Responsive Advisory

Responsive Advisory will meet four mornings in the six day cycle. It will be 20 minutes long. The groups will be about 10-12 students. Students are assigned to an advisory group at the beginning of the school year and will meet with the same teacher or staff member throughout the year.

Responsive Advisory meeting serves as an anchor for adolescents, a predictable routine that students need more than ever as they undergo rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual changes. Advisory provides a space and structure for teachers to support middle school students, both individually and as a group, as they develop their sense of self and identity in connection to their relationships with peers.

The four components of Responsive Advisory Meeting are:

• Arrival welcome – The teacher welcomes each student by name as they enter.

• Announcements – In advance, the teacher writes an interactive message and displays it where it can be easily seen and read by all students.

• Acknowledgments – In pairs or small groups, students share their responses to a prompt in the announcements message, a piece of news about themselves, or ideas about a topic related to their studies or interests.

• • Activity – The whole group does a fun, lively activity that’s focused on the specific purpose of the meeting

For new middle schoolers, consistency is key. While navigating a new building, adjusting to a different schedule, and mastering that right of the passage that is the locker, students find comfort and consistency in Advisory.

Advisory is designed to address seven key purposes:

• build student to student affiliation

• energize and re-engage

• reflect & recalibrate

• extend learning through themes

• support academic readiness

• strengthen advisor-advisee relationships

• • develop communication and social skills development

We will become more and more comfortable with each of these purposes throughout the school year and use them to help our sixth graders feel safe and supportive at Gibbs.