Term 2 2009

Term 2 2009 will be a different one for me. Not sure how I will cope actually. I guess we will find out. I am off on a sabbatical for a term , this means I am given leave to go and investigate an area of interest and refresh my self professionally and personally. So I get to be away from school for a whole term. I will find this hard as I struggle with being away a couple of days. This is part of me being a control freak I guess. Anyway I will be forced into keeping away as I will be travelling for 7 weeks beginning with a bit of refreshment in Italy and Croatia and then onto the UK where I will be visiting and meeting with people who have Nurture Groups in their schools. I heard about the concept of Nurture groups in 2006 and have continued to try and find out more since, not easy and they are generally an unknown phenomenon in NZ and I suspect because of the resourcing constraints they are not a concept that will be actively promoted. A nurture group is a group set up within the school environment to support children with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties to allow them and others to learn new skills to develop successfully in the school environment and society in general. They have been in place in the UK since the 1960's and have had huge success in supporting children to become actively and positively engaged in school overcoming many disadvantages in doing so. I look forward to seeing whether there is anyway the concept can be extended into our schools in New Zealand. I will return and write up what I have discovered in the last few weeks of the term and hopefully manage to stay away from school and let them get on with things in my absence. That might be the biggest challenge of all.