Grade 1 Sleepover

“Plus est en vous – there is more in you than you think.”

Kurt Hahn, Founder of the UWC movement

Our UWCSEA Outdoor Education programme offers experiential learning opportunities that are scaffolded for age appropriate student participation, progressing incrementally each year. Even our youngest learners engage in these challenges that build “resilience, collaboration and leadership while developing confidence in their physical abilities and emotional resilience to withstand difficult situations.”

One of the most exciting rites of passage for Infant School students is the Grade 1 Sleepover. The sleepover is one of my favourite events, the energy and excitement as students arrive in school on dusk is contagious! For some, the anticipation of the sleepover is tinged with a healthy level of anxiety combined with confidence and determination to face the challenge. As students and teachers (onesie optional!) arrived, they entered their classrooms and prepared their ‘beds’. 

     

The night started with an exploration of the campus by torchlight, the children were absolutely mesmerised, it looks so different at night. Every year I have the honour of being the ‘DJ’ for the Grade 1 disco and this year’s songs were a huge success. A crowd favourite was the “Banana Banana and Meatball” song! (You might like to try it at home!)

The disco ended with a ‘disco yoga’ session and some mindful relaxation before the children headed back to class ready to settle down for the night.

Students enjoyed reading bedtime stories by torchlight while others snuggled up with their cuddly toys. I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to our Security team for checking in on us regularly throughout the night. We all felt safe and well cared for.

   

Teachers managed to create a peaceful classroom environment and children were (mostly!) asleep before 9pm. Teachers attempted to sleep but before they knew it they were woken by whispers and flickering torch patterns on the ceiling! At 7am we headed to the canteen to be greeted by the Sodexo team who had whipped up a delicious pancake breakfast!

As the first buses began to arrive some children took a moment to reflect on their sleepover experience.

“The Outdoor Education programme allows students to disconnect from the distractions of technology and reconnect with nature. It provides an avenue for them to explore the natural environment in a safe setting, learn from mistakes and develop perseverance.”

As we walked back to class the children took time to explore some green space on campus. G1ATu said good morning to 'their tree', discovering tadpoles along the way!

  

Our Grade 1 Sleepover isn’t possible without the support of many people. Thank you parents, I hope you had a peaceful evening last night. To the Facilities team, you are AMAZING! Teachers and TAs, thank you for creating a safe and calm environment for the students, I suspect many of you will be napping by now! What a proud achievement for our Grade 1 children.

To read more about our Outdoor Education programme, please click here.

Service - You are Needed!

“There are three ways of trying to win the young. There is persuasion, there is compulsion and there is attraction. You can preach at them: that is a hook without a worm. You can say ‘you must volunteer’; that is the devil. And you can tell them ‘you are needed.’ That hardly ever fails.”

Kurt Hahn
 Founder, UWC movement

Our Infant School students enjoy a variety of experiences as members of a vibrant community, within the school environment and beyond. They are encouraged and empowered to become aware, able and active and to contribute to the world around them in a positive way. 

Service is at the heart of the UWC movement, and even our youngest students become involved in service activities at College, local and global level.  At College level, where they offer a service to other members of the school community; in local service, where they connect with members of the Singapore community; and in global service which incorporates Global Concerns (GC) projects. 

"UWCSEA believes in the transformative nature of the experience of serving others and in the responsibility we have to one another and the planet. The Service programme fosters empathy and helps students to recognise that part of being human is seeking opportunities to put yourself aside in the service of others."

Infant School students identify local problems they can solve and reflect on their ability to be agents of change. College Service might involve recycling materials, caring for plants or helping the Operations and Facilities team to clean up rubbish and leaf litter. College Service gives students an opportunity to put the UWCSEA values and mission into practice on a daily basis. GC projects reflect a range of global development challenges and associated environmental issues, allowing Infant students to begin to consider, and take action on these.

Recently a group of Infant School students celebrated the end of term with a party and local Service event at Sentosa. Class parent representatives Scott and Junko helped to facilitate this event with the support of the parents and students in K2SMH. (Thank you so much Scott and Junko!)

This event was not only Service focused but also a wonderful Outdoor Education opportunity!  The children swam approximately 100 metres over to the small islet off Tanjung Beach where they spent more than 90 minutes on a rubbish hunt. Emily said, "first we splashed about and then we put all the rubbish to the side. I felt super happy and excited to clean the rubbish for the world."

Our K2 children managed to clean up more than 8 large bags of plastic, foam and other rubbish, plus a tarpaulin full of plastic bottles for recycling. Wow! 

Drummond recalled, "we swam out to the island. We got gloves and we picked up bottles and rubbish. Viktor's dad held him by the legs so he could get lots of stuff out of the water!"  

Lilah remembers, "we were taking care of the earth by climbing rocks and getting rubbish. I felt a bit worried that I couldn't get all of it cause some of it was stuck. I hope the earth still feels happy".

We all have a responsibility to protect the environment and the College is committed to ensuring environmental stewardship becomes a major part of every child’s education. Our Infant School students are embracing the college mission and doing their bit to take care of the environment, they are well on the way to creating a sustainable future. 

Thank you to the parents of K2SMH, what a wonderful opportunity for our students to put their "ideals and values into action and grow as compassionate people and active agents of change."

UWCSEA Service Information

Home School Links

An Extra Pair of Hands Makes a Difference!

In the Infant School we are always trying to encourage strong links between school and home.  One perfect way to do this is by inviting adults, such as parents and grandparents into the classroom to help. 

This year we have been asking parents to help support our discovery time.  Discovery time is an opportunity for the children to deepen their understanding of the concepts that they are focusing on during their Unit of Study or metaproject.  The teachers carefully plan the space, intentionally providing resources and creating an environment that will give the children opportunities to develop their understanding.  The best resource during this time is 'the extra pair of hands', and many different parents have volunteered to help during discovery time.  They are provided with support from the teachers and advised on the type of questioning that will help scaffold and support the children during this time.  

We have been fortunate to observe the wonderful interactions between parents and their own children, and their friends.  For many children, school is a separate existence from home, and they can be reluctant to talk about their day. By volunteering in school, it provides a mutual discussion point between school and home.  It also provides parents with an insight into how discovery time works, and how the Unit of Study connects.  The children are always so proud of sharing their learning with adults, and the time and interaction spent with that adult really helps to facilitate a deeper learning.  

We appreciate that for some parents it is not always easy to find time in a busy schedule to help in school, so we have tried to be as flexible in this approach as possible.  Some parents volunteer as a one off session that works with their schedule, and this is just as valuable as someone who is able to commit regularly.  There are a full range of activities on offer during our different discovery times, including programming, puppet making, imaginative play, dramatic theatre productions, creating mini communities or simply reading and sharing books.  

We thank all the parents who have given time to volunteer and we hope it has been as valuable experience for you as it has been for the children.

Written by Vicki Wright, Infant School Curriculum Support and Lynda Scott

Living the Mission on UWC Day

UWC Day Dover Campus 

Peace, Yoga and Mindfulness in Grade 1

UWCSEA is a member of the international UWC movement  which is made up of 17 schools and colleges around the world and located across five continents. This week every one of those organisations celebrated 'our special day', UWC Day. The schools and colleges of the UWC movement are united by their common mission to 'make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future'.

We are living the mission!

In Grade 1 UWC Day activities were based on our mission with a specific focus on 'peace'. Children were asked "what is peace?", and "how do you know if we have peace?" One enlightened six year old answered, "I can feel peace in my heart, it makes me feel happy inside. If we all have peace in our hearts we can share it around the world." Wow.

Students and their parents participated in a Very Hungry Caterpillar yoga session, collaborated on mindful colouring, created beautiful 'calm down glitter jars', painted colourful peace stones and wrote stories about what peace feels like. It's really quite impressive to listen to a Grade 1 student talking about mindfulness, about being present and focusing on the here, the now. That a 6 year old can describe their true inner feelings, recognise and connect to their emotions at such a deep level really is amazing. What a powerful tool for young children, to enable them to successfully self manage a range of emotions, perhaps anger or anxiety, with the help of a glitter jar or a conscious practice of calming breath. If only we had been taught these valuable lessons when we were young!

                  

            

   

One of my passions is yoga and many years ago I completed the training to become a yoga teacher for children. On UWC Day I had the absolute pleasure of leading the yoga session for 112 Grade 1 students and their parents. Unfortunately we were rained out and we moved indoors, but this did not dampen our spirits! The 30 minute session was based on the Eric Carle story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and, for 30 minutes, students and parents 'ate' their way through their yoga practice! 

        

                          

   

                                                   

I am very thankful for the support of two amazing UWCSEA mums and yoga gurus, Kavita and Niloufer, who helped lead the session. We are especially fortunate that both mums work at Yoga Journal Singapore, THE leading Yoga and Meditation Magazine in the world! THANK YOU Kavita and Niloufer for supplying every Grade 1 family with a copy of the magazine, a very special treat! To all the mums and dads who came along, THANK YOU, we are grateful for your involvement and support. Another very big THANK YOU to our Grade 1 teachers and TAs who spent many long hours planning and preparing and then fully immersed themselves in this day so that it ran smoothly and was purposeful for students. 

It's the way we connect to our mission and the relationships that we build and nurture on days like UWC Day that make our college a very special place. It's days like today that I feel especially grateful for being a part of this incredible movement. If peace is all about the 'feeling in our hearts, that happy feeling inside', I think we all found it on UWC Day! 

Kavita and Niloufer are offering a special discount for the Yoga Journal for our UWCSEA community - if you would like to subscribe please go to https://checkout.subscriptiongenius.com/yogajournal.com.sg/

Personal and Social Education (PSE)

Fun Friends and PSE 

How Can You Support at Home?

For very young children personal, emotional and social development is one of the most important components of learning, playing a vital role in supporting effective interaction and developing positive attitudes to self and others. Relationships form the foundation of human experience and it is essential that young children learn the social skills needed to interact successfully with others and to develop healthy and effective connections. 

Early childhood experts describe personal development as understanding who we are, what we can do and how we take care of ourselves. Social development means learning to understand ourselves in relation to others, how to initiate and maintain relationships, understanding the 'rules' and how we behave towards others. Emotional development involves understanding our own feelings and those of other people, developing empathy and perspective. This can be broken down into three main aspects of learning and development:

• building and maintaining relationships
• managing feelings and behaviour
• self-confidence and self-awareness

At UWCSEA we believe that for learning to be most effective learners must feel secure and supported. While there are opportunities for personal and social development in all elements of the UWCSEA learning programme, the fact that we have a dedicated Personal and Social Education (PSE) programme shows how much we value its importance. Read more about our PSE programme here.

Research shows that PSE not only improves achievement by an average of 11 percentile points, but it also increases prosocial behaviors (such as kindness, sharing, and empathy), improves student attitudes toward school, and reduces depression and stress among students. (From The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning)

Last week we had our second Parent Workshop on the Fun Friends programme presented by Dr. Natalie Games, a UWCSEA mum and Clinical Psychologist who works at Alliance Counselling. In addition to her clinical practice, Natalie is trained and licensed as a facilitator of the World Health Organisation approved FRIENDS’ programmes and has implemented these programmes with individuals, within schools and university settings in Singapore.

You can watch the Fun Friends Parent Workshop video here.

During the presentation Natalie made reference to a number of resources that you might find useful and she has shared them all below. 

Sleep

BBC Panorama Sleep documentary - Sleepless Britain, Panorama - BBC One

Screens and Sleep

Descriptive Praise

Focus on strengths in your child's efforts - Martin Seligman's character strengths VIA

Not in Praise of Praise - Acknowledge rather than praise?

Empathy

Seven Ways to Foster Empathy in Kids

Mindfulness

There are many resources out there but here is an article from The Huffington Post to kick start mindfulness practice in the home.

8 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids

Others:

Robin Grille "Parenting for a Peaceful world"

From Dr. Louise Porter:

"Listen First:

Listen to children about their fears. Understand that they are fearful even if you don’t understand why. Find out if there could be some reason for the fear and remove children from a situation if there is good reason to be afraid. But even if the fear seems ridiculous, do not tell them to stop being silly, as that forces them to try to hide their feelings. They will become frightened that no one will help them and worried that their true feelings will show. These two feelings make the original problem worse. Take the panic out of being afraid.

Normalise what they are feeling. 

You might explain that everyone gets frightened at times, or teach them the difference between being frightened of something, disliking it, and being surprised by it. Sometimes we seem frightened of a cockroach when really we have been surprised that it is somewhere unexpected. Being surprised or disliking something is more manageable than being frightened of it. 

Have faith 

Express your faith that they can overcome their fears. Tell them about other times when they have overcome their fears and express to them your confidence that they can do so again. Courage does not mean being unafraid: it means feeling fear but conquering it. So congratulate your children for their bravery. 

Soothe children during meltdowns Sit with the child during a meltdown, repeating over and over that you will be there until they feel better. Do not address the object of the fear as that is not the issue: the issue is learning to manage their feelings. As you comfort them, they will be learning to self-soothe. 

Make them responsible for a solution In the long term (not during a meltdown), ask them how they plan to overcome their fears. As these are a product of their own imagination, only they can change their thinking. You might explain that the fears are sneaking up on them, and suggest that now is a good time to think about whether they would like to find a way to out-sneak them. Once they have decided to become boss of their fears, you could offer to be their ‘fears adviser’. You know about fear-dispelling magic and they know about their own brain so together you could invent a spell that will banish their fears."

A spontaneous mindful moment captured during playtime!

Forest Schools

1-2-3 Back to Base

When I was in Kindergarten, my friends and I spent recess running through grassy fields, digging in the dirt and playing 'home' among the massive root system of old eucalyptus trees. We came to school clean, we often went home dirty. To this day, the smell of eucalyptus stirs wonderful memories of my time in Primary School. On weekends the kids in my neighbourhood would gather and plan our outdoor adventures. We'd often get lost in the adjacent bush, find our way again, wade through creeks and climb trees, sometimes we made small fires and toasted bread. We learnt to be resilient, to work as a team, to take calculated risks and to be home in time for dinner. Mostly we succeeded, sometimes we failed, but we very clearly understood that our actions resulted in consequence, sometimes good, at times bad. 

Providing children with the opportunity to venture off by themselves leads to excitement, motivation and a feeling of self belief. The notion of children exploring the great outdoors, experimenting and learning surrounded by nature is not new. Kurt Hahn, founder of the UWC Movement was an early advocate for taking education beyond traditional boundaries through outdoor and experiential learning. Hahn was convinced of the importance of learning that takes place out of the classroom, that through challenge and adventure, students would learn confidence, tenacity and perseverance. (Read more about Kurt Hahn in the Zelinski book referenced below)

During the 1950's, Swedish and Danish early years educators encouraged children to play in the woodlands and forests surrounding their schools and this 'open air culture' way of life spread quickly across Scandinavia and the UK. Today, the Forest Schools movement has reached all corners of the globe. Recently our UWCSEA Infant School students in K1VMa had their first taste of 'forest friends' Singapore style!

First Forest School Session for K1VMa

Outdoor learning advocates O’Brien and Murray define Forest Schools as "an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment". Their research indicates that children are stimulated by spending time outside and that being given ongoing outside opportunities leads to an increase in confidence, improved social skills and communication skills, increased ability to concentrate, improved fine and gross motor movements, as well as a deeper knowledge and understanding of their world.

Introduction to Forest Schools Video

Infant School teacher Tor Marshall introduced her K1 class to the Forest School idea by setting the scene and creating boundaries, asking the children to agree on "how can we keep safe during these sessions?" Suitable agreements included returning to basecamp when the teacher calls, treat the environment with respect, care for living things, listen at all times, stay within the agreed boundary, and use safe movements only. The children then established an agreed boundary by spreading ‘magic fairy dust’ (green glitter) to physically mark the outer edge.

Spreading 'magic fairy dust'

The children were taught the signal for returning to base, “1-2-3 back to base" called by Tor, followed by “1-2-3 back to base" echoed by the children as they return to the basecamp. The call was repeated until the whole class had gathered. 

“1-2-3 back to base"

After a few practice runs the children were ready to begin the adventure within their new outdoor classroom and off they went! They explored in teams, discovered new spaces, investigated nature.

Exploring

Discovering

Investigating

Before they knew it our forest friends heard the call "1-2-3 back to base" and back they went! 

“1-2-3 back to base" here we come!

Erin Kenny, Director of a Forest School expresses concern that so many children today are deprived of the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature, to run barefoot on the grass, to dig in the mud, they risk losing the innate connection to nature which leads to compassion for the natural world.  Forest Schools and learning in an 'outdoor classroom' are ideal approaches, providing fun and meaningful ways to authentically connect children with nature.

“In the 21st Century, our Great Work must be the creation of a new, restorative relationship with the rest of the natural world. It’s time to envision that future. It’s time to bring down the barriers, which are not only between people and nature, but also between people. It’s time to bring down the barriers. Hard? Of course. But we can do the best we can while we’re here on Earth, and millions of children will surely experience the wonder of nature that past generations took for granted." 

(Louv 2005)

References

Kenny, E. (2013) Forest Kindergartens: The Cedarsong Way. University of Cincinnati

Louv, R. (2005). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit

Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.

O’Brien, L and Murray, R. (2006). A marvellous opportunity for children to learn: a participatory evaluation of Forest School in England and Wales. Forest Research, Farnham. 

Zelinski, M. (2010) One small flame: Kurt Hahn’s vision of education. Ontario: From the Heart