Incredible Years leaders' session

 This session was hosted by our cluster's RTLBs who facilitate Incredible Years Training (IYT).

The programme  - it's American, it was developed it the 70s and 80s. It's a 'prescriptive programme' for children aged 3-8 years (maybe something to consider when sending Y4-6 teachers on this). There are 6 x full day sessions for classroom teachers. There is a pre-interview with teacher and facilitator. There are 2 classroom visits. Each session ends with self reflection and goal setting. Up to 16 attendees, school receives $1000 following second workshop. 

Pyramid showing workshop progression from bottom to top - i.e. workshop 1 covers bottom layer.

 US:

and NZ:

IYT seems like a supportive space for teachers. The emphasis is on positive language, being pro active, relationships, descriptive praise and feedback - things that work. It would be even better if it worked in with the 7 (?) best-practise, explicit strategies for responding to minor problem behaviour. It's good it reinforces using play, drama and puppets.

So how does IYT fit in with my current understanding of PB4L? There was no explicit link made to school values - with PB4L all hails back to our school values - 'you are showing me you're listening carefully, that's ako'. IYT covers descriptive feedback.  IYT recommends up to 7 class rules - we have our class matrices. I didn't hear mention either of 4:1. These Tier one strategies need to be clearly aligned and reinforced for new teachers attending IYT. In saying that - we were only given a condensed outline of the programme and I have never attended IYT as a classroom teacher - so maybe they go over all of this in great detail. Others leaders attending this session had not completed IYT  (apparently there are funding issues for leadership/principals to attend and probably teachers prefer they don't too). Probably a good idea for me to borrow a teacher's IYT book for holiday reading.

I wonder how appropriate some of the messages are for a teacher in NZ  and I hope teachers attending are given opportunities to think critically and discuss this. The facilitators talked about how they get a lot of feedback about the teaching videos but that the message (behaviourism) is still 'universal and timeless'  -so try to ignore clothes etc. The teaching 'vignettes' are used as exemplars, so for example there is one where teachers use puppets to teach children about time-out -which was an example of 'circle time'.  Also as examples of what not to do - i.e. a child needing help and the teacher being a grump. The videos showed some 'physical redirection' which I felt uncomfortable about and I wonder if that is unpacked with the teachers. Also the concept of time out as a consequence.  

I'm not going to inquire deeply into appropriateness of all US teaching model developed in 70s/80s for NZ teachers and students today but there needs to be much discussion with teachers around their learning at IYT - as below:

Our analysis found that gains for teacher practice came when they had active discussion of IYT work with their colleagues, shared that work with others, provided mutual support to make change, and felt supported to make those changes. Simply having done IYT with others in their school or ECE centre was not enough on its own. Teacher aide and RTLB support for IYT approaches was also shown to be useful for making and sustaining change in practice. Cathy Wylie and Rachel Felgate [NZCER] 2016

Behaviour plans - a big part of all the workshops seems to be having a target student and trying some of these behaviour modifiers - there is a template for a functional behaviour plan. The facilitators said teachers were encouraged to select target students with 'low level behaviours'- no interventions in place - so Tier 1. Teachers at our school who have attended IYT have not selected students with low level behaviours. This selection needs to be made in consultation with the school - maybe a mentor teacher? We would probably want someone in our Tier 2 Team involved in the conversation and in the behaviour plan process.  The template used at IYT included no monitoring or fading out of behaviour support. 

Circle Time - this is introduced to teachers in last session (workshop 6) and a part of IYT.  It is not Quality Circle Time (Jill Moseley's  model) which we are using at Park Estate. We need to ensure we were checking in with teachers prior to workshop 6 to ensure they are clear about the Quality Circle Time framework we use at Park Estate.