Counseling Newsletter - Fall 2023

The school counselors (formerly known as guidance counselors) are here to support every single student at Ashland Middle School! Here are some of the things we do during the day:

• provide brief, solution-focused individual counseling to support social, emotional, and academic sucess
• provide support during a crisis
• collaborate with school staff, families, and community agencies to support students
• teach classroom lessons to all students about a variety of classroom-related topics
• perform individual student planning to help students with goal setting, understanding their own interests and skills, and achieving their potential
• make referrals for appropriate community resources

Transitioning to middle school is an exciting time. It can also be overwhelming. During our time together we focused on the power of organization. Students were able to identify organizational areas that needed improvement, as well as areas of strength. Students shared strategies and exercises that worked for them, as well as explored new techniques that are successful in middle school. One major challenge identified by our students is time management. Many of our students have a busy schedule outside of school and are new to the challenge of finding time to get it all done. Managing extracurricular activities, school work and social situations can be stressful. We had the opportunity to practice some relaxation exercises that the students really enjoyed.

We started our year with a focus on executive functioning skills. We reviewed some of the skills that we discussed last year, such as backpack and locker organization, and then talked about time management. Students then worked in groups and used a graphic organizer to break down a mock long-term assessment into smaller chunks. We closed this part of the lesson with a focus on proper compostion and structure of emails, and students were challenged with sending me a properly composed email with a topic of their choice.

At the end of class, we worked on a stress management strategy: progressive relaxation. Students watched a short video that demonstrated 'freezing' their muscles from their toes to the top of their head, and then 'melting' back down. They had a lot of fun melting all the way to the floor, ask them to show you!

There are many ways you can support the counseling program at AMS. Here are a few:

• Ask your student about what they are learning in their counseling lessons! We are always having some excellent discussions in each grade - the students are insightful, ask thoughtful questions, and really help us understand the world through their eyes.
• Donate much needed snacks - individually wrapped granola bars, goldfish, pretzels, etc are always appreciated!
• Connect! Have a question about your student? An idea for a topic? Let us know! Parent-school partnership is encouraged to assist with best supporting the AMS community.

6th grade: Caroline Williams - cwilliams@ashland.k12.ma.us

7th grade: Traci Bartlett - tbartlett@ashland.k12.ms.us

8th grade: Maddie Collins - mcollins@ashland.k12.ma.us