Using action research to improve a Year 3 wellbeing initiative
Each year, the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools (ICGS) invites staff of member schools to apply for the Global Action Research Collaborative (GARC) program. Since early 2023, Kate Giles has added the role of GARC Fellow to her leadership and teaching portfolio as Head of Wellbeing K-6. Kate’s action research project is now complete and she will present her findings at the upcoming ICGS conference in Baltimore, USA, in late June.
“Connecting with our feelings – Using collaboration to strengthen social and emotional skill development in Year 3 girls”
Kate’s research focused on a Year 3 class in our school and aimed to explore whether active collaboration techniques used in our Compass Directions lessons would strengthen girls’ social and emotional skills. She used the Collaborative for Social, Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL) framework as a basis for the teaching of these social and emotional skills, with a focus on self-management and self-awareness.
What happened? The girls learned practical strategies to assist them with their emotions through explicit teacher led lessons and opportunities to collaborate in activities where they shared their thoughts and feelings. These discussions further informed subsequent lessons and activities. The exciting part was when students took their learning home and they taught their parents skills learnt in class and they reflected together. Students created their own ‘toolkit’ of specific activities and actions that they felt personally would assist them in managing their emotions when needed, demonstrating their personal skill development.
What was learned? The results indicated that the girls enjoyed the opportunities to collaborate with each other and with their parents to create their tool kits. They could articulate the skills and strategies that were of specific benefit to them and showed a growing understanding of themselves and development of their social and emotional skills.
What next? Creating more opportunities for student/teacher/family collaboration will be a focus in the Junior School in the future when social and emotional learning opportunities are developed. It was also noted that not all students had the same opportunity to share with their parents, so this too is an area of further exploration.
Reflecting on the GARC experience Kate reflects on the exciting journey of growth and development the GARC program provided by recognising the special opportunities to learn from other educators. She was able to implement an action research cycle to explore an area of passion and focus for her and to focus deeply on each step of the process. Although it was hard work at times, Kate loved the many joys of the project, including hearing the girls talk about their toolkit with pride, witnessing the growing trust in the classroom and hearing from teachers that they had seen a change in the girls’ emotional regulation when using their toolkit strategies. Kate really loved hearing from the girls each Monday after they had shared their learning and reflections with their parents:
One lesson in particular will stand out in my mind forever. This lesson followed the girls sharing and reflecting with their parents about their strengths and talents and setting some goals for themselves together. The girls were bursting with excitement to share their parents’ thoughts about their strengths and talents, some getting tearful sharing with pride what their parents had said about them and their strengths. Seeing the impact of the connections and trust grow between the girls and between the girls and their parents was something I had not really considered.
We congratulate Kate on her very successful completion of the GARC Fellowship program and wish her and all the GARC presenters well for their sessions at the upcoming ICGS conference. Kate’s report will be published in full in a forthcoming edition of the Pymble Ladies’ College journal, Illuminate: Research and Innovation.
