Many students struggle to remain engaged in traditional learning environments. So how do parents support their child to continue with learning, when school refusal and disengagement are on the rise?
Teacher Magazine recently wrote a three-part series on student engagement with learning. Dr Amy Berry and Dr Kellie Picker from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conducted research with student focus groups to hear about the roadblocks to learning, from a student perspective. One student, when describing what it feels like to be disengaged in the classroom, said:
Torturous. It feels torturous. It looks like fiddling with objects, head up, confused, watching the clock, getting up.
And another, said this:
When I’m trying to do something. And there’s a teacher like constantly coming up to me, oh how much have you done? How much you’ve done? Are you close to finishing? It’s just like, it makes me uncomfortable. Makes me not want to do the work.
Students fed back that when they experienced disengagement, they then engaged in behaviours such as distracting others, misbehaving, or letting other group members do the work. Repeated disengagement then led to emotions such as anger, frustration, overwhelm, stress, and feelings of not being able to cope.
In the VLC, we see many students who arrive disheartened, disengaged and disillusioned with traditional schooling. They are looking for a place where they have autonomy in their learning, can have greater flexibility in their independent timetable, and feel greater control over their learning environment. Often they ‘hate school’, but still have an eagerness to learn. The VLC offers an environment where students can be in the driver’s seat of their learning, giving them access to high-quality and caring teaching staff, an interactive learning environment, and provide social connections, without the inflexible structures of mainstream schooling. If you want to find out more about how the VLC could bring the joy of learning back to your child, please visit us at www.hillcrestvlc.school to find out more.
