It’s All About The Skills…

A Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, once wrote – Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

In our education system, while we are certainly not in the business of teaching children how to fish, this quote does make us stop and think. As teachers and parents(myself included), we become so focussed on our childrens’ academic and sporting progress, that we forgot about those so-called ‘soft skills’. It was with this in mind, that the school began our very own skills development programme every second week.

The various key stages and year groups have different goals most suited to their students’ ages. In Year 2, we decided to focus on problem-solving this term. Ms Hendry, Mrs Pani and I incorporated ‘dealing with conflict, speaking up for yourself and how to make amends’. We felt it was an important topic to tackle, as our students are still developing their emotional and social skills and often do not have the words to express their feelings, resulting in conflict or unhappiness.

The students really enjoy these sessions and participate enthusiastically. We role-play situations, looking for various solutions to the different challenges faced in these exercises.

We are looking forward to next term’s Skills Training.

Mrs Kim Coetzer
Year 2 Teacher