Myself, along with other members of the wonderful staff at my school, were charged by our principals to lead our school in adopting The Leader in Me program.
Funding, as I'm sure it is everywhere, is limited. At The Leader in Me website, you'll find lots of information about adopting the program and, more importantly, scheduling training and consultants. If you can, I'd suggest utilizing that.
We, however, were faced with the task of implementing this program without the training/consultations that The Leader in Me can provide. I'd like to share some tips and materials we used/are using as we go about this process.
To start, our principal purchased a set of three books for each teacher: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, and The Leader in Me. These were purchased last summer and were to be read by this August by all the staff. Our counselor took the lead with the students, using The 7 Habits in her lessons with them, so that, but now, all students were relatively familiar with the language. Throughout last year, our "light-house" team met to read and discuss (using The Leader in Me Study Guide) The Leader in Me and develop ways to use it at our school. Many teachers attended a "Leadership Day" hosted at another elementary school in our district that already uses The 7 Habits.
Last May, our team met to create a 3-year "roll out plan". This year, we wanted to focus on training, educating, and supporting the staff. We also wanted to continue use of the Habits with the students by rewarding them when they used the Habits, creating more leadership roles and using our Student Council in a greater capacity, and empowering our students to take ownership of their learning with data-notebooks. We are also planning trainings and creating resources for our parents to use.
To train the staff, I created several materials for them to use. We've all been in that training where we get the "use this now" message but with out the "here's why to use it, here's how to use, let me offer support as you use it" that we need. I didn't want our staff to feel that way as we began our journey with The 7 Habits. (Our training is on Wednesday, so I'll post a follow-up about how it went).
Each staff member will be given a folder. Inside the folder, they'll find:
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| Table of Contents |
The "7 Habits Resource Page" is a list of resources, websites, blogs, and downloads I've compiled while searching for 7 Habits tools. The resource list includes materials for data notebooks, classroom decor, and parent resources.
The poster set is "Leaders are out of this World" themed. We have many ELLs at our school, so both an English and Spanish version is included.
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The 7 Habits slips are what I'm most excited to use this year. Students can be given a slip by any teacher (the teacher fills the slip out). The student places the slip in a grade-specific bin in the front of the school. At the end of the month, names are drawn from these slips and those students are invited to attend a "leadership lunch". This lunch will take place during their regular lunchtime, on the stage, with special plates and utensils and special guests (like the principal).
7 Habits bookmarks will be passed out to each student (we're printing them on card stock and laminating them). The bookmarks are available in English and Spanish.
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The "First Things First" is an "editable" document that you can use to schedule 7 Habits learning during the first week of school. At our school, we have a slightly different schedule and are calling it the "Lay the Foundation" week. The teacher tips include further instructions for teachers (how to use the posters as a clip chart, etc).
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The "first week workbooks" are designed to help the students reflect upon their learning after reading and discussing the chapters as a class. Teachers have the choice to send the packet home with the student, keep the packet in the students' data notebooks, or use the worksheets in bulletin board and student work displays.
Four workbooks are included, a K-2 friendly version in English and Spanish and a 3-5 friendly version in English and Spanish. The 3-5 version has a "taking the habits home" page to facilitate family involvement.
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| Sample page from K-2 Workbook |
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| Sample page from 3-5 Workbook |
We also included a sample parent letter that our principal will discuss (and send home) during our school's equivalent of "open house". She decided to send this home then so she can thoroughly discuss it. I agree with the idea because the first time the parents will hear/see about the 7 Habits will come from their own children's discussions and workbooks - not from an administrator at the school. The letter introduces the Leader in Me and 7 Habits and also includes a page with of the 7 Habits posters (so parents see what their students see at school).
We are also including a survey (three questions only) so that our group can learn more about what teachers want to know, what they have questions about, and when and how they'd like trainings.
In this download, I've also included an "introductory" PowerPoint for use at a staff meeting. Here's a sample slide:
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Look for more updates as we continue on this journey! If you're using The Leader in Me, I'd love to hear how your school is doing things!
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