Focus on strengths in the work

About four years ago, a tradition was started at the nursery school Álfasteinn on Holt that upon graduation, pupils receive a rose and a pebble engraved with each child's strengths. This lovely idea has also been extended to the staff, as instead of traditional staff appraisals, staff members have strengths conversations with the headteacher, Inga Líndal Finnbogadóttir. 

The local newspaper Hafnfirðingur visited Inga in Álfasteinn recently.  

^{Inga Líndal Finnbogadóttir is the head teacher of the nursery school Álfasteinn.}

A progressive approach that teaches critical and creative thinking

Inga has been running the school since its inception in 2001, where she introduced a progressive curriculum with a primary focus on teaching children critical and creative thinking. Unit blocks are widely used to enhance mathematical and logical reasoning.

^{A typical achievement stone that graduates receive. Photo/OBÞ}

The idea for the stone tradition came from Hrund Apríl Guðmundsdóttir, who covered for Inga for a year on sick leave, and her master's thesis in positive psychology.. It is always a great moment of celebration when we graduate the children and present each and every one with a rose and a stone engraved with the virtues. Everyone becomes very emotional and everything is made all the more beautiful as a result. This also suits the nursery's name very well.„ says Inga proudly. The stones are collected from the beach below Hvaleyrarvöllur, which is near the nursery school, but the area boasts exceptionally beautiful nature and the play area bears its strong characteristics, enhancing the children's motor skills. A great emphasis has also been placed on building blocks in the school's work, for learning and development. 

^{There are many natural features in the surroundings of Álfasteinn, including this stone wall in the back garden. Photo/OBÞ}

It is beneficial for everyone to look for strengths

Asked about the main benefit of adopting this graduation tradition, Inga says that everyone benefits from having to think about others and themselves in terms of their strengths. „Spotting them, sitting down and writing them down, and then painting them on stones is very rewarding and fulfilling. It's so easy to see the negative, especially in ourselves, and to notice the good less. We think about strengths too seldom. When we give the children the stones, we read out the strengths and explain why they are important. It's also good for the parents and positive for everyone,“ says Inga and smiles.

A solution-focused whole staff

Álfasteinn employs 27 people and has 77 pupils at a time. Inga says the staff are exceptionally good, and a sign of this is that a large proportion of them have worked there for 10 years or longer. „I feel very comfortable with that because we are a very solution-focused organisation. We conduct staff and parent surveys every other year, and the results are reviewed and an improvement plan is put in place, where we improve conditions or anything else that is needed to increase satisfaction and reduce stress. We also work with strengths in staff interviews, which we call strengths conversations. In these, we use strength cards and the staff member chooses two cards they feel are a good fit for them, and I choose two cards. The conversation then builds from the strengths and how they are utilised in the job, and we explain why we chose the particular strengths. The staff prefer this conversation to the old format. This has also yielded good results.“ says Inga.

An interview with Inga was published in Hafnfirðinginn on 7 June 2020.