Head of Primary’s Book of the Month December 2023

I thought I would start these Book of the Month posts to gradually highlight a number of books which have some relevance to the primary programme stakeholders. Different books may be of interest to varying members of the community, whether they are students, parents, teachers, or other relevant people in the commuunity.

The first one which I have selected is Girl, Elevated by Ramita Anand.

This book, as the cover suggests, aims to show five steps to empower girls in early adolescence to be their best. The school years 5 to 8 or 9 are crucial in the development of girls. Otherwise stated, these are the years for them of becoming tweens to their mid teen years.

In my time of teaching children in this age category, this is a crucial age where many girls start to lose confidence in themselves and their academic and social abilities.

Girl Elevated starts off with what Anand calls the KWP Framework, which stands for Knowledge, Wonder, Power. Each of these are part of a structure which, when followed, aims to bring up the confidence and critical thinking skills which are very important for girls at this stage of their development.

More time throughout the book is spent on relevant skills which every girl should develop during this time to help ensure that they are happy, strong and and confident.

These five superpowers, as the book calls them are: Confidence, Empathy, Emothional Intelligence, Resilience and Kindness. Then Anand has a final section on Power which is a natural outgrowth of having these superpowers.

I found it very interesting that so much of this book discusses what I have seen in my own observations of this age group since starting teaching in the 90s.

Of real relevance to our school community is the fact that the conclusions reached in this book also tend to mirror what we are teaching to our students in the PYP programme.

All in all, I really recommend this book to parents, especially parents of girls, and to teachers of this age group.