'Ask Me' Buddy

This year I introduced an 'ask me' buddy as a class job for students. The thinking behind this was that I had already seen it working successfully in a Year 3/4 classroom at my old school with students being responsible buddies to others in the classroom. I really loved this idea and thought of course my children can do that too!

We had loosely been doing it this term but my students had asked when they were going to be getting the cool vest - like the big kids wear in the playground. So I had to sort myself out and get it sorted. 

So the 'ask me' buddy is a person they can go to for help or to ask questions. We had to set some pretty clear boundaries about what would be a 'ask me' buddy question or issue, or what needs to be told to the teacher. And we also had to talk about when to ask the 'ask me' buddy and when not to. Students could see and begin to realise that it would be unfair to always ask the ask me buddy when they're working as they would never get any work done. 

Once we had talked about the expectations and guidelines for the 'ask me' buddy we put it into practice with our first 'ask me' buddy of the week. She did such a great job and students really enjoyed going to her rather than me! It also freed me up a little bit to work with other students and stopped the constant interruptions with silly questions. 

I can see the potential this has within the classroom and will update you on how it is going over the year. My students love being responsible and this type of classroom job will really help build responsibility of everyone in the classroom. 

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