Village Glen School believes that children show the most growth when they are provided with a safe, predictable, and structured learning environment. The Village Glen social skills philosophy is that the way to strengthen all skills is to highlight what a student is doing correctly, rather than by focusing on inappropriate behaviors. Throughout the day at Village Glen, students are reinforced with immediate, specific, and positive feedback each time they demonstrate appropriate behaviors or approximations thereof.
Students at Village Glen School are taught social skills on a daily basis. Village Glen uses the “Super Skills” program by Judith Coucouvanis as its core curriculum for all grades kindergarten through 12th. This curriculum is supported by Brenda Smith Miles (author of “the Hidden Curriculum”) and reflects all the key concepts reflected in Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking curriculum, the Boystown model, and Skill Streaming. The curriculum focuses on 4 areas of skills necessary for social success:
- fundamental skills
- social initiation skills
- getting along with others
- social response skills
The Super Skills’ “Steps to Success” are published each week in the campus newsletter that goes home to each family every Friday. In this way, families are able to practice and reinforce the same skills teachers are working on during the week. Teachers use a developmental approach and may utilize students who move at faster pace as role models or peer mentors to the other students.
In addition to the Super Skills curriculum, the Village Glen Middle School includes featured elements of the “Peers Program” by Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson and Dr. Fred Frankel. The Peers Program is a school-based, teacher-facilitated social skills training model for teenagers with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
At Village Glen, October is designated as Bully Awareness Month. During the month, students learn to identify the various types of bullying (physical, verbal, written or typed, and/or exclusion). Students also learn about the categories of bullying interactions (those who bully, those who are bullied, and those who witness bullying). How to deal with bullying and how to report bullying are identified and role played. Teasing is also addressed. Students are taught the difference between teasing and bullying, as well as specific strategies and verbal comebacks for handling verbal attacks.
Since the computer community and the internet are now integral aspects of any student’s experience, it is essential to address “netiquette”, personal safety, online predators, cyber-bullying, and ethical decision making as part of the Village Glen social skills program. For this reason, Village Glen will once again be holding a workshop in the fall for students, staff, and parents focusing on these important issues.
As children mature, an understanding of their physical development, an awareness of personal hygiene, and respect for boundaries of body and topic become very important. To address this need, Village Glen includes these issues within the scope of daily social skills instruction. More in depth issues will be addressed in a specific series of lessons presented during the spring semester starting in February 2011.
This series, which is based on Family Life and Sexual Health authored by the Seattle-King County Department of Health, is designed to encourage students to ask questions and get simple, direct answers. Moreover, a variety of materials and formats will be used – each lesson typically includes specific objectives, an agenda with several activities, sample communications to a “trusted adult”, worksheets, and handouts – to provide children with accurate information and to meet the diverse learning styles of the students. Some of the areas to be covered include: learning about the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty, learning how and where to manage one’s behavior privately and appropriately, understanding what constitutes abuse and/or sexual harassment, learning how to keep oneself safe, and how to self advocate.
