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, to address individual concerns, each school has homeroom teachers and teachers in charge of student guidance, as well as professionals such as school counselors and school social workers. Outside of school, psychological counselors are available at the Inagi City Education Center Counseling Room (within the Friend Hirao Complex Facility) and the Counseling Room Annex (to open in FY2024). Additionally, instructors at the "Educational Support Room (renamed from the Adaptation Guidance Classroom) and Nashinomi Room" respond to consultations. Furthermore, all elementary and junior high schools offer online class streaming upon request, and each junior high school has established an "in-school separate room." The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education provides "additional teachers for school refusal support" (at Inagi Dai 4 Junior High School) and "itinerant teachers for school refusal support" (at junior high schools other than Inagi Dai 4 Junior High School), along with in-school separate room instructional support staff, who provide individual learning guidance and support. Regarding the "Nashinomi Room," a learning space outside of school, it was previously set up in a classroom of a municipal elementary school, but with the concept of enhancing diverse learning opportunities by utilizing a more spacious facility, it was relocated in 2015 to the current Inagi City Education Center. In this "Nashinomi Room," teachers with experience as principals and vice principals of Inagi City Public Schools organize curricula and provide instruction based on the Course of Study, offering individualized learning, practical subjects utilizing the facility, group activities, and experiential activities through off-campus learning. Additionally, recognizing that each case of school refusal is unique, from FY2024, a reception function has been established within the Counseling Room to provide information on consultation contacts and nearby free schools, enabling support tailored to each individual situation.
Furthermore, for children and students to spend each day with peace of mind, it is important that schools are "places where everyone can learn safely." Therefore, from FY2024, all elementary schools have independently implemented measures such as "multiple homeroom teacher systems" and "partial subject teacher systems" without waiting for teacher assignments from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for this purpose. This enables appropriate support by monitoring each child's condition from multiple teachers' perspectives, consultations from children to multiple teachers, and multiple responses to problems and concerns arising in each class or among students, thereby creating a system that leads to schools where children can feel secure.
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