Art Exhibition at Bluestone

On Friday 17 & Saturday 18 September we are going to have a special Art and Craft Exhibition at Bluestone School.

The point of this is for students to be able to view a range of arts and crafts up close.

A number of artists who are parents or who have close connections with the school will each set up a display in a section of our hall. The students will be able to go through and view the displays up close. Some artists will be working at their display so that the students can see what is involved. There will be a variety of things to see from painting to sculpting to carving to teddybear making to costuming to photography and much more!

Student art will also be on display as will some secondary senior students portfolios to show our students what they might wish to do at a later date.

If you know of someone in our school community with talents then please let me know or encourage them to get involved. I hope this will become an annual event.

On the Friday from 2.45 until 4pm and then on the Saturday from 10am until 3pm the hall will be open to students, parents, and to members of the public. There will be no charge to view. Some art work will be for sale. We hope for a good turn out to appreciate the wonderful talents that exist within our school community!

Behaviour Management

We have enjoyed two days of training as a whole staff with margaret Thorsborne. Margaret is a trainer from Australia who brings real knowledge and wisdom around the process of Restorative Practice. This means that we look at behaviour in a different way and we will revamp our behaviour management system. Rather than punishing bad behaviour we are looking at how we can repair the harm caused when relationships are affected when things go bad.

Punishment seldom works and tends to only have a short term benefit. We know this when the students who present with unacceptable behaviours are constant re offenders. Something has to change for these kids and so an approach which helps them understand the impact their actions have had on others appears to be the way forward. This is NOT a soft apporach with all feel good stuff! The approach gets to the emotional intelligences we all have and as a result has a more powerful and long term effect. Of course one approach doesn't fit all but in general we can approach behaviour problems in a more effective way and I am delighted that staff have accepted this and are willing to consider different approaches than we have relied upon ion the past.

Improving relationships so that there is two way respect, so that both sides feel listened to and so both accept some responsibility in finding a suitable and satisfactory solution is a positive step we are ready to make. It is great to have a staff open minded to change and prepared to give new approaches a go. Having had the knowledge and wisdom of Margaret has been wonderful as we needed to understand the WHY before we looked at the HOW.

We intend to have Circle time running in all rooms as part of a proactive approach. Circle time gives avenues for expressing feelings and frustrations and acknowledgements. We appreciate that we need to give children the language to express these things. Perhaps if many adults had had this opportunity we wouldn't have so many issues in society? Not that simple I know but we have to do things better than we have been doing them in the past!

If you want to know more about Restorative Practices, Circle time, behaviour management approaches, then email me or drop me a line. It is always good to discuss such topics as it develops all our thinking.