Photo courtesy of Vestavia Hills City Schools.
Students make friends at Vestavia Hills Elementary East.
The Golden Rule to “treat others the way that you want to be treated” is a familiar motto every year for students at Vestavia Hills Elementary East.
As the 2018-2019 school year came to a close, teachers and administrators at VHEE reflected on a new way they sought to live out their motto this past year: through a school-wide Friendship Initiative.
“We have a number of academic goals every year, and we are constantly working to improve the educational experience for our students,” said VHEE Principal Dr. Mark Richardson. “This past school year, in addition to our academic goals, we took a fresh look at our goals geared toward supporting our students emotionally. We decided to place even greater emphasis on these goals this year and implemented our ‘Friendship Initiative’ across the school. We want all of our students to have positive relationships with classmates.”
Second-grade teacher Susan Maxey was inspired by recent research on combating loneliness at school and helped lead the way in the VHEE program.
“We have always had a school goal of making sure that every child is supported emotionally and that they have a safe and happy environment at school, but we felt that we could take these efforts a little further in the classroom,” she said.
Maxey asked her students to fill out a short, confidential survey every few weeks. This survey asked students questions about who they would like to get to know better, work with or sit next to in the class and who they think has been an exceptional classroom citizen. Maxey used her students’ feedback to rearrange desks, make specific partner pairings and gather data about who might not be as included in the class as she had perceived.
“I want every child to know that someone in our room cares about who they are and wants to be their friend. I also want my students to be able to spot when someone is not feeling as included and be able to include everyone,” Maxey said.
Maxey and other teachers shared their strategies throughout the school so opportunities for new connections were created in every classroom. Teachers created sociograms at the beginning and middle of year to see which students had fewer connections so they could purposefully provide help. Data from the sociograms and other surveys showed that there were dramatic increases in classroom connections throughout the year.
The Friendship Initiative at VHEE culminated in the annual student writing publication, “Imaginings.” This year is the 17th edition and the theme for all the pieces was friendship. Every student in the school authored a short piece responding to varied questions that highlighted their perspective on what friendship means to them.
As VHEE goes from a K-3 to a K-5 school next year, Principal Richardson plans to continue pushing the Friendship Initiative.
Submitted by Vestavia Hills City Schools.
