Solution Oriented Schools
The SOS programme comprises training and resources to support the development of whole school approaches to promoting positive learning and teaching in a wide range of contexts. The approach adds value in a number of ways, for example, working with children and young people to promote better behaviour, working with staff to develop shared good practice, working with parents to support collaborative working, and managing the review cycle.
The approach invites us to consider: What works in school?
It encourages us to take a pragmatic approach, learning from what is working, leaving behind practice that is failing to pay off, recognising ‘the problem’ as the problem, not the individual, professional, or system and building from the strengths that each individual and setting brings.
Schools and education authorities already engaged in the process say that they have found SOS useful in refreshing their knowledge of staged intervention, sometimes called Framework for Intervention or FFI, with which many Orkney schools are already familiar.
SOS is a process for schools who wish to:
- Reduce management time spent reacting to indiscipline, by renewing whole school efforts to promote positive behaviour and positive relationships.
- Improve learning, motivation, problem-solving and creativity by staff as well as pupils.
- Enhance relationships between school and parents within the school community.
- Promote the most effective multi-agency work, to meet pupil needs.
Within Orkney the Educational Psychology Service is taking the lead in promoting and developing skills and practice around Solution Oriented Schools. Staff who wish to find out more or develop a project in their school should contact either the Principal or Senior Educational Psychologist.
