After school catch up clubs, homework support clubs as well as a club for planning and organization. These clubs will be organized and hosted by both existing staff as well as expert organizations like Lyceo. Lyceo has already been delivering after school homework support for the past two years and they will continue to offer this service for next academic year. We also aim to offer more sports and team building activities after school and integrated in the regular lessons.

Individual Support

Through the expansion of the Subject Support Team with 1 FTE, there are more opportunities for direct instruction, one to one instruction and small group tutoring for the subjects where the knowledge gaps appear.

Feedback

Effective feedback is considered a highly effective way of improving quality teaching. Giving effective feedback is difficult and has been more difficult under the circumstances of the pandemic. In Assessment for Learning, feedback plays a big part in the teaching and learning of students. This is a topic of development in ESH Secondary already. Peer assessment for both students as well as for the teachers is something we believe needs to be developed further at ESH Secondary. An important part of that process is visiting the classes of colleagues. Through class visits, the qualities and talents become visible among colleagues and they learn from each other’s feedback. Allowing teachers to work on their feedback skills, and to visit each other’s classrooms would reflect on the learning of the children. The support of coaches for teaching staff will help in developing effective feedback sills.

Interventions focused on the well-being of students

This year, Mindfulness sessions for staff and students were introduced on a low profile basis. The effect of the mindfulness sessions are positive and from next academic year we intent to implement more structural mindfulness sessions during the school day for both staff and students. These sessions can be delivered by staff members through an extension of their teaching hours. We aim to offer 5 mindfulness lessons per week delivered by a staff member, which is an addition of 0,2 FTE.

For the specific focus on test and exam anxiety for the students preparing for their final exams, an external mindfulness specialist will come to school with a special program for S7 students.

An expansion of 0,3 FTE of hours for the school psychologist, will help in supporting staff as well as students to address the social emotional difficulties that students experience.

Interventions focused on the well-being of staff

By investing in assistant teachers (see E) we intent to reduce the work pressure of teaching staff. Additionally, staff mindfulness sessions will continue to be delivered.

Sports activities

Students have missed out on team sport activities because of the coronacrisis. Team building and developing self-regulatory skills through sports activities are crucial for a healthy social emotional well-being of students. Through sports and play activities the skill of resilience can be further developed. Additionally, introducing regular yoga classes, and also investing in specific equipment would be a need for this.

Cultural education

All the cultural activities have been cancelled the last year and a half. We are looking forward to being able to pick up all the cultural trips and exchange visits for students. As an addition we would like to offer curriculum related field trips in the area.

Metacognition and self-regulated learning

The need for introducing support in the area of planning and organization was already identified. After the variety of instructions modes of the past two years, the need for support in this area has grown significantly. Last academic year Executive Function planners were introduced as a pilot in the Dutch S1 classes. Under the responsibility of the Mentors, these planners were used by the students. The impact has been difficult to measure because of the lack of physical mentor lessons for the implementation of these planners. For next academic year the planners will be made available for all S1, S2 and S3 students. At the start of the year, all Mentors will receive training on how to implement the use of these planners with their students. An after school club will be introduced for students in the higher year groups who experience difficulties in this area. The planner will be used during the after school club as a tool.

Collaborative learning

The introduction of student mentors last year was a success, however, the student mentors have not been fully able to work with their mentees due to the coronacrisis. This programme will be continued next academic year.

Class reduction / teaching assistants / instructors

ESH Secondary already has small class sizes, however, there is a difference in attainment levels due to the wide variety of student backgrounds. By adding knowledge gaps on top of this, groups become very difficult to teach. To be able to close knowledge gaps and to release teaching staff from work pressure, we are introducing assistant teachers in classes with a big variety of attainment levels. Subject coordinators have identified where these needs are.