Welcome to the NELMS "Middle School Advisory Programs" forum! I'm Kim Prause, an assistant principal in a small public middle/high school in New Hampshire. As other moderators have pointed out about their role, I'm not the expert here, just the facilitator.

I hope this can become a place for schools with advisory programs, as well as those considering implementing them, to exchange ideas, resources, successes and failures. Ideally, it will also be a place to post questions that stimulate discussion about the purpose, structure and outcomes of middle level advisory programs in general.

I look forward to a lively conversation!

Welcome to our advisory section. I look forward to the discussion and improving advisory experiences for our students.
Bob Spear
Executive Director

I hope that everyone is beginning to settle into the roller-coaster ride that is the middle school year!

Our advisory program is beginning a year of re-focus, and I'm interested in knowing how other schools view the purpose and goas of their own programs. Please take a minute to share a short description of your program's purpose and main goals (let's try to stick to these first, as construction, scheduling, advising, etc. are all hot topics that I'm sure we'll get to separately!).

As part of our advisory re-focus, the middle school team (core teachers, as well as the principal and myself) spent a day this summer clarifying our own view about what an advisory should be. As part of that work, we created a poster that we could hang in each space that advisories meet. We wanted to answer the question, "How does Base Camp (the name of our program) support students?" We answered it in a way that we think kids and their parents can relate to:

Base Camp supports students academically ad socially by providing:
1 A safe place to explore and voice new ideas.
2. An opportunity to make new friends.
3. An opportunity to learn about being a positive member of a group.
4. An opportunity to celebrate accomplishments.
5. A go-to adult who is in your corner.
6. A team that is in your corner.
7. A place to catch your breath.

How about you? Do you have a purpose or mission that you could share?

Hi!

Our advisory mission statement was created following surveys of the kids, and edited by faculty. It incorporates all views expressed. In writing it, we were also able to use language reflecting our school's overall mission.

"The purpose of Stoneleigh-Burnham's advisory program is to provide a core support base at school which allows students to connect with themselves, their teachers and their peers as they build confidence, develop skills for success in school and in life, monitor their progress, and have fun."

Take care,
Bill Ivey
Stoneleigh-Burnham School

Thanks, Bill - the survey idea is a great one!

Do you design advisory activities around that purpose, and then all advisors run the same activities, or do you give advisors some autonomy around that purpose?

Is is always the question; how much structure to provide? Some want none, others want day by day lesson plans. The answer is in the middle of course. After looking at successful advisory plans, we suggest that there be a framework of big ideas, some suggested specific resources for some of them. Using the resources is optional, getting to the big idea is not. If need be, any teacher should be able to establish how they went about helping students "get" the big idea.

We also encourage sharing of activities and conversations among all in advisory and therefore, it helps others steal good practices.

Hope this helps,
Bob Spear

Hi!

What Bob said is exactly how we do it. We also use the NMSA "Treasure Chest" sourcebook by John Lounsbury as a resource for activities.

Take care,
Bill Ivey
Stoneleigh-Burnham School

"Base Camp supports students academically ad socially by providing:
1 A safe place to explore and voice new ideas.
2. An opportunity to make new friends.
3. An opportunity to learn about being a positive member of a group.
4. An opportunity to celebrate accomplishments.
5. A go-to adult who is in your corner.
6. A team that is in your corner.
7. A place to catch your breath."

This is really great! I love these statements. They seem to sufficiently describe what an advisory should be all about. I like the idea also from someone else who constructed the mission statement out of surveys from students. Great idea.

We all know there are 1,000 or more ways to do anything, and that is especially true for school advisory programs. One thing I think is really important is a time for just talking or checking-in with students. I try weekly to make time to ask how my students' weekends went, if they did anything fun, what they have going on this week inside and outside of school, etc. It's a nice re-grouping exercise. It brings us all back together after a weekend or a long week. Last year I was able to do this every Monday, as our advisory schedule permitted that. We spent a lot of time then talking about the weekend and future plans for the week. Whereas this year my advisory schedule lends me to do this exercise on Fridays, where we spend time talking about the past week's ups and downs, as well as any weekend plans.

No matter when during the week or how this exercise is done, I believe it is really important to hear from all of my students. It's a good time for them to feel important and valued by their adviser.

Although it has been a few years since I was a TA advisor, I always enjoyed when a TA group found the thing they loved. Once it was juggling. I had learned to juggle, so I brought in my juggling bags (and then my wife made us a basket full of juggling bags). Sometimes, we would do group juggles... sometimes, there were small groups juggling... always there was (as Angela points out is so important) small talk about pets and plans and what we were happy about and what we were sad about, and the list could continue.

-- GLA

I really like the juggling idea, Gary! What a great way to be REAL with your students. I think that is what most students are really seeking- an adult to be real with them, to show them who s/he really is. By showing one of your own hobbies like juggling, you do just that. That is one trick of the counseling trade that I use by keeping stress balls or card games or the juggling you used, you allow students to open up and talk more comfortably with you. It's all about being creative!

At my school we have Fridays in our advisory designated for community service. My students have been lazy at organizing a community service project. So today we are baking cookies (and of course eating some, too!), and then walking around to the other advisories on Friday to sell the cookies to collect donations for a local charity. Thinking outside the box, that's all we have to do with these middle schoolers!

We, too have a service learning component in our middle school, Angela,
and we're having the conversation about whether or not to combine it with our advisory.

Our latest struggle is with students who choose not to particpate with their advisory during an intramural game, for instance. How do folks address the issue of participation in advisory?

Usually students do not have a choice of attending an advisory or there are not other activities scheduled during this time. Usually the best way to engage students is to get them involved. Ask them for ideas and have them make some choices about activities. As k them what condition would need to exist for this to be a "great advisory". Ask them what they could do for community service with an advisory as a basis.

All for now,
Bob

Ah... community service... a great theme for TA.

For the last couple of years, middle schoolers at my school have collected lunch room scraps which are collected for compose by a local farmer... kind of a different type on community service, but the dumpster sure smells better (or at least not as bad) since they started.

Anyone else with community service ideas?

-- GLA

In response to kprause on participation...

There is no greater deterrent to youngsters participating than adults who do not participate... I am not accusing you of that, but I am wondering if there are other adults who do not, and the kids are just doing what they see the adults modeling?

-- GLA

Our struggles with participation are really with just a few kids who, I think, have decided that it isn't "cool" to participate in things like intramurals when all of our different advisories compete together at silly games, for instance. We cajole and hope that peer pressure will work in our favor, but I wondered if others had strategies for reluctant kids. We've asked this small group (three or four kids, really) for ideas about what they'd like to do, and they are also reluctant to get involved that way. All of our kids attend advisory itself. It is mandatory, but we've never actually had anyone challenge that part of the attendance.

Additionally, our service learning currently takes place in our classrooms, through different projects that fit with curriculum, but we're brainstorming ways to move some of it to advisory, as we struggle with higher stakes tests at the middle level.

It has been difficult also for me to get my group of 11 eighth graders to participate in a community service project of their choice. I have consistently told them to leave their books and lap tops at the door on Fridays when we have community service so that we may all focus together on brainstorming ideas for a project. They are really unmotivated though. Even when I encourage them by saying I'll reward them by throwing a party after we succeed in making a difference somewhere, they are not willing to do too much. I have not forced them to do anything so far, because I've been trying to make this something they want to do and have it be something they come up with on their own. That has proved difficult, so last week they asked if we could have a party or if we could make some food together. I said sure, great idea, let's bake something to sell as a community service project. They bought into the idea! Now today they have come up to me about 10 times separately all excited about the fact that we will walk around to other advisories and sell the cookies to donate to a charity.

Bottom line... it takes effort and work from the adviser, but if you listen to your students long enough and keep encouraging them they really will get involved.

I recently found some information about the national campaign of No Name-Calling Week, January 21-25. It sounds like a great thing to promote in our middle schools. Do any of you currently have things planned for this year, or have any of you sponsored this week at your school in the past? Any ideas?

From reading material on the Web site, I found ideas such as reading annoucements related to preventing bullying and name-calling, having the library display books about friendship, etc. Any other ideas?

We haven't done the "no name calling week" but have been involved in similar, tolerance-promoting activities like "Mix it up day" (sit with people you don't know at lunch), "Day of Silence" (to support gays and lesbians), and so on.

I would think there could be read-aloud texts, extracts from books and/or poems. I'm sure there are songs out there too. Students could also create original work - written and/or artistic - around the theme of the week. In advisory, or some other format, students could share how they got their names and what they mean. There could be skits and/or role-plays, public or within specific classes. I hope this helps!

Hello - I just joined this discussion group - and have been working on our school's advisory program for the last year or so. We just implemented advisory to the students and staff in late October - in order for everyone to get into the year and through with the NECAP testing before we added one other thing to our plate.

I took a look at the No Name Calling Week information - specifically that provided at nonamecallingweek.org - I downloaded the free lessons provided there and plan to use them throughout the year, not just during no name calling week. The lessons seem like they are worthwhile and are current. When putting together a resource binder for our staff last year, we had a difficult time finding good information on bullying that was relevant to the middle school age group. I wish that we had come across this resource then!

I look forward to participating in this discussion group!

Thanks for the great tip, Angela, about "No Name Calling Week" and welcome, Jen! Bill has some great ideas for activities that can accompany really any "theme" week or month. We've had some success with approaching the topic of bullying in our advisories, using activities that each advisory took part in over the course of a month or so. Our sixth grade has also participated in "Mix It Up Day" with mixed results.

Please, please let us know your experiences with these resources and activities!

Our NNCW last week went really well! My goal was to encourage as many groups of people to be involved in some way. Reasoning behind this was two-fold in that it number one gets everyone involved and number two takes much of the work off of my shoulders!

The foreign language department had their students make posters in Spanish and French that said things like "no bullying" and "respect one another." These are posted throughout our school. Our art teachers asked their students to be creative and draw posters with positive words that describe people, after they had already discussed the negative words they hear in the hallways. These are also posted around the school.

Our librarians displayed books in the library that were related to friendships, respect, tolerance, etc. Our phys. ed. teachers put an extra emphasis on teamwork and getting along during classes all week. Student Council played songs like "Where is the love?" and "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" on the morning announcements, along with words of wisdom for no name-calling.

The biggest thing we did was ask each team of teachers to nominate one or two students they think show positive behavior, no bullying, sticking up for others, respect, etc. We rewarded these students with a pizza party with our principal and vice principal, as well as certificates for the I AM THE CHANGE Award. They were so pleased to receive an award for simply being themselves, considering they didn't know the award existed before being nominated. It was a great success! We hope to continue this piece throughout the year.

It is definitely an easy but important event that I believe all schools should focus on, especially middle level schools where bullying is such a huge issue.

Angela, thanks for the wrap-up. It sounds like your NNCW went really well. The idea of getting lots of different groups involved really does spread the wealth in terms of work and organization. We are exploring our own name-calling issues here at school, considering a No-Name-Calling Day (since we didn't have our act together enough last week!) on National Stand Up to Bullying Day. The website you pointed us all to was also really helpful, with lots of good lesson plans. Don't discount the elementary plans, in many cases they can be adapted to a short, advisory period with middle school students.

Bravo!

I haven't heard of National Stand Up to Bullying Day. Do you know of a Web site related to this or any other information about it?

I don't know websites, but I know that local Boys/Girls Clubs, or for that matter Girl/Boy Scouts, might be a good place to start. We have used clips from the movie "Mean Girls" and the book "The Girls" by Amy Goldman Koss to stimulate discussions around girl-on-girl dynamics including bullying (we're an all-girls school).
Take care,
Bill

You can find information about the National Stand Up to Bullying Day here: http://standupday.com/. We don't plan to get sponsors and buy t-shirts, but we like the idea of an organized day, which I think we'll end up customizing with our own topics.

We have been enjoying TAG groups, as we call our advisory program, for many years. Our Tag group meets twice a day, once in the morning for about 20 minutes and again at the end of the day for 10 minutes. We meet everyday and TAG leaders take care of the attendance and then get down to a variety of activities. Over the years we have focused on a number of different kinds of themes. We work with students on work habits and organization, goal setting, community service activities, interaction between TAGs has been incorporated over the years. For example for a number of years we put on a Variety Show with each TAG putting together performances. This was enjoyed by the entire community. The culminating event included a performance for parents and community members. Each day has a different focus. TAGs spend one day each week talking about current events. I'd be happy to share ideas with anyone looking for them.
Advisory is a very worthwhile multifacited program that can be whatever your school hopes it to be.

What does TAG stand for or represent? It sounds nice to have them meet in the morning AND in the afternoon. I imagine it's a good way of starting and ending a school day.

Also, to add to the discussion of good movies related to bullying, Odd Girl Out is a Lifetime movie that came out a couple of years ago. It's excellent for middle school and high school students to see the negative girl bullying that occurs.

There's a great U-Tube video called Hero in the Hallway that goes well with the no bullying theme.

With efforts being made to encourage student involvement and increase student learning, how are other middle schools engaging their students? What positive behavior programs have succeeded and how do you sustain their interest?

Hi Everyone,
We are thinking of starting an Advisory Program at our school and we want to visit a school that has an effective program already. Has anyone trained in the Origins Program? It's an offshoot of Responsive Classroom and Morning Meeting. What's the basic structure of an effective Advisory Program? Is it basically a daily 20 minute morning meeting with a greeting, activity, and sharing like Responsive Classroom or is it something else?

In terms of starting up an advisory program at your school... I would recommend that you start off small... and don't overwhelm yourselves with meeting every day! At my school, we spent almost a year planning and gathering materials that we could use in Advisory (we did not purchase a program).

We then started meeting once a week for 25 minutes with our groups. Ideally we could bump that up to two or three times a week, but we have not moved in that direction yet. It's tough to add too much without, since there is a bit of planning for the meetings, without hitting issues with our contract and teaching time.

I'd be happy to send you further thoughts and information if you'd like. My email address is saarinenj@bw.k12.ri.us

NELMS has a lot of resources for you from books on the topic to professional help. I also have a number of ideas myself so feel free to contact me directly at nelms@nelms.org

As for the Origins Program, I do not know about it. I do know that Responsive Classroom has not worked well in the ML when folks have tried to adopt it to the ML learner. We find that there is a great deal of ready info in a school for an advisory and that most folks like the fact that many are "home grown" to meet program goals and school needs.

All for now,
Bob

I agree with Jen - our advisory program is constantly changing to meet the needs of our school. By meeting regularly with advisors, we can make adjustments, plan activities and construct calendars that make sense for us. I would definitely recommend starting small, and with a plan that does not require you to commit funds right away to a certain program.

Let us know how it goes!