Berry Street Education Model in action

We recently asked schools to share their success stories in using BSEM strategies. We are excited to share these stories here.

Circles

It’s always good to start the day with a circle; a great way to check in and out, frame expectations for the day or session and nurture meaningful relationships within the community.

Denna Tye, teacher, explained, “At Naradhan Public School (NSW), we have implemented morning and afternoon circles to build on our predictable routines. It allows us to set the tone for the day, highlighting positives we’ve seen in the playground and then finish the day, by giving everyone the opportunity to reflect and share something they’ve enjoyed.”

Stories of Impact – Rhythm, Culture and Community Wellbeing at School

Lamine Sonko is known as Australia’s African cultural journeyman. He has toured Australia and internationally as a performer and educator, engaging and energising audiences across the country, and bringing people together to celebrate diversity and enable creative collective action.

BSEM draws on evidence to advocate for the use of patterned, rhythmic physical movement activities to support students’ healing, growth and learning at school. In this interview, Lamine reflects on using rhythm and culture to engage young people, facilitate community and improve wellbeing.

Black Lives Matter

In case you missed our recent series of Tweets @BSEMaus regarding the #BlackLivesMatter and #AboriginalLivesMatter protest movement, we are sharing them again here. BSEM will always have a focus on contributing to collaborative efforts to make a positive difference in the lives of Aboriginal Australians and other marginalised groups. We are always interested in hearing from schools about the work you are doing in this space. Please contact us if you have thoughts, ideas or initiatives you would like to share with us or if you want to join us in this continuing conversation.

Positive priming pics ‘n tricks using curiosity and creativity

When people experience positive emotions, their minds broaden and they open up to new possibilities and ideas. At the same time, positive emotions help people build their personal well-being resources, ranging from physical resources, to intellectual resources, and social resources (Fredrickson 2009).

Why Must Educators Explore Implicit Bias?

One year ago, I moved to Australia to become a Senior Trainer with the Berry Street Education Model. As an American citizen, now an Australian resident, and a former New York City public school educator, I have been closely following the recent Black Lives Matter events in both Australia and the United States. Because this movement has been covered prominently in world news, I’ve had many conversations with Australians who have expressed shock and disbelief that racism is still one of America’s biggest battles. Interestingly though, I can see that Australia has its own story when it comes to the ongoing prevalence of racism. The way both countries have historically and currently treat people of colour significantly impacts the young people with whom we work and as such, is a critical subject to address.

Optimising your decision-making energy

Self-regulation

Self-regulation can be defined as the ability to control your behaviour, emotions and thoughts, and specifically, to be able to manage disruptive emotions and impulses (Bandura, 1991). In times like these, it becomes even more important to be building self-regulation skills in ourselves and our young people.

Building Stamina in At-home Learning

Are you looking for ways to help children maintain focus on their schoolwork at home? That is completely understandable. Children are accustomed to the rituals and routines of school. In their school’s classrooms, they go to a specific environment that deliberately is structured for learning. Now for many children, those structures are different, and they are trying to understand what it means to learn more independently. Based on our research at Berry Street Education Model (BSEM), stress can negatively impact a child’s stamina to learn and their ability to focus. Managing this change as parents, carers and teachers can be overwhelming. Here are three strategies that we hope will help:

Scaffolding Learning with Rich Tasks: Curriculum Design

During Covid-19, teachers are designing curriculum that students might complete either at home or onsite at school. Based on our research and strategies at the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM), we would like to offer suggestions to bolster your instructional planning. We recommend that teachers design rich tasks for your young people to do at home, rather than sending through smaller tasks. We do not want to overwhelm students or their parents with the need to manage too many things at once.

Remember many parents are working from home so they may have limited time and energy to support their child’s learning, and many teachers working from home might be juggling caring responsibilities as well, so let’s keep our expectations of each other and ourselves reasonable!

Co-regulating (online) classrooms during a crisis

Teachers are quickly shifting to online learning environments in response to the COVID-19 crisis and the demands of social distancing.

During this crisis, stress levels are heightened for all of us. Trauma-impacted students, and in fact everyone, are susceptible to resurfacing trauma-related reactivity due to the compounding uncertainty and unpredictability this crisis presents. It is essential that schools prioritise student and teacher wellbeing and respond to the impacts of collective trauma and toxic stress.

Caring for children in out-of-home care during the COVID-19 outbreak

Communities around the world are feeling the impacts of COVID-19. And for anyone who has suffered trauma or lives with anxiety normally, it’s an even more difficult time.

For families with children – especially children who are in out-of-home care – spending weeks at home without any school or other group activities will likely be pretty tough at times.

Over the coming weeks, Berry Street’s Take Two service will be providing resources to help families with children who have experienced developmental trauma to support and manage their wellbeing.

Teaching self-regulation in early childhood

Have you ever had a day when your young students just seem to rev each other up and your centre or classroom is at fever-pitch? Or maybe you feel like your students are having constant meltdowns? Perhaps you feel that every time you look around you’re having to intervene to stop children from hurting each other. What can you do to teach them self-regulation strategies? The answer might be a surprise. When dealing with heightened students, we don’t start with them, we start with YOU!

Supporting Our Communities

It is hard to reconcile the massive fires that have raged throughout these school holidays. It has been a deeply concerning start to our bushfire season and our thoughts are with all of those who have been affected. The overall cost to our community is still yet unknown. What we do know is that the psychological impact of the trauma will be far reaching.