Do you really want to make a difference at your school?

If so, I can help you.

So what are your biggest problems?

Are your NAPLAN results not as good as you'd like?

Do you have behaviour problems that disrupt learning for other students?

What about the staff who have to grapple with some amazing behaviour challenges - how's their morale? Going south?

Are too many of your boys disengaged and disruptive and not achieving to their optimum potential?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, call me.

In less than thirty minutes, we can work out whether or not my skills, qualifications and experience are part of your solution.

Why my approach is different

So often school communities identify a problem - bullying at school, boys not achieving, NAPLAN results not as good as we'd like. Having identified the problem, schools seek help from consultants in their Region or in private practice. The consultant does the work. Then, the consultant leaves.

I don't.

For no additional cost, I remain at your shoulder to support you and your staff to implement what we've all decided is a change worth making.

I don't take a template approach

It's true that schools have a lot in common but my experience has been that each class, each teacher, each school, is unique. You need and you deserve, a unique solution on your path to school improvement.

A key principle that's evident in all my work

"Modern man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde 1854-1900.

My formal academic qualifications in research and evaluation and my consultancy work with schools, have only strengthened my belief that we must know how to measure the value of our efforts – whether in business or in education.

A member of the Australasian Evaluation Society, I've designed and offered individualised skills development workshops and seminars on all aspects of quality improvement including:

• Evaluation and Quality Improvement models and methodologies – ways to decide which approach is best for your business or school.
• Collecting and using evaluation data as part of a school improvement culture.
• The role of monitoring and evaluation in the design and implementation of any innovation – in all sectors.
• How to set up easy-to-use monitoring techniques, to collect the best and most useful data in the most efficient way.

Boys' Education: Always a Topic of Interest

In many ways we can use the latest results that tell us about boys' achievement as a way to measure the health of our education system. NAPLAN results from 2010 indicate that boys have fallen further behind girls, especially in writing. While they used to nudge a little bit ahead in maths, that achievement gap has reduced. Across Australia girls are ahead of boys in numeracy at some year levels.

I've done a lot of research and even more school-based work to help schools reverse that trend. I work with leadership teams, teaching and support staff, students and parents/caregivers to find ways to engage boys. Predominantly, the way we design and deliver our curriculum favours the way girls learn best.

Over 70% of teachers have been found to have a narrative linguistic learning style. That is, they learn well using reading, writing, speaking and listening. Not surprisingly, most of the way we deliver our classes assumes that all students learn best by listening to what the teacher says, and/or by reading.

Have a look at the way we assess learning. After we've decided that all our students learn via verbal and written language, we assess them using almost 100% written exams. While they're 'learning', we assume that it's a great idea to get students to write or re-write what we've told them or what they've read. Research around the world on boys' education suggests that boys, and many, many girls have very different learning styles and preferences.

Boys' education and the impact of their low achievement on your school's NAPLAN scores, is only one of the conversations we can have.

Click this link to visit useful websites about ways we can help boys enjoy school more, feel better about themselves and improve their learning outcomes.

Coaching as a Powerful Tool in Behaviour Management

As well as providing coaching to teachers and private clients, I believe that coaching is an extremely powerful way to communicate with at-risk students, particularly boys in Years 5 to 9. She is happy to discuss how coaching can be used to underpin the design, implementation and ongoing improvement of your school's behaviour management policy. For more information about Jeannette's focused and efficient approach to coaching please visit The Centre of Effective Therapy.

 

CONTACT: PO Box 8519 , Armadale, Victoria 3143 Tel 0417 379 684 E-mail: jkavanagh@ains.net.au