MEGA - Mooroolbark East Games Afternoon
Contents
Introduction
Organisation
Activities
Benefits
Introduction
The MEGA was organised as an extension of the Tribes program at the school.
The school wanted to nurture and promote a sense of community and belonging by providing opportunities for children and teachers to build better relationships through involvement in cooperative and teambuilding activities once a fortnight for about forty minutes.
Organisation
The children were divided up into 23 random multi age groups and assigned a name based on the emergency alphabet ie Alpha, Bravo etc.
The principal, assistant principal, classroom and specialist teachers all prepared a high interest activity that the children could be involved in that would require them to work cooperatively as a member of a team and that could be completed in about 40 minutes.
Every second week on a Friday afternoon, instead of assembly, the children assemble on the asphalt area and line up in their groups. The teacher who has been assigned that group for the week collects the group and introduces the children to the planned activity. The emphasis is on getting the children to get to know each other and to work cooperatively to successfully complete the task.
Each Friday afternoon the teacher is assigned a different group of children so that the same activity can be used again with a new group of children. This allows the teacher to get to know and work with all of the children in the school and also reduces the workload on the teacher by allowing them to use the same activity with multiple groups rather than having to come up with a new activity each week.
A double wheel- held together by a split pin - on the staffroom noticeboard - one wheel or circle has the name of the teacher and the other has the name of each of the student groups - is rotated one segment each week to show which teacher has which group for that week.
When each teacher has rotated through all of the groups the rotation begins again and the teacher takes a different activity.
Activities
Each teacher comes up with their own activity but it must allow the children to work as a team or cooperatively and help to develop communication skills and relationships between the children.
Examples of some of the MEGA activities are: Silent ball, making and using chatterboxes, making kites and flying them, whirly birds, card games, brainstorming positive ideas about a letter of the alphabet and producing a display, making funny face biscuits, skipping, making magnets, hopscotch and marbles.
Older children play a role in helping the younger children to successfully complete the task.
Benefits
The children through working together on MEGA activities are getting to know each other and are developing closer relationships. This has a flow on effect out in the yard during recesses. Older children are more caring and considerate towards younger children and there is a greater sense of community and cooperation.
The children also get to work more closely with each of the teachers at the school and to get to know them better in an informal setting. Once again this builds bridges between students and the teachers and promotes a friendlier environment of mutual self respect.
The feedback from the children with regard to MEGA afternoons has been very positive with the children really enjoying both the cross age nature of the groups and also with working on the high interest tasks.
Staff have also embraced the concept and have reported how they believe that the MEGA program has helped them to get to know children right across the school and has given them the opportunity to help build better relationships and a sense of community amongst the students.