Let's get engaged!!

What a great way to start the day today!!

In my new job, I work with Year 10 students who need extra support with their numeracy learning. This can be rather dicey at times, as many of these students have openly expressed to me that they don't like receiving support, as it 'makes them feel dumb' (their words, not mine).

It has taken about three weeks to really win their confidence, and often they needed coaxing to join me.

This week I started with some new students at one school, but the ones who I had previously been working with still came to sit with me, asking to keep working in my group. I took that as a win, and although they weren't 'officially' working with me anymore, I still managed to squeeze some more work into them which they took on happily.

Then, in the next lesson, a boy who I started with on Monday came bouncing into the lesson and straight away came and joined me and set himself up for work. He freely admits that he is not overly keen on maths, and finds it hard, but after our first lesson things have changed. His words were "I got up excited today because I knew I was having maths with you today". You could have knocked me over with a feather!!

He worked solidly for the whole lesson, totally engaged with the new project I started him on earlier in the week.

When it came to the end of the lesson I asked if he'd like me to hold on to his work until our next meeting, but he firmly said he wanted to keep it so that he could work on it at home!

It's days like this that keep us coming back the next day!