Circle Solutions is a pedagogy for social and emotional learning that has been developed to ensure that it addresses issues of concern for kids from a safe, strengths and solutions focused approach. You can see a photo-film about thison the resources page of the Circle Solutions website. We now also now have a Facebook page (on advice from a fan!).
Circle Solutions is based in the ASPIRE principles of Agency, Safety, Positivity, Inclusion, Respect and Equality. These are outlined in a chapter in Kristensen & Szulevicz: Understøttende undervisning og læringsmiljøer. Forlaget Dafolo: a book on supportive teaching. Danish speakers will want to get hold of the original but if you need an English translation of my chapter you can read it here!
You may be interested in the Strengths in Circles cards that we developed to help put the ASPIRE principles into practice – we need to find a way to get these over from Australia!
I am speaking at a conference on Perspectives on Resilience in Vejle on September 29th, and at the Portsmouth Inclusion conference on October 6th. Also doing a workshop at the European Conference on Positive Psychology in Angers.
I have been writing lots this last year – several book chapters are yet to be published. One is a chapter on behaviour for A Guide to Early Years and Primary Teaching edited by Dominic Wyse and Sue Rogers, and published by Sage. I will be talking about this chapter at the Institute of Education in London on June 13th. Details on my website as soon as I have them!
Here are two recent academic articles you might want to read – both published in Educational and Child Psychology. One is Becoming an Agent of Change for School and Student Wellbeing and the other on Building a Case for Wellbeing in Challenging Contexts: this is about what I call ‘double whammy kids’ and summarises some of the adversities UK young people are dealing with right now, a range of possible school responses and what needs to happen for them to have an optimum chance of thriving. |