Berry Street Education Model

Overview

The Berry Street Education Model provides teachers with evidence-based strategies for working with struggling students.

This one-day workshop will leave teachers feeling empowered and inspired to teach the de-escalation and self-regulation skill that our students so desperately need. Teachers will learn strategies for struggling students that they can use in their classrooms the next day!

We use the dual lenses of Trauma-Aware Education and Positive Education to bring out the best in all of our students.

Target Audience

This workshop is best suited to all educators working with students including classroom teachers, special needs educators and leadership pre-service teachers and those on the executive looking to innovate at a school level or within the individual classroom.

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This Conference will be presented by Dr Tom Brunzell, Director of the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM)

PhD, University of Melbourne | Master of Education (School Leadership) | Master of Science (Teaching) | Bachelor of Arts

Dr Tom Brunzell has experience as a teacher, school leader, researcher and education advisor. Currently he is the Director of Education at Berry Street and Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Dr Tom Brunzell presents internationally on topics of transforming school culture, student engagement, trauma aware practice, wellbeing and positive psychology, and effective school leadership. His research at the University of Melbourne investigates both the negative impacts of secondary traumatic stress and the positive impacts of wellbeing on teachers and leaders working towards educational equity in their communities

9:00am

WELCOME

9:10–9:55am

Introduction to Trauma-Informed Positive Education

The Berry Street Education Model takes two pedagogical lenses, Trauma-Aware Education and Positive Education, and builds them into classroom strategies that work with all students. This first session will define trauma and adverse childhood experiences, and delve into our understanding of how trauma affects student behavior.

10:00–10:45am

De-escalation strategies for your classroom

We will begin this session by exploring the stress response – what happens in the brain and the body when we are stressed. We will discuss how responses to trauma are often experienced in the body, and how an understanding of those bodily signals is vital step towards healing. We will then offer a number of strategies for teachers to use with students when the stress response is activated – both in the student and in the teacher!

10:45-11:30AM

Morning Tea - served within The Education Show

11:30am–12:15pm

Self-Regulation for your students

While we love the notion that teachers will co-regulate students, so that they are able to de-escalate in the presence of their teachers, that’s not enough for us. We want our students to be able to de-escalate in the school yard, in other classes, on the football field or netball court, at home, or on a Friday or Saturday night. As such, this session will share with participants strategies for teaching self-regulation to students. We will further explore the stress response, what happens in the brain when we are stressed, and why simply telling a stressed person to “Calm Down!” isn’t such a great idea.

12:15–1:00PM

Patterned, Repetitive, Rhythmic, Somatosensory Activities

Building on the previous session, this session will offer a number of Pattern, Repetitive, Rhythmic, Somatosensory Activities. These activities are tailored specifically to the part of the brain that is in use when the stress response is activated, and as such, are vital for teachers to know when they are working with trauma-impacted populations.

1:00–2:00PM

Lunch served within The Education Show

2:00–2:45pm

Present, Centred and Grounded

Participants in this session will experience the energetic quality of feeling Present, Centred and Grounded. Our students know what it feels like to be hyperactive, and they know what it feels like to have no energy at all. But very few of them are able to articulate what it feels like to be fully attentive, to not be distracted, and to be completely stable, balanced and in their power. This session will explore not only what that feels like for teachers, but how to build awareness of that internal feeling in students.

2:50–3:35pm

Mindfulness

We will close the day with Mindfulness, and how to adapt our mindfulness activities so that they are Trauma-Aware. For some trauma-impacted students, simple mindfulness activities such as closing the eyes, concentrating on their interior states, or even lying down in a room full of people, can be triggering. So in order to build the ability of our trauma-impacted students to pay attention to one thing, we offer a number of movement-based, attention building, focusing activities.