Preparing for special circumstances

I watched the Champs video on preparing students for special circumstances. Randy Sprick talked about two special circumstances. One was having new students come into your classroom and the other was having unique events in the school day. To be prepared for a new student he suggested teaching the student the expectations individually, and also go over the expectations with the whole class as a refresher. This works well if you do not have a new student very often. If you do have students more often you might consider pairing these students with a buddy. The buddy should not be the most responsible student, but a student who has made improvements in their responsible behavior. Give the two students permission to talk in order to have them explain what is expected throughout the day. Another suggestion he gave was to make a welcome video. For a school that often has new students, some schools develop a welcome room where new students can get oriented to the school.

The other special circumstance was unique events in the school day. Sprick suggested being well prepared for field trips. Get all the details, such as how long the bus ride is and what it is like there, and let the kids know what the expect ahead of time. The other example he gave was teaching assembly behavior to the students. He concluded by saying that if you develop going over expectations often, they will develop into rituals and routines.

Special circumstances that I have gotten better at prepared for as the school year has gone on have been changes in the schedule. Every week there is late start Wednesday, at least once a month we are on assembly schedule, and then we have half days for holidays and conferences. There are also schedule changes due to testing for benchmarking and special events that are going on school wide or in the student’s individual classroom. I make sure that all teachers have the pull out schedule for normal days, late start days, assembly days, and half days. I remind them the day before an assembly or a half day what schedule we are going to be on. I also prep my students ahead of time to let them know what time they are coming the next day. I make sure to be aware of field trips or special classroom activities, to make sure the students are prepared for that as well. Some of my students who are less flexible end up coming at their regular time anyway, and I send them back to class with a sticky note for them to put on their desk of when they are going to leave.

When I have a new student coming in I make sure that the teacher is prepared with their pull out schedule in advance. I make time to observe them in their general education classroom to get an idea of what they need to know and what they are struggling with. I typically have the other students in the group teach the new student the group expectations.

Something I need to work on with my students who are intellectually deficient or who have autism is how to better prepare them for schedule changes. After going through winter benchmarking, I realized that the added stress of the schedule change could have affected their performance on these tests. I need to make up visual schedules for them in advance for these days and teach it to them well in advance of the event.

I also liked the idea of making a welcome video that the students I currently have could help me make. I get about two new students a month, both from students with IEPs moving into the area and currently attending students getting qualified for sped. Having a video about what a Learning Center is and what the classroom expectations are would be helpful for them.