As a part of their leadership responsibilities, the boys in Year 6 develop (with assistance) and deliver, in a team teaching environment, a lesson related to the various social skills that form part of our Positive Attitudes and Life Skills (PALS) program. These lessons occur regularly and are followed up by class teachers throughout the week and in the week’s following the lesson.

The Year 6 boys are extensively involved in the preparation and evaluation of these lessons.

Here are some of their reflections from this week’s lesson:

 Kindy – Soma

Last Monday, my group presented a PALS session to Kindy (Positive Attitudes and Life Skills) on topic of courage. We didn’t think that the boys would understand the meaning of courage as quickly they did. Our session included an introduction on what courage meant to the boys and then we split into small groups and the boys prepared a skit to demonstrate what courage looked like at school. Overall the session went smoothly and we had a lot of fun teaching the boys, with Miss Smallhorn’s assistance.

Year 1 – Oliver S

This was our first PALS lesson and we were very happy with it, the boys were quiet and listened to our every word. We enjoyed teaching them and they also enjoyed learning from us. We will be doing our next lesson in a similar way to the first one as it worked so well.

Year 2 – Finn

In Year 2 for PALS this month we were so excited to teach our lesson on Courage. We explored courage and we started with a short introduction teaching the boys what courage was and what it looked like at school. Then we split up into groups and the boys participated in group work tasks. We found it rewarding to teach our PALS class with the help of the teachers.

Year 3 – Jack

For our Year 3 lesson, Oscar, Matthew, Alistair and I decided that taking an easy, simple approach was better. First we presented a Keynote presentation. We gave examples and explained courage to the boys in Year 3. As they spoke we created a mind map with their suggestions. We were pretty surprised that most of them understood the topic very quickly. Then we gave them butcher’s paper and asked them to give us their suggestions on what courage was and looked like. After that, we concluded by asking them what courage was. The first person to answer got it right and again we were surprised. It was a great learning experience for all of us.

Year 4 – Ethan H

On Monday Jonty, Patrick, Harry and I led a lesson on courage. We first shared a Powtoons animation that we had created and all the kids were very engaged by it so I think that we should keep that idea in our next lesson. Our second activity involved using butcher’s paper to brainstorm and to do this we put the class into their table group. The next activity required the boys to work together to create a skit, which they would act it for the class. This was a more challenging task for us to manage. Finally, we did a quiz which worked. The boys learnt a lot and so did we!

Year 5E – Oliver Prosser

PALS stands for Positive Attitudes & Life Skills. PALS is our school wide social skills program. As leaders, we were put into groups of three and four and were assigned a class. My group includes Samuel, Ethan and myself and we were assigned Year 5E. We prepared a Keynote on courage and showed the boys a video with showed different people demonstrating courage in their life. Then we did a mind-mapping task where the boys drew a picture of when they have shown courage and then they wrote a sentence about it. To wrap it up we played a game of silent ball and if they got the ball they would have to say when they showed courage. Overall it was a very successful lesson.

Year 5W – Tane

My group participated in our PALS activities with Year 5W. These sessions are great fun as you get to teach the class you are assigned to a very important skill, which for us was about having courage at school and home, and you also learn something yourself along the way. We learnt how important it is to have a prepared lesson that is organised and interesting for our audience.

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