Pictured is Madison Anchor Director Michael Kelly and teacher Lisa Armstrong

It was a successful first semester in Madison Elementary School’s Anchor program, and its  director believes there is much to look forward to during the second half of the school year.  

The Anchor Program has been in place at Madison Elementary School for more than a decade. Former Madison teacher and Anchor Director Michael Kelly said the program’s mission is  to offer Madison students after-school activities that are educational and provide them with social, emotional and character skills. Anchor also provides tutoring, enrichment, nutrition and physical education. Kelly said Anchor is a way to teach children healthy ways of living with the goal of more optimistic futures.

 Kelly said the Anchor program has been of great benefit to Cougar students for many years. He said many studies have shown that social-emotional learning (SEL), not only benefits students personally and their relationships with others, but also benefits them greatly with their academic learning, helping ensure they get that high school diploma. Including some emphasis on character qualities has also been shown to positively impact safety and create a caring environment. 

 “We not only teach these skills outright but incorporate them into the activities so that there is practice in real-life situations,” Kelly said.

  Kelly mentioned a few of the activities that we successful during the first semester of the 2022-2023 school year.  

Positive Action Time deals with how positive thoughts lead to positive action, which lead to positive feelings like self-esteem, learning new things, problem solving and creativity. There are calming techniques, reflection on emotions and counseling sessions. Discussions involve how to positively deal with difficult situations and how to deal with such situations in the future.  

 During Tech Time younger students made PowerPoint presentations about themselves, important things about them, their favorite things, what they are good at and someone in their lives they are grateful for. Tech Time builds self-esteem, social skills and empathy among listeners. Younger students also did presentations on different topics including spiders and Christmas customs in other countries. Older students engaged in an online interactive narrative in which students became young Native Americans living in the 1800s.  

Enrichment Activities provide students with an opportunity to learn and grow during hours in which they would otherwise be most at risk from negative influences. For example, students learned Science in making a  hypothesis, keeping variables constant, and accurately measuring and recording results. They also were made aware of the social skills and qualities such as patience, taking turns and being helpful which they were to look to practice and then evaluate themselves afterwards. Students look forward to these activities, and they feel good about themselves with the improved social/character skills as well. That is the primary goal.

 #TogetherWeAchieve