The Child-Oriented Model for Wellbeing

Consider, for example, the following questions:

• How can you support students who do not get enough support from general support?


• What methods do you use for intensified and special support at your school?

Children’s learning paths can be built flexibly between the general, intensified and special stages of support. The school should constantly observe the student’s need for support and the adequacy of the supportand if need be, make changes in partnership with the child and their guardians.

The school’s resources and the child’s needs define how much general support is required and what methods to use. The stronger general support you provide, the less intensified and special support the children will need.

General support applies to all children at the school. General support is built from things that support a child’s wellbeing, such as

• Teaching communication skills,


• A positive rewarding system,


• Individualized pace for learning,


• Structure and prevention,


• Active learning methods,


• A feeling of belonging, and


• That adults have agreed on the ways unwanted behavior is met.

Other forms of general support include remedial teaching, differentiation and part-time special-needs education.

A student has the right to receive intensified support, if general support is not enough for their development. At Lappee school intensified support means various emotional and communication skills lessons in small groups led by the school social worker, special-needs teachers, a class teacher or a teaching assistant.

The school should provide intensified support regularly and the focus should be on remedial teaching, part-time special-needs education, and organizing instruction in flexible groups.

The Lappee school gives special support through inclusive class arrangements as well as a separate special-needs class.

The special-needs class provides educational support in a small group within the school. It aims to ensure that students have a learning environment that promotes their emotional, social and cognitive development.

The way students work in the special-needs class is designed to promote the social development, development of collaborative skills, positive interaction and academic skills of the students. The students receive individual attention. The idea is to maintain school routine together with the guardians. Lappee school’s model of special-needs class is very flexible and takes the capacity of a child into consideration.

Communication skills that can be practiced include listening, conversing, asking questions, thanking, helping others, welcoming others and talking in a friendly manner.

Students can be instructed to thank, praise, encourage, help, invite, be friendly, be fair, do as their told and clean up after themselves.

Other skills that the children practice include social skills related to emotions such as recognizing one’s feelings, expressing one’s feelings, understanding the emotions of others, and managing one’s own anger and the anger of others.

Lappee school also teaches the children how to replace difficult behavior with other skills. This can mean self-control, negotiating, reaction to bullying, keeping out of arguments and staying out of trouble.

If there is some sort of altercation during recess, you can discuss it with the whole class using a case example. The example used should be distanced from the actual altercation.

Students can play out how you should act in the situation and what kinds of feelings and emotions result from it in small groups. This way the students can verbalize and illustrate the actions and feelings involved.

The example can be as follows:

Sam, Tony and Joanna are playing soccer. The teams feel unevenly divided. The other team is in the lead 8–2 and the students are annoyed with the other team’s domination – they’d like to break the rules and play more aggressively. What do the students think and how should they act to turn it into a fair game?

The following materials and methods can be used to learn and teach communication skills:

• Kimochis emotion dolls


• KiVa material


• Lions Quest material


• Emotion cards


• Games for promoting good group dynamics


• Case examples


• Drama exercises


• Other related literature

Remember how powerful positive feedback can be!

In addition to these methods, you can develop your own or modify other practices to suit your needs.

This model promotes good behaviour by rewarding it. ProSchool is an efficient way to prevent and deal with behavioral problems and is used widely at the Lappee school.

The focus of ProSchool is on developing behaviour through positive feedback. If a child gets attention by behaving a certain way, the child will do it even more. This does not, however, mean that unwanted behavior will be tolerated.

The solution-oriented approach is founded on the idea that schools should focus on the good in the students and find new and positive things for their lives.

The traditional way of looking for problems and correcting mistakes is replaced with a solution-oriented approach. It turns problems into goals the students can pursue with the help of an adult and the resources and strengths they already possess .

In inclusive instruction, all of the local children are welcomed to the school. The classroom brings together all the support that the children needs. There are students from all stages of support in inclusive teaching groups: general, intensified and special support. The methods also allow for differentiating lessons for more advanced students.

Inclusive instruction is always based on the student's skills and requirements for support, which can differ between subjects. The key to inclusive groups is cooperation between adults, active learning, and teaching communication skills. Educating children to become social and tolerant is as important as imparting cognitive skills.

This approach is based on education teams made up of a kindergarten teacher and a class teacher. Children from preschool and grades 1 and 2 study together in workshops and other forms for two hours every day. The goal is to support growth and learning at the children’s personal pace.

The Lappee school strives to create a unified and flexible learning environment for preschool and primary education. The children are supported and taught according to their developmental stage which requires time and guidance. This approach creates a natural road forward from preschool to school and allows children to progress from their own starting points.

The children learn primarily in an integrated class with preschool and primary school students. The classes last about two hours every day and they are led by an education team made up of a kindergarten teacher and a class teacher.

The kindergarten school allows the two to share spaces and equipment, so the school culture and learning environments are familiar to children even before they start first grade. Working in education teams combining early learning and comprehensive education enables pedagogic dialogue.

In co-teaching, two teachers teach one class together and participate equally in lesson planning, teaching, assessment and dividing the work. Co-teaching enables teachers to better meet the individual requirements of every student.

Lappee uses the following forms of co-teaching:

• Class teacher + kindergarten teacher


• Class teacher + special-needs teacher


• Trios – three teachers planning schooldays together.

Teaching assistants often take part in planning as well.

The benefits of co-teaching:

• Enabling teachers to give individual support to students


• Observing, assessing, monitoring and giving feedback to students is easier and more accurate


• Sharing pedagogical knowledge and expertise


• The strengths of both teachers benefit students


• Managing day-to-day activities is easier


• Disturbances are easier to notice: four eyes see more than two


• Increasing discussion on values and long-term development


• Improving the wellbeing of teachers and students

Every student gets to study at the pace and manner best suited to them. School subjects like mother tongue, mathematics and foreign languages are easy to organize in an individualized system.

Students learn by doing and playing.

Student participation is an important part of child-oriented pedagogy. Students participate in lesson planning and implementation. They carry out design-oriented pedagogy projects that are focused on phenomena based on the children’s own interests.

Kids cannot grow up to be active participants if they are not members of a community. Including kids in the community is important at the Lappee school and kids are taught communication and emotional skills to promote their ability to be real participants in everyday school life.

A flexible school day is comprised of several parts. Innovative operational models have created a new kind of school culture. 90-minute lessons promote active and child-oriented learning. An hour’s siesta makes it possible to organize clubs in the middle of the day.