This week I’ve been working at school in a class with children who were required to update their ROAs. For those of you unfamiliar with the jargon, ROA stands for Record of Achievement. At this particular school (for children with special needs) levels of achievement and progress are recorded regularly by the class teachers. Emphasis is placed on what the child CAN do now and considerations are discussed about what he/she CAN do in the future. All of this is written down.
Whilst every child is different and with different speech, language and communication needs, each child is helped and assisted to do more and build their CAN DO skills. The ROAs chart the progress between terms and become a visual record of work done to make this has happen. Some of the artwork and good writing demonstrates great examples of what has been achieved. It was a joy to go through some of the work with one or two children and comment on it with them. It was most engaging for several of them to share their CAN DO moments with me. I felt very honoured and humbled too. The children were very proud of their efforts and for those children unable to communicate the detail of the activity, listening to some of my comments and those of their teachers displayed a great sense of pride and achievement. Non verbal language speaks volumes too!
As I drove home from school I contemplated how I could take some of the classroom learning and apply it to my work and business. So I’ve set up my own Record of Achievement so that I can keep a record of what I CAN do now and what I CAN do in the future. (This has included a few tasks from my procrastination list!) For me, this will be a good way of tracking my progress and recording my achievements on an ongoing basis.
As an independent HR professional I am required to manage myself! At times I can become so caught up in the business that I forget to stop and acknowledge the achievements. I’m hoping that as well as recording achievements in business, it will also provide a little inspiration and motivation for the days when it all feels like I’m getting nowhere fast too!
Mary Fraser is an experienced HR professional with a passion for learning and development. She set up Fraser HR in 2002 to help small and medium sized organisations by providing an external HR support service. Currently Mary is developing her links with education through her work as a learning support assistant at a school for children with special needs.
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