Essential Listening Skills For Busy School Staff

How do you listen effectively when you're already late for a meeting? How do you respond to a girl who's so angry that she's threatening to hit someone? Or to a boy who feels like giving up altogether? How do you listen, not only to students, but also to parents and to colleagues? Whatever your role in school, listening will be at the heart of what you do. Your school will be measured, in part, by the quality of its daily relationships and those relationships will depend on how confidently people are able to listen to each other. This book answers all the difficult questions about how to listen, what to say, confidentiality and more. Helping with particular issues such as bullying, relationship difficulties, depression and self-harm is also covered. With over 35 years' experience in a variety of school roles, Nick Luxmoore offers practical, realistic answers, advice and guidance. This book will be essential reading for teachers and non-teachers alike.

The Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers provide accessible, carefully researched, quick-reads for early career teachers, covering the key topics they will encounter during their training year and first two years of teaching. They complement and are fully in line with the new Early Career Framework and are intended to assist ongoing professional development by bringing together current information and thinking on each area in one convenient place. This title on Mental Well-being and Self-care explores these increasingly significant issues for those training to teach or in the early stages of their teaching career. It draws upon a new body of evidence-based knowledge and an emerging lexicon which fosters and supports mentally healthy routines as teaching practice develops. Critical but also practical, the text guides the reader through research-based concepts and reflective tasks central to positive mental health and well-being, supporting early career teachers as they develop their teaching skills and techniques.

This book is the perfect starting point for anyone looking to promote and encourage mental health in their school, or evaluate their existing provision, in line with current government priorities. It covers not only the day-to-day practical steps you can take to meet the mental health needs of learners, but also a provides a whole bank of ideas for ensuring you adopt a whole-school approach to positive mental health. Pooky Knightsmith lays out tried and tested tools you can use to evaluate the overall mental health of a school, showing how to improve and support the mental health of staff, and how to ensure that the voice of every learner is heard and valued, including the most vulnerable - and that everyone involved with the school feels safe, healthy and happy. Pooky's simple 'litmus test' framework lays out six practical areas you can explore to implement change within your own school, with explanations, sheets to fill in, tips from loads of school staff, and case examples that break these ideas down into easily digestible chunks. This much-needed book is a jumping off point for meaningful change in all aspects of your school community that will promote, support and strengthen mental health at whole-school level.

Peace is needed now more than ever in schools, by pupils and teachers alike. This inspiring guide provides primary, secondary and special schools with practical methods to improve pupil and teacher wellbeing, combat bullying, and promote peace both inside and outside the school gates. The founder of the Peaceful Schools Movement, Anna Lubelska, has brought together ideas and stories from teachers and charity workers to present a simple four step system for promoting positive peace in individuals, relationships, the school community and the world. It covers how to reduce stress, promote positive mental health, resolve conflict, nurture the potential of each individual, and encourage children to develop peacemaking skills and values. This holistic resource is equally beneficial for children and staff, and transforms school environments for the better.

This book provides ways to support and counsel young people struggling to adapt and live with the constant possibility of things breaking down, of normal life being overtaken by chaos. Covering many different types of 'everyday chaos' including anxiety, bullying, mental health, trauma, anger and loss, this book is an incredibly useful guide for anyone working with young people at a time when these issues are more prevalent than ever. It was inspired by the author's daughter's accidental death aged 27. Written in a warm and down-to-earth tone, the chapters use a variety of case studies to lead through examples on a range of problems young people are facing.

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Kidscape, the national charity that works to challenge and prevent bullying, this book offers readers an insight into a collection of innovative projects currently running in schools to promote inclusion, tolerance and kindness. From a gay role model to a peer mentor, a dance workshop to a gardening club, an autism ambassador to a travelling Gypsy theatre group, the ideas demonstrate how much we have to teach our children about inclusion, how much kindness matters, and how much of a difference schools can make to children who don't always feel they fit. Joining forces with well-known charities and celebrity supporters including Anthony Horowitz, Jamie Oliver, Michael Sheen and more, these accessible, fun and effective projects are tackling issues such as bullying, homophobia, racism, and truancy, are supporting pupils who may feel isolated and excluded from their peer group, and are helping whole schools become happier, more successful settings. This book will provide inspiration to all educational professionals, parents and volunteers looking for creative and practical ways to help individual children fit in and feel happy in their class.

`What a gem. This book introduces a whole-school approach to an area that has previously been addressed by the speech and language specialists working with small groups. This approach helps to develop language processing skills by improving the auditory and visual attention skills used The resources on the CD-Rom will be invaluable for reminding pupils if the skills they should be using to learn to listen. This interactive and fun approach explains the difference between the skills of social listening and listening skills necessary for processing information in learning′ - TES Extra, Special Needs `This book is well designed. It utilizes many strategies speech-therapists use in their clinical work. It is a simple resource that is easy to follow and has had good rates of success when delivered by teachers′ - Communication Matters `The programme should lead to improvements in social skills, learning and classroom behaviour, and it is easy to implement with two teaching sessions and a follow-up booster session. There are comprehensive facilitator instructions and all the resources are provided for these fun and interactive sessions that will engage all pupils′ - Learning to Learn Newsletter This book provides a completely new approach to the teaching of listening. Whilst educators are familiar with assessing comprehension, little has been done to ensure that the input process is efficient. By improving auditory and visual attention during a listening activity the authors demonstrate how the process can be enhanced. The programme should lead to improvements in social skills, learning and classroom behaviour, and it is easy to implement with two teaching sessions and a follow-up booster session. There are comprehensive facilitator instructions and all the resources are provided for these fun and interactive sessions that will engage all pupils. The difference between social listening for interaction and accurate listening in a classroom setting is explained. As well as the usual topics: eye contact, body language, acknowledgements etc there is a fascinating section on the neurological evidence for the importance of efficient sitting positions. We expect young people to acquire effective listening skills but it is a complex activity, which benefits direct teaching.