School Shorts

Hear from the Principal of Lemonwood Grove, among the biggest primary schools by roll in New Zealand. The area has had its fair share of major local traumas like the Christchurch earthquakes and mosque attacks as well as covid. These experiences reminded Blair Dravitski of just how important schools are as part of the community in managing anxiety not just for students but for their extended families too. On top of navigating those crises, the school has had explosive growth and has a wonderful diversity with families representing 47 different countries.

Blair explains how he came to dislike the words 'difficult, challenging or hard' when it comes to communication. He expects staff to send direct, positive emails to families every week to build genuine relationships and communication.

His insights are useful for any parent or educator wanting to help build positive relationships with the school and home.
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Children starting school without the skills needed for learning, are more likely to start on the back foot when it comes to the reading, writing and other skills that are assessed in the curriculum. Andrea Ford and Carolynne Masson work with families and communities to strengthen all those foundation skills through Ready 4 Learning.
With backgrounds in teaching and school leadership, they discuss their thoughts on learning through play and structured literacy expertise.
Ande and Carlolynne have lots of tips for parents about the best ways to develop language, movement and emotional wellbeing.
We also discuss the impact of Covid - did it cause or accelerate certain challenges? or were those challenges already apparent in early education?

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Tami Harris is the CEO of Acorn Neurodiversity and a passionate advocate of better support for children and young people who are neurodivergent. This episode is especially useful if you are a parent overwhelmed or unsure of the diagnosis process, a teacher pondering strategies for diverse learners or anyone who wants to better understand the terms neurodiversity v neurodivergent thinking.
Tami talks about why a multi-disciplinary approach is so often needed, combining speech therapy, occupational therapy, behavioural science, and mental health.
The discussion covers specific strategies to advocate for your child, navigate long waitlists, and interpret early signs before school age.
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Mohan Nair has written what he calls 'the nutrition label for AI'.
Rather than a 'warning label', this is just saying here are all the ingredients we need to be aware of so that we can use AI in a way that benefits our health rather than the other way around. More specifically in this episode we are looking at the ways in which children and young people an prepare to become 'Unreachable'. This is the title of Mohan's book.
After much research in the corporate world where he has worked with innovators from companies across the spectrum, Mohan has analysed what that world will want from its future workforce and the real, practical advice he would offer to families who want to prepare their children to be AI-enabled, rather than AI-afraid or AI-obsessed.
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Nancy Young is the creator of the infographic the Ladder of Reading and Writing which explains reading skills as a continuim.
Nancy is also the Co-Editor of the 2024 book 'Climbing the Ladder of Reading and Writing: Meeting the Needs of All Learners'
Here she also talks about exceptionalities that can co-occur alongside dyslexia, including ADHD, DLD and giftedness.
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