Professional and educationally sound

Recently, the concepts of ‘professional’ and ‘educationally sound’ were raised in discussion around the 5energies table. We had heard on the grapevine that 5energies was discussed in a network meeting with particular reference to our professional approach and the educationally sound nature of the program we offer to children and their families. More recently we have begun working with a number of schools, implementing our integrated approach, and allowing teachers to screen children for their learning delays, and to provide targeted and more effective learning programs.

Quite rightly, teachers view themselves as professionals, offering highly competent teaching to a variety of learners, with direct reference to curricula and jurisdictional accountability frameworks. Speech Pathologists and Occupational Therapists also have such frameworks, to satisfy their criteria for professionalism. While we are a private learning consultancy, we too view that we set an amazingly high standard for services to our clients. We demand not only registered and qualified personnel to work for us, but we also demand that they maintain our professional standards of behaviour, support, mentoring, interaction and communication with our clients. We believe in optimising each child’s chances of success, and to do that, parents are an integral part of the learning process.

While we do not necessarily follow any particular jurisdiction in terms of curriculum, we are at all times aware of the contents of curricula around the country, and the need for strong educational programs. Not only are our consultants trained, registered and experienced teachers and professional practitioners, we have in place a stringent training program and ongoing mentoring and support.  More importantly, we view that we are ‘educationally sound’,  in that our program focusses specifically on the acquisition of underpinning learning skills and on the development of functional literacy and numeracy skills, surely a sound approach for any educational program.

However, we genuinetly feel we go past ‘educationally sound’ into the arena of ‘professionally sound’. We don’t ask teachers to do anything in addition to their current hard work - we ask them to work smarter, not harder, and offer programs to enhance existing learning programs. We work from a framework of integration of high standards from the three professions of education, speech pathology and occupational therapy. This is, of course, a very sound way of working.

What are your thoughts about what constitutes ‘professional’ and ‘educationally sound’ practices?

Speech Pathologist urgently required

Hi everyone,

Well, we have finally reached that lovely state of affairs where the learning consultancy requires another speech pathologist to keep up with demand. If any of you know of a registered, qualified speech pathologist who would be happy with part-time sessional work, please ask him or her to contact the 5energies office urgently.

As you know, we run a professional consultancy, one where we offer an integrated and personal service to children with learning delays and their families. We work as a team, with each of the professions of speech pathology, occupational therapy and education contributing equally to offer a holistic approach to resolve learning delays, but also to offer insight to teachers who want to cater more effectively for the individual needs of learners in their classrooms.

What are we after with a new team -member? Someone with qualifications and registration in Speech Pathology, but this person could also be a new graduate looking to fine-tune their practical skills. Someone who loves to work as part of a thriving and busy learning consultancy, in tandem with other highly motivated professionals. Someone who enjoys working with children, and has a calm, unflappable demeanour. Someone with an enjoyment of life, and a sense of humour. If you know of such a person, please ask them to contact us: we would love to train them in January, and have them on the team for the start of the new year.

The good sense of the whales

It was my daughter’s 28th birthday last weekend. She flew in from Sydney, and her sister flew in from Darwin so we could have a fantastic birthday celebration and a lovely time together.

One of the birthday gifts was a whale watching experience, and it does not matter how old the child, the enjoyment of the whales was there for all of us. And by the way, there was much hilarity as the crew of the catamaran brought out the birthday cake and candles!

However, in a moment of reflection watching their silent forms sliding past our catamaran, I thought about the good sense of these creatures of the deep, as the captain informed us that the mother and calf were usually escorted by an elderly aunt or experienced whale. If only we as humans had that same level of assistance on our journey through the oceans of life - how fortunate it would have been if I had an older aunt to assist me when my children were younger!

The picture is of the baby calf leaping into the air. What you don’t see is mother and aunt immediately swimming up close, to make sure he/she was between them yet again. What utterly sensible creatures the whales are… and what a good time I had with my children. Some things don’t change, despite the age of the child.

‘Caring, compassion and humour’ - the 5energies way!

Alex and I have been so fortunate over the past month. During the school term break, we facilitated the training of another five teachers and a speech pathologist who are engaging with our 5energies vision of helping children with learning delays. These astute and intelligent women put in a tiring but highly rewarding three days of basic training, but as with any excellent training, Alex and I also engaged in our own learning journey too, learning as much from the participants as I think they learned from us. These newly trained 5energies people have already returned to their workplaces and the stories that we are already hearing about their successes is phenomenal.

Four of the teachers have engaged immediately in screening in their school, along with a previously trained facilitator, and with a limited amount of assistance from Mel, our talented Occupational Therapist, Alex, our brilliant Speech Pathologist and me, they have successfully discovered the capabilities of some 88 children. We had a planning day today where they are catering intrinisically for the individual needs of these children, and have planned a targeted, focussed program for the majority of these learner, to be implemented over the next term. Congratulations to all of these teachers for their willingness to engage in the process, their high expertise and their sense of humour!

Another facilitator in a different school reported that her school too is doing very well, and providing targeted programs of intervention, and that three words in particular sum up the parent comments about 5energies: caring and compassion with a sense of humour. What a lovely comment to receive.