Hi and hello, hope your classroom are getting more settled and some of you are giving the Golden Time system a chance to work!I started my first Circle Time lesson this week. It went really well and I was pleased that the majority of the children spoke and took part.

Circle Time is a listening system, Jenny Mosley will tell you more about it in her Quality Circle Time book. There are some rules to the circle time lesson that must be established and agreed upon with the children before hand. Examples include ” Listen to all” and ” Pass if you need time to think”

Jenny advises that when you take the lesson first, you remain calm and positive! So, try to schedule it in at a time when you are less likely to be hyped! ( Not after lunch or PE for example!) Never say negative things about anyone in the circle. So if someone is breaking a rule, then focus on a child who is keeping the rule and focus on him/her instead.

Quality Circle Time gives you 18 lessons for you to use within your classroom and your Circle Time lesson. There is no need to adapt or add as the lessons are excellent and I use them time and time again. The lesson is made up of a fun starter game, a speaking round, open forum( where the circle gets to speak about their feelings on a chosen theme) and then the circle always ends with a cool down type activity. The whole lesson takes no more than 20 minutes.

They are an integral part of your SPHE planning and your classroom behaviour system too. The Circle time lessons should not be randomly done in isolation as I have witnessed many teachers doing. Some teachers might chose to do just the lessons or just the golden rules, unfortunately this system will only truly work if you take the WHOLE system to your heart and follow it consistently and obsessively for the year with your class! It works, I promise!

If you have any more questions or comments, please email at rozz@anseo.net and I would love to chat!

Next week I will tell you about Golden Time, the 3rd important piece to the JM puzzle! Again, I see some teachers using the Golden Time alone without the rules, sanctions and lessons…These will achieve nothing and the child will never gain the self confidence that is needed to minimise the bad behaviour he/she may be showing.

Till next week, my dearies…

Rozz

circle time golden time jenny mosley JM PE SPHE time