We are a Responsive Classroom School

Terraset Elementary is a Responsive Classroom school. At Terraset, we believe in creating an environment where students feel safe, are nurtured and have a sense of belonging. It is the goal of our staff to teach students appropriate responses through the use of Responsive Classroom principles such as Morning Meetings, Classroom Expectations and Rules, Student Reflection Think Sheets, Logical Consequences, Home-School Connection, and the use of Teacher Language.

The Responsive Classroom approach creates a safe, challenging, and joyful elementary school. The research-backed approach increases academic achievement, decreases problem behaviors, improves social skills, and leads to more high-quality instruction. The goal of the Responsive Classroom approach is to enable optimal student learning. This is achieved with the adults at school, working as a community, consistently implementing a combination of classroom and school-wide practices that support children’s academic and social growth.

There are Seven Guiding Principles:

1. The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
2. How children learn is as important as what they learn: Process and content go hand in hand. How children learn = What they learn.
3. The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
4. To be successful academically and socially, children need learn and practice specific social skills. Five important skills are cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
5. Knowing the children we teach- individually, culturally, and developmentally- is as important as knowing the content we teach. Bridging the connection between home and school is essential to children’s education.
6. Knowing the families of the children we teach is as important as knowing the children we teach.
7. How we, the adults at school, work together is an important as our individual competence. Lasting change begins with the adult community.