Standard+C3+Fosters+positive+relationships+within+the+learning+community


 * Date ** : 2011-2012 School Year

** Evidence/activity/anecdote ** : Establishing, maintaining and fostering positive relationships among students, colleagues and parents is a crucial aspect of working in a school environment. I believe in establishing relationships (student to student, student to teacher, teacher to teacher and teacher to parents) at the beginning of the year to help maintain positive relationships and encourage regular communication throughout the year. Creating a safe, warm and comforting classroom environment is one of the most important goals for me every year. Once a week 3BR has a **Classroom Meeting** where we talk about problems, help generate ideas on how to solve problems in a productive way, and to thank others for their kind words/actions. Our classroom meeting helps build and sustain positive interactions and friendships between students. It helps build a relationship between the teacher and students as well. It is essential that children see their peers and teacher care about each other. I believe strongly in building and maintaining strong relationships with our parent community. One way I do this is by **inviting parents to celebrations** throughout the year to honor Grade 3 achievements. Our Grade 3 Poetry Café and the Grade 3 Wax Museum are two examples of celebrations where parents are invited to come and participate in their child's learning. Collaborating, creating curriculum/units and celebrating student/teacher successes are ways that I help build and uphold positive relationships among our team. Every Thursday we have **Grade 3 team meetings** for 1 ½ hours to plan, create, and reflect on past and future units. We feel it is a priority to plan and create units as a team, delegating jobs/tasks focusing on team member’s strengths, thus ensuring we create and build on units to make them the best they possibly can be. Although school is a priority, we also believe it is necessary to set aside about 10 minutes at the beginning of our planning time to talk about what’s going on in our lives, helping us to get to know each other on another level other than school, thus building stronger relationships among each other. Not only do I work with the third grade team, I try to collaborate and share information with other teachers as well through **presentations and workshops**. I have presented at the EARCOS conference on formative assessment. This year I offered a workshop for teachers on Reading in the Content Areas during a professional development day at school. I have also opened up my classroom twice this year to Maggie Moon and participants in an EARCOS literacy institute. ** ATLAS - TEAM MEETING MINUTES **