No.5 Message for Publication: "Aiming for the Enrichment of Each Individual's Learning"

(Inagi City Education 'Yale' June 15, Issue No. 1)

Message on Publication: "Aiming for Enrichment of Each Individual's Learning"

We are pleased to announce the publication of the Inagi City Board of Education's newsletter "Yell." This will provide information on the overall educational policies of our city. We hope that many citizens will enjoy it alongside the long-standing "Lifelong Learning Newsletter 'Hiroba'". Thank you for your continued support.
"Yell" is a name that combines "Inagi" and "Education" and "Learning," with the added meaning of "Yell." In Inagi City, we hope to create a circle of learning where both children and adults can experience new learning every day, support each other's growth, and celebrate one another. With this publication as an opportunity, we are committed to enhancing our educational policies.

Currently, various educational issues are being raised, but in order to realize the thoughts embedded in 'Yale', it is important for each child and student to spend their days with hope and security, and to be able to advance in their learning.
Based on this awareness of the issue, the Inagi City Board of Education held a training session on April 26, 2024, for all faculty and staff of Inagi City Public Schools, inviting Professor Hajime Arai from Kansai Gaidai University to speak on the theme "The Direction of Student Guidance Indicated by the 'New Student Guidance Guidelines.'" The 'Student Guidance Guidelines' is a basic text for schools and faculty and staff regarding life guidance, created by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It was revised for the first time in 12 years in December 2022, taking into account significant changes in the social environment surrounding children. This training session was planned to learn about the necessary perspectives and approaches to children in today's era, and we wanted to receive guidance from Professor Arai, who played a central role in the revision of the 'Student Guidance Guidelines.'
On that day, Mr. Arai first discussed that the "New Student Guidance Guidelines" aim to address four challenges based on the issues faced by children and students: "Acquiring the ability to survive in a changing society (VUCA era)," "Responding to an increasing diversity of backgrounds among children and students," "Understanding the laws that protect children," and "Balancing 'work style reform' with the enhancement of student guidance as a 'team school.'" He emphasized the importance of shifting to a 'developmentally supportive student guidance' approach as a guiding principle for working with children, and we subsequently learned the following.

1. "Developmentally Supportive Student Guidance" refers to the efforts made to support the growth and development of all children and students, aiming to help them become members of a symbiotic society in all educational activities.
2. From now on, it is required to advance student guidance based on "developmentally supportive student guidance," according to the level of target range and issues, in four layers ("developmentally supportive student guidance," "preventive education for issues," "early detection and response to issues," "student guidance for difficult issues").

From these discussions, we recognized the need to provide more effective support by systematically assessing and determining the appropriate responses for each individual situation regarding issues such as bullying and school refusal, and identifying which "layer" is most suitable.
Furthermore, the valuable teachings such as "the shift in questioning from 'Why don't they come to school?' to 'What kind of school would they come to?'", "the setting of opportunities for building relationships through direct experiences", "'problem behavior' is 'problem-posing behavior'", and "'troubled children' are 'children in trouble'", along with the strong encouragement to make schools 'professional learning communities' and support children through 'team schools', have deepened my resolve as an education professional to learn together and support the development and growth of children.

Now, the Inagi City Board of Education has been working to ensure that children can spend their time with hope and safety, and can truly experience learning. Among these efforts, we are addressing support for students who find it difficult to enter classrooms or attend school as follows.
First, in response to individual concerns, each school has homeroom teachers and life guidance teachers, as well as specialized professionals such as school counselors and school social workers. Outside of school, the Inagi City Education Center's Counseling Room (located within the complex facility, Hirao) and the branch of the Counseling Room (opening in the 6th year of Reiwa) have psychological counselors available for consultations. Additionally, the instructors at the "Education Support Room (renamed from the Adaptation Guidance Classroom) and Pear Room" are also available for consultations. Each elementary and junior high school offers online classes according to requests, and each junior high school has established a "Separate Room". The "Additional Support Teachers for Non-attendance" (Inagi Dai 4 Junior High School) and "Mobile Teachers for Non-attendance" (for junior high schools other than Inagi Dai 4 Junior High School), along with support staff for the Separate Room, provide guidance and support for individual learning. Regarding the "Pear Room", it was previously set up in a classroom of a city-run elementary school, but in 2015, it was relocated to the current Inagi City Education Center to enhance diverse learning by utilizing a more spacious facility. In this "Pear Room", teachers with experience as principals and vice-principals of Inagi City Public Schools develop curricula and instruction based on the learning guidelines, implementing individualized learning, practical subjects utilizing the facility, group activities, and experiential activities through outdoor learning. Furthermore, recognizing that each case of non-attendance has its own circumstances, starting from the 6th year of Reiwa, a window function has been established within the Counseling Room to provide information on consultation destinations and nearby free schools, enabling support tailored to each situation.
Furthermore, for children to spend their days with peace of mind, it is important that schools are places where everyone can learn safely. Therefore, starting from the 6th year of Reiwa, all elementary schools are independently implementing measures such as a "multiple teacher system" and "subject-specific teacher system" without waiting for teacher placements from Tokyo. This allows for appropriate support by observing each child's condition from multiple teachers' perspectives, consultations from children to multiple teachers, and responses to issues and concerns that arise in each class or for individual children, thereby creating a system that contributes to building a safe school environment for the children.
We will continue to promote initiatives like this and will strive to realize the thoughts embedded in "Yale" in a concrete manner.

Director of Inagi City Board of Education, Makiko Sugimoto