Today was another lovely day in wonderful one and the WBT world. The children love the scoreboard and regularly pray that they will get lots of smileys. This always makes my heart sing. I am learning more and more how to use this scoreboard to its full advantage.  This week I have introduced level two in year one.  We have just had a student teacher for the last four weeks and I felt it was a good time to introduce something new as we restarted our journey as teacher and children. 

I currently have the cards in a box near my portable whiteboard. When a child needs to practice a rule I ask them to come and get a card and place it on their desk. One boy who was talking during morning roll call was asked to take a rule one card. He came to the front took the card and said "thank you." I replied "your welcome."  He, thanked me, for giving him time to practice a rule.  I must say this impacted me quite alot. I am not sure I have ever been thanked so nicely for giving a child a consequence in my entire teaching life.

My next thoughts relate generally to the results of WBT. I had the opportunity to work with 80 year 7 and 8 students today for approximately 1 hour. I will be doing this once a week for the next four weeks.  We are working on Opti-MINDS skills as part of a whole school push on thinking skills. The session went really well. I was my usual self, saying the things that I would normally say, and realised how much these older students were responding. I said our time together was precious and a boy just near me sighed "oh how nice". I joined in with one group and when I read their response and replied "Oh I get it", we were able to laugh together about their solution to a challenge. I congratulated a student for re-reading the challenge and later mentioned I had observed some students doing this. I saw him say to his friend "I did that".  I think I sampled some highschool teacher heaven today. As one girl left the room and handed me her folder she said "that was so much fun" and had a huge smile on her face. 

On relection it was not that I was using any particular part of WBT. I was getting them to use their whole brain. It was also my overall approach to the session and to the students. After many years as a teacher I think I am enjoying it more and more.  I also think I am really influencing students lives in a positive way.  I am excited about my next highschool session.