Learning After School

Description of Learning After School

This book explores the systems that South Boston Harbor Academy has developed to support student learning after regular classroom instruction has ended. After school at SBHA combines highly effective tutoring time and academic support with a more relaxed atmosphere that allows students to interact with teachers as role models in a less structured setting. A well-rationed, well-executed homework policy helps students understand that homework is an important part of learning, and it provides them ample support to do it well. In addition, students engage in the school community by mentoring younger students or sponsoring their own after school activities.

Beginning in the fall of 2002, a team of six SBHA teachers spent a year working with the Project for School Innovation to explore and document all of the pieces that go into this successful after school support program. The lessons that came out of this process are recorded in Learning After School, which is the tenth title in PSI’s By Teachers for Teachers series of how-to books and teacher-led workshops.

Major Topics Covered
Extracurricular activities

 

Table of Contents for Learning After School

 

1. Introduction: The Case for After School

 

2. Overview
An introduction to South Boston Harbor Academy, an outline of this how-to guidebook, and five underlying goals achieved through effective after-school support.

 

3. Chapter One Preparing for After School: Systems and Structures for High-Quality After-school Programs
Policies and systems to help your school create an after-school safety net that catches struggling students who need to do more, and engages all students, so they want to do more.

- The Big Picture: Creating a Positive After-school Culture
- The Big Picture: Joint Family Accountability
- The Big Picture: Establishing High Homework Expectations

 

4. Chapter Two After-school Accountability: Homework Club
The basics of Homework Club, a mandatory after-school consequence for missed homework that helps support students in their efforts to develop positive study habits and organizational skills.
- How To: The Basics of Homework Club

 

5. Chapter Three After-school Accessibility: Extra Help for All
Three main types of tutoring programs to keep students on track and to ensure help is always available.
- Mandatory Tutoring
- Voluntary Tutoring
- Peer Tutoring

 

5. Chapter Four After-school Activities: Encouraging Interests and Rewarding Initiative
How to creating an after-school environment that rewards student initiative in every stage of extracurricular activities, and three specific after-school practices—City Club, the After-school Room, and student-led fundraising-- that have had a tremendous impact on our after-school community.
- The Big Picture: A Student-Driven Extracurricular Program
- City Club
- The After-school Room
- Student-Led Fundraising

 

Praise for Learning After School Books, Videos and Workshops

We have seen again and again in our own work with schools and after-school programs across Massachusetts that when schools make a sustained, school-wide commitment to after-school programming, they reap the benefits in student achievement. Learning After School explores in detail how South Boston Harbor Academy puts this commitment into action. Those schools wanting a step-by-step manual on how they, too, can make after-school part of their overall strategy for success should pick up a copy.

David A. Farbman
Research Director, Massachusetts 2020

 

Learning After School has a lot of good ideas. It really shows the power schools tap into when they maximize a full day for learning, when children’s during-school and after-school experiences are truly integrated.

Mary Kay Leonard, Chief Operating Officer, United Way of Massachusetts Bay

 

Through its after-school program, South Boston Harbor Academy gives students the academic support and resources they need to post impressive results on MCAS and to be well prepared for college. It is always exciting when an organization not traditionally seen as part of the after-school domain embraces after-school as part of its agenda. Clearly, this approach is working at South Boston Harbor Academy. Academic research on this subject is useful to a point, but what really impressed me about Learning After School is how very step-by-step and practical it is.

Debra McLaughlin, Managing Director, Boston’s After-School for All Partnership

 

One important piece of the after-school landscape is school-run homework and tutoring programs. There are several excellent models for this at great schools around the country. In "Learning After School" educators will find a very well done collection of steps, tips, and ideas from one of these great schools—South Boston Harbor Academy.

Eric Schwarz
President, Citizen Schools

 

Read the May, 2004 Press Release for Learning After School

 

PSI Can Help You Implement These Strategies:

Customized Workshops
Our staff can come to your school to help you implement these school-tested strategies for after-school programming.

School Visits
We can coordinate a visit to the South Boston Harbor Academy, so you can see their successful strategies first hand.

Planning Tools
PSI can help you create a personalized step-by-step strategy for implementing successful after-school programs in your school.

 

Workshop/Presentation Roundup

The Learning After School team has led workshops and customized consulting for educators from:

• Boston Evening Academy, Boston, MA

• Roxbury Charter High School, Roxbury, MA

• Lowell Middlesex Academy, Lowell, MA

Useful After School Links

Afterschool Alliance

Boston's After-School for All Partnership

Citizen Schools

Promising Practices in After School