some lettuce.
Maths – Bar Graphs
Rannoch boys were working on number work skills in both subtraction and addition, but were also learning about Bar Graphs at different levels.
Mrs MacDonald
