Shanghai Community International School

By Tamara Afanasyeva, Grade Seven Level Leader/MYP English Language & Literature teacher at SCIS Hongqiao

At the beginning of every year, the pastoral team meets to discuss the past year and set new goals for the year ahead. One of the goals this year is to review and revise the counseling lessons that take place during Dragon Time and are otherwise known as Caring Counseling Thursdays.  

One addition to this year’s Thursdays is the involvement of grade-level teachers and students in the selection of specific Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills students will be explicitly taught under the umbrella of the big themes selected by the counseling team.  

What is Dragon Time?

In providing opportunities to pursue personal excellence in a nurturing environment, upper school students at SCIS participate in daily advisory time, otherwise known as Dragon time. These dedicated 30-minute sessions are designed to develop the relationship, attitudes, and skills of our students so they may contribute to a positive community.

What happens during Dragon Time?

Each day of the week focuses on various activities, from one-on-one review sessions with teachers to check individual progress, to collaborative group work and relationship-building. On Thursdays, Dragon Time focuses on guidance lessons where students participate in pastoral lessons focusing on life skills, building character, and, new this year, approaches to learning. 

What are Approaches to Learning?

Approaches to Learning (ATL) are skills designed by the International Baccalaureate (IB) to enable students to “learn how to learn”. Wherever possible, these ATLs are incorporated into lessons and classroom activities or through other means.

This year, the grade 7 advisors at our Hongqiao campus have been devising ways to incorporate these ATLs in new and innovative ways, by implementing them into the pastoral lessons of Dragon Time.  

To pilot this program, the advisory cohorts dedicated their efforts towards self-management ATL skills. Specifically, they looked at two sub-categories: organization and affective skills. 

Before starting, five skills were pre-selected for Organization skills and then sent out as a survey to both our grade seven students and advisory teachers, prompting them to select which skills they thought were most important. Drawing comparisons from both sets of results saw that responses matched nicely, with both teachers and students giving equal importance to skills such as planning short-term assignments, using technology, and setting goals.  

The same survey was then sent out regarding seven pre-selected Affective skills. Results highlighted similarities across skills such as practicing focus and concentration, and strategies to reduce stress and anxiety. Interestingly, a vast majority of students selected skills such as practicing being aware of body-mind connections and strategies to overcome impulsiveness and anger. pointing to a keen sense of self-awareness from our students at an early age.  

Looking at the data, grade seven advisors then selected the following four skills to focus on during pastoral lessons:  

• Plan short and long-term assignments; meet deadlines 
• Select and use technology effectively 
• Practice focus and concentration 
• Demonstrate persistence and perseverance 

A Counseling Carousel rotation was then created, with each advisor picking and designing a specific lesson around one of the four skills. This allowed each advisory cohort of students to go through all lessons within the span of one month.  

Each advisory has an advisory journal that they decorate and is something that stays with them throughout the school year, allowing them a place to write down their thoughts, including everything they do in advisory classes. To aid students process the information learned, they were prompted to go through various Visible Thinking routines. One such activity, called “Write a Letter to Yourself,” asked students to write a letter to their future selves as 8th graders. Students were challenged to give their future selves advice based on all the information they have learned during the counseling lessons.  

Another visible thinking routine called “I Used to Think, and Now I think," focused on highlighting how students’ understanding has shifted or changed.  

After a successful first round of counseling lessons, our grade 7 advisors are now shifting gears towards a new rotation on different ATL skills. This time around the focus will be on conflict resolution, focusing on more collaborative and social skills.  

While counseling guidance sessions at SCIS have always been grounded around a set scope and sequence of lessons, for example, “Friendship” in grade six or “Conflict-resolution” in grade seven, adding the explicit connection to ATL skills and involving students and teachers in the process adds a new dimension to the quality of the program.  

SCIS. Innovative Thinkers.