Dealing with the gang culture in your school

Following last month’s piece on research which suggests that winning over gang leaders can help schools cope with 'laddish' behaviour, we now reveal the research into ‘ladettes’.

Ladettes, according to research carried out at Lancaster University, are schoolgirls who drink, smoke and are disruptive in class. A study highlights an increase in so-called "ladette" behaviour - with a growing number of teenage girls fighting, swearing and being rowdy. These girls are more likely to be open in discussing sex and often do so in the belief that they can embarrass their teachers.

The study, for the university's Department of Educational Research, looked at 1,000 pupils at six schools in the north of England. Dr Carolyn Jackson, who led the research, says that while girls are becoming more assertive, some are taking it too far. Teachers feel modern girls were "becoming more loud at school and more assertive and some were more disruptive in lessons." Dr Jackson asked girls to fill in questionnaires, before quizzing 30 teachers and 150 pupils to get their opinions.

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Give yourself a good talking to...

Many recent studies have shown that a person’s emotional state may affect his or her physical health. Depression can worsen heart disease, and stress may contribute to the catching of colds. Now scientists at the University of Wisconsin have shown that people with high activity in a particular brain area may muster weak immune responses in the face of negative emotions. Melissa Rosenkranz and colleagues monitored the brain activity of 52 men and women and asked them to write about emotionally negative moments in their lives. Researchers then injected each subject with a flu shot and tracked the level of antibodies in their blood to discover how well their bodies were fighting the virus in the vaccine. They found that subjects with high electrical activity in the right prefrontal cortex during the emotional writing task produced lower levels of antibodies, indicative of impaired immunity. Rosenkranz says the study is the first step toward discovering a neural mechanism explaining the mind’s effect on the body. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Another study, presented to a conference at the Royal Society in London in 2004, found that people with a low sense of self worth are more likely to suffer from memory loss as they get older, and their brains were more likely to shrink compared with those who have a high sense of self esteem.

Dr Sonia Lupien, of McGill University in Montreal surveyed 92 senior citizens over 15 years and studied their brain scans and found that the brains of those with low self-worth were up to a fifth smaller than those who felt good about themselves. These people also performed worse in memory and learning tests.

However, Dr Lupien believes that if those with a negative mind set were taught to change the way they think they could reverse their mental decline. He said: "This atrophy of the brain that we thought was irreversible is reversible - some data on animals and some data on humans shows that that if you enrich the environment, if you change some factors this brain structure can come back to normal levels"

Researchers are studying which psychological treatments work best. According to Dr Felicia Huppert of Cambridge University, the early signs are that fairly simple techniques can have an enormous impact: "There are interventions which talk about focusing on positive things in everyday life and savouring good moments. Even at times when life is difficult little tiny things may give you pleasure so there are skills involved in how to derive pleasure from the ordinary things in life".

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Making Strides

The STRIDE TM model of coaching has been devised by Will Thomas. You can read about its use in detail in Coaching Solutions: Practical Ways to Improve Performance in Education, and you may want to try it out for yourself

Strengths: Ask yourself at each step: What strengths do I have that will help me right now?
Target: What do I want in place of the problem? Or what will even better performance be like?
Real situation: What is the situation like now? What is getting in my way? What is helping me here?
Ideas: How might I improve this situation? What if the things that are in my way, weren’t there?
Decision: What will I do? What will that give for me? What further support do I need?
Evalution: On a one-ten scale how committed to this action am I?

The STRIDE model could be used at home, placed in the school staff handbook or student planner and used for everyday problem solving.

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Giving yourself a good coaching to...

At South Bromsgrove Community High School Year nine students were invited to take part in a confidence building programme which consisted of an introductory morning training session to introduce them to the concept of self-development and help them to recognise their strengths.

This was followed by six coaching sessions at approximately one-week intervals with a trained coach. Each session focused on an area of personal development that the students chose for themselves. Throughout the programme students made excellent progress. Pre and post coaching assessments showed improvements in self confidence, communication skills and clarity of direction. Many of the students focused their sessions on defining their future career plans and linking this to their goals in and out of school.

Review questionnaires completed by teachers and the students showed that the coaching work had had a positive impact on the confidence of many of the students in classroom learning scenarios and one-to-one work. This was with both adults and their peers. Students reported a greater sense of direction and focus and a deeper understanding of their own strengths and self management. They were able to rationalize information more effectively and make decisions which were more in line with their future goals.

Manchester Consulting Incorporated carried out a study with one hundred senior leadership personnel from 1996 to 2000. The research concluded that there was an estimated return on the amount invested in the coaching of 5.7 times. It is very early days in the field of educational coaching to be making such specific measures of impact, but nonetheless there are many schools and colleges around the world who are buying into the coaching ethos and reporting significant changes both quantitatively and qualitatively.

A report in Education World Magazine this year outlined the success of a coaching programme rolled out across every school in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Here a whole-school change coach worked with schools to implement structures of coaching within the schools. This coach worked with senior staff, teachers and students. At Ludwig van Beethoven Elementary School, the principal is quoted as saying that “the coaching has really encouraged kids to be independent readers and writers. The model works very well when implemented properly”. He goes on to credit the coaching programme as “energizing and empowering the school”.

C.W. Henry Elementary School, West Mount Airy, Philadelphia, USA has used coaching to help teachers to “ move beyond labeling children with real or assumed deficits and explore student behavioral problems from the point of view of the students”. They report that the programme has also helped teachers deal more effectively with parents.

Excerpted from Coaching Solutions: Practical Ways to Improve Performance in Education, Will Thomas and Alistair Smith, NEP, 2004.

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Trend spotters

At the recent Alite team meeting we asked the question: how will schools differ in five years time? Our trend spotters removed their anoraks, put down their clipboards and came up with the following answers:

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Pause for thought

It was the first day of interviews for University. The business studies programme was a popular choice and the first batch of candidates for interview were sitting, most of them nervously, awaiting their call. It was a hot summer’s day and the windows opened out onto a sunlit area where a handful of postgraduate students hurried about their business. Traffic noise murmured across the background. From time to time, the door at the far end of the hall would open and a name would be called. Another hopeful, brushed and scrubbed would disappear. As the morning wore on, a few more candidates arrived. Arriving together, were an eighteen year old girl fresh from A-Levels and a woman who looked as though she was well into her pensionable years. They struck up a conversation very naturally.

‘I’m applying for the four year honours course.’ said the old woman.

‘Really?’ replied the young girl, her voice betraying a degree of disbelief.

‘You’ll be thinking, why bother at my age?’

‘No – not a bit…’ lied the young girl without much conviction

‘I’ll be 83 when I graduate.’

‘Isn’t that, perhaps … maybe a bit old?’

‘My dear – I’ll be 83 anyway.’

At the end of the hall, the door opened. The two women sat back and smiled knowingly.

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Who should I call?

The lines have been buzzing at the Alite office with enquiries about training and resources for 2005. Here’s a quick reference of who to contact for the various products, and some further information about some of this term’s programmes:

INSET

If you’d like to find out more about:
Starting out with Accelerated Learning - our one day introduction to AL
Alps – the 3 day programme for primary schools
ALiSS - the 3 day programme for secondary schools
Alite for Numeracy – an inspiring day with ‘the Jamie Oliver of Maths’!
How to Reach the Hard to Teach – AL approaches to deal with challenging behaviour
Creative Classrooms – unlocking the creative potential of children through music, movement, images and words
Coaching for Performance - develop one to one coaching skills.

Please call Hilary on 01628 810700 x 20, email hilary@alite.co.uk for details, or visit www.alite.co.uk

Events, courses and conferences

If you’d like to find out more about any of our open events, including:
Starting out with Accelerated Learning
Moving on with Accelerated Learning
Learning to Learn
How to Create an Accelerated Learning Primary School
Alite for Numeracy
How to Reach the Hard to Teach
Creative Classrooms
Coaching for Performance
Alite 2005: Personalising Learning

Please call Debbie or Grace on 01628 810700 x 24, email events@alite.co.uk for details, or visit www.alite.co.uk

Resources, books, videos, DVDs, software

The best place to browse these products is on-line at Alite online shop

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Alite 2005: Personalising Learning

This year’s annual conference, 'Personalising Learning: Creative approaches' will again be held in the prestigious surroundings of the Café Royal, London on 24th June 2005.

To register for the conference, please email events@alite.co.uk or visit the website at www.alite.co.uk

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Learning to Learn: Personalised Learning in Practice

The Alite Learn to Learn programme is the only one of its kind in the UK. It links teaching to learning and planning to assessment. Discover how to use it to take learning in your school into the 21st Century. See and hear how Learning to Learn works successfully. Find answers to the following questions:

For full details, please email events@alite.co.uk, or visit Learning 2 Learn on the Alite website.

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How to Create an Accelerated Learning Primary School

Alistair Smith introduces this exciting conference which brings together a panel of keynote speakers with first hand experience of transforming learning through the use of Accelerated Learning in their schools.
The conference will be invaluable for those with responsibility for influencing teaching and learning in their schools, those who are Accelerated Learning enthusiasts and those who want to improve their professional practice.

During the course of the day you will:

Based on a firm foundation of Accelerated Learning theory, the day will provide a wealth of practical tips and techniques, and will be presented in the context of real schools which are changing the nature of learning on a daily basis.

For full details, please email events@alite.co.uk, or visit How to Create an Accelerated Learning Primary School on the Alite website.

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Starting out with Accelerated Learning

If you are just setting out on your Accelerated Learning journey, Alite has the programme that is ideal for you. Starting Out with Accelerated Learning (SowAL) will answer these questions:

What is Accelerated Learning?
Is Accelerated Learning for me?
Where do I go with Accelerated Learning?
How do I make a start?
Why does it make a difference?

Starting Out with Accelerated Learning shows you how to use the Accelerated Learning cycle. It helps you begin to transform learning in your classroom and your school. If you are keen to freshen you thinking about learning, build your confidence as a classroom practitioner or re-invigorate learning across your school Starting Out with Accelerated Learning is for you!

For full details, please email events@alite.co.uk, or visit SowAL on the Alite website.

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Your INSET programme problems for the next year has just been solved

If you have ever wondered what Accelerated Learning looks like in action, here are your answers! Close Up: Accelerated Learning in Secondary Schools is a unique set of two DVDs packed with examples of great practice. Three hours of quality material. Ten lessons from outstanding teachers.

The DVDs have only just been released, and already colleagues are telling us that they are finding them invaluable for departmental meetings, SMT meetings and for inspiring INSETs.

For full details, please email hilary@alite.co.uk, or visit Close Up on the Alite website.

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Train the Trainer

This three-day package is unique to Alite. Participants are given the opportunity to develop their training and presentation skills whilst experiencing accelerated learning techniques. If you work for a Local Education Authority in a support or training role, if you are part of an Education Action Zone, if you are an Advanced Skills Teacher in a school with Beacon status then this programme is for you.

Please contact Debbie or Grace at the Alite office on 01628 810700 x24 or email events@alite.co.uk for further details.

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“Tomorrow will feel like my first day of teaching!”

How to Reach the Hard to Teach is a one-day course designed for professionals who would like to increase their flexibility in helping pupils who exhibit challenging behaviour.

Participants consistently tell us how this practical course will make a real difference:

The course starts from the premise that successful learning occurs when effective teachers successfully motivate students. During the course you will find out what effective teaching looks like in the most challenging of circumstances. You will be given techniques for motivating the disillusioned, re-directing the disruptive and managing the disturbed.

For full details, please email events@alite.co.uk, or visit How to Reach the Hard to Teach on the Alite website.