We have had such a wonderful past few weeks at Green Ivy – between welcoming new and returning students back to our office and working directly with schools, it has been the best and busiest back-to-school season! The past few weeks we have been working directly with Notre Dame des Victoires School in San Francisco to help their faculty, students and parents implement our organizational system with their middle school students – with much success! We are thrilled that NDV has completely adapted our program into a system that will work for them and benefit their students for years to come.

First, I met with teachers and did a Faculty In-Service to collaborate and come up with solutions to help students learn better organization and time-management skills. We worked with the staff and teachers to show them useful tips and strategies that can be used school wide, so there is consistency in the organization of binders and assignments for students. This consistency allows students to easily understand what each class expects of them and will make homework less stressful and time consuming.

I then did an interactive presentation with a very enthusiastic group of 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders at NDV. We discussed binders, planner use, and study skills to help them spend less time on homework and get better grades – they were pumped, especially when they realized it would give them more time to do what they wanted to do outside of school and homework! Their teacher will be re-enforcing the strategies throughout the school year, and the students were very attentive and receptive to the study and homework strategies.

Lastly, I held a Parent Education Night at NDV to discuss the changes and strategies being used in the school year and what parents can do at home to help their students. We went over the reasons why students struggle with organization and time management and offered practical and accessible advice on what parents can do at home to encourage their students to have a successful academic year. At the Parent Ed night, one eighth grade mom commented that although her son was initially resistant, he realized after only two days how much easier the system was – and went out of his way to tell her so!

This trifecta – getting teachers, parents, and students – all on the same page regarding organization and time-management will help kids work towards their goals and feel much more in control of their academic experience. It was such a pleasure working with NDV and seeing the positive changes that have been made. Many thanks to the NDV staff and their wonderful families for a great week.

We look forward to implementing these strategies in many other local schools, so that all students can benefit from an overall, organized academic experience. If you know of a middle school or high school who could benefit from Green Ivy in the Schools, feel free to contact our office at 650.472.0617 or info@greenivyed.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 at 6:12 am and is filed under Success Stories, Teenagers, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.