A number of teachers experiencing challenges from a small percentage of students, who have been exhibiting serious behavioural attitudes, began attending a two-day workshop on Monday, October 28. It was arranged for the workshop to be followed by a series of coaching sessions during the rest of the week.
The Anguillian asked Mrs Jacqueline Jeffrey-Connor, Education Officer for Multi-Professional Support Services, why the workshop was thought to be necessary. “It is because at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, many of the teachers have been challenged in terms of a small percentage of students exhibiting some serious behavioural attitudes,” she replied. “Those are students at the Pupils Referral Unit (PRU). The teachers feel overwhelmed at times and they wanted, as it were, to refill their tool kit with new ideas and strategies – and they actually requested the workshop. They wanted more intense training to be able to work with the students.
Mrs Jeffrey-Connor stated that, as a result, two trainers were recruited from the United Kingdom to facilitate the workshop. They are Sue Salisbury and Jan Redding, both Behaviour Advisers serving at the Jigsaw Centre in Bedfordshire – an outreach support facility for children.
“Today, we will embark on a learning experience that will take us from the unknown to the known,” Mrs Jeffrey Connor told the teachers. “We can only be taken on this journey if we are prepared, with an open mind, and are willing to take the risk of learning new things. The world around us is rapidly changing and this is having a great impact on our students. As teachers, we are expected to be prepared to work with the changes, and their impact, so I call on each of us to engage the facilitators for clarity, direction and new methods. This is to ensure that at the end of the day we have gained the necessary information to handle the impacts of a changing society and, by and large, the world.”
Speaking about how the workshop came about, the Education Officer continued: “Over a [period of] time, the Pupil Referral Unit at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School has been encountering some challenges with the students’ behaviour. Likewise, the Special Education Needs Units, on their own recognition, decided that their tool kits were not equipped to handle such behaviour. The Ministry was approached about the limitations of staff in dealing with students’ challenging behaviour and thus solicited the assistance of Ms Patricia Campbell who has been working with Anguillian schools on behaviour managementtraining for the last two years.
“Mrs Campbell quickly responded to the Ministry’s request to provide intense training to support the Units within the system, particularly the PRU and the Valley Primary School. She highly recommended the two facilitators we now have with us.”
