 A good student-teacher relationship to me looks like the students want to come to class and they want my opinion, they seek my opinion, but then they also work. They're motivated, they're engaged, they want to work, they want to do better. They want the feedback, they're just excited about doing it. It could be laughing in class, laughing at me in class, which has happened. Occasionally some of them make me cry too because they're so, you know, that's the sort of relationship. It's sort of like, it's not really like a friend, but sort of at a different type of level, sort of more of an adult, but almost like a peer, but not quite. Not that sort of intent. Not that it's friendlies or peer. A good student-teacher relationship feels really satisfying, enjoy, it's enjoyable, it's fun. It makes me come to school every day. I think a good relationship with my students looks like, or has the strength to carry on outside the classroom. And I think that for me when I go away at the end of the day, end of the week or end of the year, and can comfortably say that those students knew they could come and see me at any time, they knew that I generally was invested and interested in them as people, not just their education. I think that's what relationships for me in the classroom means, yeah. It feels great. Well, I think for the kids it feels good as well. It's respect, it's trust, it's not only me having the ability to talk to them, but it's them wanting to come forward and talk to me when and if I need to. I think it's important that everybody, and you have that discussion first, that everybody's allowed to have an opinion. You don't have to agree with it, but if you do like positive feedback all the time, there's not to be, you know, judgmental phrases used within that. It's about, like I said, making students feel safe enough to say whatever it is that they feel. Students get stressed when you put them in seating plans and when they're taken away from their friends. So my classes, they're a bit of creatures of habit, they always sit in the same place and they tend to sit with their peers that they feel comfortable with, which, and I'm quite happy, I let them do that so that they can sit there and they can talk about issues that they may not have come across before, that they need to build their confidence about, and they can do that with somebody that they feel comfortable with. And I use little whiteboards and I'll give them a question and in class they have a question, they have time to discuss it with each other, with the people that they're sitting with or peers. And then they can, if they want to answer the question in the whole class, then they get the chance to contribute that to the whole class. And I use my talking stick because they're so enthusiastic about talking that I have a stick so that they know that they've got a, it's a wand, sparkly wand. It's fun and that they have to have the stick to talk. That's usually how we start out the topics before we get into the more heavier type writing type stuff. I think some of the techniques with the relationship building for us is fortunate with the curriculum area and those types of things. I'm actually able to give the kids a lot of choice. We quite often in design fields will give them a scenario or a problem, but they get to bring in their own context of what it is in their interests and what they drive. And I guess that opens the dialogue for conversation around who they are as people and what they want. I think they know that I respect them and respect their choices, whether they're good or not so good choices, but that there's a reason behind everything. And I think that they know that I understand that, particularly those students with really challenging backgrounds and outside of school environments. Sometimes school is their safe place. A lot of times school is their safe place. The respect that they know that I have for them and I believe that they do know that I respect them is based around them knowing that I'm not going to judge them on whatever's happening. And I usually advocate for them with some other teachers as well. I think a lot of the relationships I've developed with the students and our clientele is, I guess, for me it's a simple thing and ice breakers getting to know the students at the beginning of the season, ensuring that I'm an open book is an important aspect of that. I think a lot of our students vary in the ways that they want to be known and they want to be seen by adults and it takes a little bit sort of to pick a way at the wall to get in and get to know them. So it's a challenge and I guess relationship building for me and my students is an individual from student to student and getting to know what it is that drives them and how they're here. I think a lot of the challenges in a lot of my classes, unfortunately, they're quite small classes and we did it this morning, is we get to sit down and have conversation and we have conversation where they will table something and I'll question it. But it's a safe environment where they know whatever they respond with isn't the wrong answer. And I think that challenging aspect can be daunting for people but if the environment is set to the standard where whatever they bring forward is acceptable, it becomes a very good learning base. They're enthusiastic and there are lots of different viewpoints which is good for the subject because I want to be able to discuss and we can discuss lots of different viewpoints and they get to see different people's viewpoints just by looking at the whole class and listening to each other. But then again also they're a bit of a challenge in encouraging them to listen to everybody other but they all want to have a go and have something to say so it can be really intense which in itself is good too because you don't go out feeling like it was just a boring class. Students who have here are a lot of quite complex students and have come from an interesting background and also usually have big issues happening in their life. Quite a few of them will come to seek my opinion or just to have a chat and to talk to me about things that are happening in their life outside of the subject itself. I know because they tell me, they like coming to my class, they like legal studies and they'll be laughing and they seem to enjoy themselves and have fun but learning at the same time. So part of engagement I think is making things relevant for the students and that becomes easy if you can draw on their past experiences and the past outcomes that they've had and what hasn't worked and what has worked and what would be best for that particular unit or module that they're doing or topic of work. So what they've experienced in the past definitely has a huge impact and being able to, if you don't know what those experiences are you can't draw on them. So that's a huge part of getting to know your students and what they've done in the past, making sure you know their ability levels, their reports and their home life as much as you can as much as they want to tell you. It's never a pressure thing. I generally start with whatever you don't want to tell me, don't tell me, I'm just here to teach you. It might help, might not. So how that helps them engage and keep them motivated is if I know things about them and I know the way they learn or things that they're interested in then I can try and incorporate that into what we're doing in class. I do include their prior interests or their interests because I want to know what they're interested in and what they're good at. Particularly this topic that we're studying at the moment I actually ask them, here's a list of options, which ones do you want to do? And they get to tell me which ones are going to do. Or their interests, I use them in making the examples relevant to them so they can understand it. So I ask them, if we're talking about contracts, does anybody have a job? What you do is your job, use that as examples. Is that to make it relevant to them so they understand? We use my examples. I think the role of giving students choice, obviously in their learning is the number one thing for me is motivation. But it also instills trust that I have in them that what they bring to the table they can continue within their assessment pieces and as much as I challenge them that they can challenge me with their thoughts and what's driving. Student interests get brought into my teaching an awful lot. An example of some of the projects around the place, the skateboard rack that's sitting in the school grounds. I had a student last term that's a state representative for softball. He created a community problem around softball training and we created a training divorce and aid for him to use with his softball coaching as he endeavours to use careers. Honing in on their specific interests is a massive aspect of the growth with their kids.