Fall 2009

Bermuda Parents Want S.M.A.R.T. Kids Too!

“Parents are knocking down the door trying to get their kids into the S.M.A.R.T. program!”  We received a note from Allison Figureido last week—the first S.M.A.R.T. teacher in Bermuda!  As you can see, she has ambitiously implemented the curriculum into her school and led it with very minimal help and limited resources.  Her program has demonstrated success in early stages through her personal energy and effort!
(the following is Allison's letter)

Hi!

I am so excited to hear from you.  Once I got home this summer, my husband and I went shopping for equipment.  We spent a whole lot of money, but it was worth it.  Next, I started organizing files on all of the kids in the program.  All of their work goes into their files.  I also made 8 creep tracks, vision balls, and many other things.  I’ve also got 4 rebounders, a cutting box, beads, tongs, tweezers, the works!!!

School just started for us this week.  I have to amend my numbers now as parents are knocking down the door trying to get their kids into the S.M.A.R.T. program!  All Bermuda schools are adopting a new curriculum this year and the teachers are stressed and overwhelmed.  Since I am the only person on the island trained in the program, I have to take care of the program by myself.  S.M.A.R.T. takes place every morning from 7:30am – 8:30am in our gym.  It takes quite a lot for me to be here by 7am every day, but once I work out the kinks I’m sure it’ll be easier for me.
 
Our school is quite small as we only have one class per grade level.  Last year, a parent, who also happens to be an OT, did vision, gross, and fine motor checks on all of our students.  Together, we made a list of all the children who most likely need S.M.A.R.T. – there were a lot of them.  These are the kids who had the first opportunity to sign up for S.M.A.R.T.  They are of mixed grades and ages.  In four days, I went from 14 students to 21.  Unfortunately, I had to turn some away.

Since it is a morning program, the kids come at different times.  When the first ones arrive at 7:30am, they do fine motor activities (some individually and some at stations).  At 8:00am, we do our spinning (5 times for now) and then I split them up into two groups for Core Activities: one group does the Alligator Crawl, then Balance Beam, and Creep Track with letters; the other group does the Creep Track with hand cutouts, Rebounder straight jumps, and Pencil Rolling.  We finished up today with Pencil Push-ups and September’s Auditory Discrimination.
 
It’s only been 4 days, but we have done quite a lot.  My OT parent came today to help supervise.  She is a great help at identifying deficits in children and hopefully, she will be able to do the S.M.A.R.T. training.  She is extremely excited about the program.  My principal is too!  I downloaded the principal packet for her and she has been busy reading it.
 
The only challenge is that, by 9:00am, I am exhausted and my “other day” hasn’t even started.  I am the only P.E./Health teacher here and I’m finding it increasingly difficult as I have to make sure S.M.A.R.T. is ready for the next morning.  I do have 4 older students who are my S.M.A.R.T. helpers and they help me pack away all of the equipment.  It would be nice to have a room where I don’t need to pack up everything right away.  I was also feeling isolated being the only one who fully understands the importance of this program.  I think I will really need to keep in touch with one of the mentors.  Despite these very long days, I can keep it up as long as I have support.  The kids are worth it.  A few teachers have also stopped by to see what we have been doing.