News & Latest: June 2009

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According to a new UK Ofsted report, excluding young children just passes on the problem - children need connection, not exclusion. It's a challenging notion for many teachers but we need to think through how to intervene to promote positive cycles of resilience and pro-social behaviour, not reinforce negative behaviours.

The Director of Education at Ofsted, UK Miriam Rosen, was on BBC Radio talking about their report and said that Nurture Groups were an effective strategy to prevent exclusions and a positive way to work with children.  There are items on the Times and BBC online news sites.

Mindmatters has been having a make-over. It also now has its own dedicated website. Check it out and see what's different and what is available for professional development.

For those in primary schools the kidsmatters website has useful information including resource for aspects of social and emotional learning.

Barbara Fredrickson's book on Positivity was published earlier this year. LIsten to Barbara speaking about her research on Youtube

Tips for teachers - why you should give your students time to answer. Read here

Go into Events to find out about Jenny Fox Eades two day course in August in Canberra on Celebrating Strengths in Schools.

The Happiness and its Causes conference in Sydney in May received a lot of publicity, especially John Gottman who researches intimate relationships and Norman Doidge whose work is on neuroplasticity and how experiences can change the structure of the brain. Sonia Lyubomirsky. Professor of Psychology at the University of California spoke about her research published in the How of Happiness (Sphere 2007) No surprise that gratitude and kindness were major factors. Read here about the contagion of happiness in social networks.

The International Institute for Restorative Practices has compiled a 36-page booklet of findings from schools in the United States, England and Canada that are implementing restorative practices. Go into the Resources page to download

Do you want to implement Circle Time Solutions across the whole school, train staff and sustain a new focus on healthy relationships? There are now trainer sessions available for those who have completed an Introductory day and have been running Circles themselves. More details on the Circle Solutions Network or you can make make an enquiry here

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