Bittersweet memories.

The last term has been so incredibly crazy that whilst I have been reflecting like mad, and making notes and attending PD I have not been recording things in here. Over this week I will be recording these reflections.  I cannot believe that it I only have 16 days left with my beautiful children - will miss them like crazy.  I can only hope that I have done what I set out to do and have imparted some wisdom/knowledge to them that they will carry through the world with them.

Lollipop Leaders

Today whilst on TED talks I stumbled across Drew Dudley and his talk on Educational Leadership. He discusses the type of leader I wish to be and would love to enable and teach my students to be too. I am lucky enough to have leaders like this at my school at all levels to grow and learn from.

Everyone should take a minute to listen to his blog - truly inspirational and truly describes what the heart of great leadership is.

Drew Dudley - Educational Leadership

Authentic Audience

As a teacher of writing, the importance of having an authentic audience for the students has become extremely clear to me.

The effort that goes into writing and the enthusiasm and excitement levels about writing directly correlate with whether or not the students in my class believe that someone else is going to read, and care about, their writing.  When students realise they have a purpose for their writing, and that they are portraying a message through their writing that is going to be heard they want to do their best, not to impress me as their teacher, but for themselves.  They want to write something that they will be proud of and that they know their friends and families would be proud of also. 

At times it can be difficult to ensure that each child always has an authentic audience for their writing with the crazy timetable that comes along with being in a Year 6 class. However, none of my students are out on Friday mornings and so we have now dedicated a time on Fridays to celebrating and sharing our writing.  During this time each child reflects on whether or not they have achieved their writing goals during the week and leads discussions with me if they believe that they should be/want to be working towards a new goal as well.  Once this reflection on our success is completed, we share our writing using the two stars and a wish model. Each Friday each child finds a new partner to share their writing with and discuss in pairs, and then in groups of four what they thought was successful in their partners writing that week and what they believe their partner needs to work on.  I find this a very successful way to ensure that feedback and feed forward is not coming solely from me, and my students absolutely love it.

Last Friday the students asked if they could make a film about it to share with their families and friends and so we have put together a short film with some students discussing what they have been doing and why they like it.  Please enjoy and comment and let me know your thoughts about how I can continue to develop an authentic audience for my budding authors.

Room 3 - Writing - Goals and Two Stars and a Wish

Dreaming, Dreading, Designing - A reflection on Howard Gardeners Five Minds for the Future

 

 

 

It is widely accepted that in order for a human, no matter their age, to learn and grow, the opportunities for them to learn need to be varied and provide a marriage of engagement, extension and challenge.  Each person needs to be challenged in all spheres of their life to enable effective and positive growth – opportunities need to be provided for learners to engage with, and rely on all aspects that are incorporated within their Hauora.

 

Professor Howard Gardener presents Five Minds for the Future that each of us need to develop in order to continue to grow and become lifelong learners – however, as educators we not only need to develop these minds within ourselves but cultivate these five minds within our students, our communities and our society – and that is no easy task. Each of these five minds, or five disciplines, embodies distinctly different ways of thinking about and of viewing and learning from the world. The five minds that Howard Gardener proposes are crucial to developing learners who are prepared for the world of tomorrow are: the disciplined mind, the synthesising mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind and the ethical mind.

 

In order to develop these minds within the communities in which we work, we need to ensure that we help students to learn how to learn, to develop a love of learning and to see learning as a way to continually enhance their contribution to their society.

 

The disciplined mind requires us to help students become passionate about the world in which they live, and about accumulating knowledge about this world.  When this occurs, and students learn because they are passionate about acquiring new knowledge, it is then that we are beginning to do our job of helping to create lifelong learners who yearn to better both themselves and help others to do the same.

 

The synthesising mind, and the ability to be able to piece together vital information from the abundance of material that exists, is necessary in our world today for learners to remain engaged, and enthusiastic about their learning. Young students have the tendency, and the ability to see and make connections in areas that as adults, we might not naturally draw connections.  It is so important that as educators we provide students with the opportunity to continue to make these connections and to help others also see and make connections.  The question of how to do this in a schooling system that is still fairly subscribed and where all students are required to learn the same thing and be tested upon it against national standards is a troubling one and one that requires on-going reflection. In order to develop adults who are able to synthesise information and see relationships that are not instantly obvious it is crucial that we celebrate and not censor the connections that are made so effortlessly by the minds of the youth of today and the voice of tomorrow.

 

Learners, and students, who ask questions and are dissatisfied with the way that things are currently occurring, due to the knowledge that there is a way the given task could be done more effectively and more efficiently, have strength in the area of the creative mind and are to be valued.  We need to guarantee both students and ourselves the chance to be different from the crowd, to seek to understand and analyse the unexpected and to determine what truths may be hidden in that which often frightens people.  By providing students and colleagues the opportunity to fail, and fail dramatically we are ensuring their success and creating the perseverance within them to chase their dreams, to never stop questioning and to pick themselves up and try again.  A school that allows and requires students to adapt to uncertainty, surprise and change fosters the creative mind and is something that I believe we should all aim for.

 

However, it is of great importance to remember the creative, synthesising and disciplined mind cannot achieve success without the respectful and ethical minds. Requiring students to work together, and modelling respectfully working with and seeking to understand those who are different to ourselves fosters an understanding in students what true respect looks like.  When one is truly respectful they are continually offering others the benefit of the doubt and self-reflecting to remain open to the possibility that they may have judged others wrongly in the past and seeking to put this right. Genuine acts of respect are detectable every day, not just when someone is looking and it is these that we need to develop in our students for them to effectively contribute to society, and remain lifelong learners once they leave the safety net of our classrooms.

 

The ethical mind is not as easy to define but can be considered through and measured against the four M’s that define ethical behaviour in society.  These are Mission, Models, and the two Mirror tests.  When an individual, be it a child or an adult, is able to say that they are following through with the four M’s, it can be said that that person has an ethical mind and is focused on the greater good.  When one understands their Mission, they are able to move in the right direction and avoid trouble thus allowing them to be on the path to achieving their mission.  With role Models who embody goodness, individuals are exposed to examples of how to effectively achieve success in an ethical manner. If an individual is able to stand in front of a Mirror and believe that they are proceeding in ways of which they approve, and are proud of, then it can be said that they are ethical within themselves.  The final Mirror test is one of group or professional responsibility – unless an individual is accountable to, and holds accountable, their peers than they are not ensuring that they are ethical within their contributions to society.  If one is willing to continue to achieve, and work for the greater good whilst abiding by the four M’s even when the going gets tough, it can be said that they truly embody the ethical mind.

 

The aim to achieve Howard Gardeners Five Minds provides a much needed marriage of engagement, extension and challenge.  Nurturing each of these minds within our students, communities and society will help ensure that the next generation is willing and able to meet the still-unknown challenges of the future.  The future, that is currently in our hands.  

 

The fact that future of education is in our hands and that, at times, can be an overwhelming and frightening thought.  We may each go through stages where we are dreaming of a Utopia where everything is perfect or where we are dreading a Dystopia where we have failed both ourselves and our students but in order to enhance the education of the future we need to set both dreaming and dreading down and begin designing. When designing we have the opportunity to work every day to actively create the future that we want, and it is an opportunity that needs to be seized with both hands.  There is no point in reinventing the wheel but there are a myriad of systems in place from which we have the ability to reshape and reconstruct the best in order to create something better.

 

If future focussed learning is to occur it is essential that we focus on all aspects of learning: what is being learnt, how it is being learnt, how we know and measure the learning that is occurring, where learning occurs, when learning happens and who is involved. Present systems may adjust one or two of these aspects but what is needed for success as a society and for students to be prepared for the future is for fluidity to develop between these six aspects of learning.  When we have designed a system that is focussed on future learning, and incorporates Gardener’s Five Minds, children’s learning is accelerated, children are interested and they are individually choosing to apply themselves to the learning process. Whilst each system needs to be designed to fit the needs of the community and society that it serves, outside conditions need to enable to the process.  When public policy, leadership, readiness, funding and public acceptance align with schools, and when governance places trust in schools there is the opportunity to provide students with the path that best leads them to success and where Gardener’s Five Minds can truly come into fruition.

Am I Wrong?

The children in my class are putting on a drama show for our school assembly in a couple of weeks time.  One of the songs that they wish to perform is called Am I Wrong?

The lyrics are as follows:

Am I wrong for thinking out the box from where I stay?
Am I wrong for saying that I choose another way?

I ain't tryna do what everybody else doing
Just cause everybody doing what they all do
If one thing I know, I'll fall but I'll grow
I'm walking down this road of mine, this road that I call home

So am I wrong
For thinking that we could be something for real?
Now am I wrong
For trying to reach the things that I can't see?

But that's just how I feel,
That's just how I feel
That's just how I feel
Trying to reach the things that I can't see

Am I tripping for having a vision?
My prediction: I'mma be on the top of the world

Without my children having chosen this song to be a part of their assembly item I would not have thought twice about the lyrics, but when I have sat back and considered what the lyrics are saying I have begun to see a connection between some of the lyrics and how I have felt at different stages over the past couple of years.

I have high ambitions and am always  striving to reach things that are beyond my grasp at the present moment in time but that with effort and dedication will become achievable and successful. At the moment, this goal is to organise and begin my masters in Education.  Peers and colleagues of mine have mentioned that I am crazy for re-entering study before being fully registered - however I know that "I'll fall but I'll grow" and I will achieve success. Yes it will get crazy busy, yes it will be a challenge but if I did not accept this challenge I know that I would not be pushing myself to my full potential and would not feel satisfied. 

Am I wrong for thinking out of the box from where I stay?  Am I wrong for saying that I will choose another way?  For me, I am not.  I only hope that in time others will see, and I will be able to prove to others that no I am not wrong for thinking outside of the box, that no I am not wrong for choosing my own path and that I am right for following the path that I know will lead me to a feeling of internal success and accomplishment.

Taking a step back to take a step forward

I believe that every once in a while it is so important to step back, and think about everything but teaching, in order to improve your teaching. This weekend I have done just that. I have had a weekend of laughs and shared many special moments with some of my best friends.  In my opinion, it is this that has allowed me to be sitting on a Sunday night, when I could be reading a book, wanting to reflect on my term goals and on the progress of my class as a whole after having only been back at school for two weeks.

Individual goals:

To back myself and not question my ability as a teacher.

I believe that I am well on track towards achieving this goal. I think that having my tutor teacher back at school has really boosted my confidence in this regard as I know I have someone at school whose job it is to "have my back" and who I can trust to provide me with honest, constructive feedback in a way that will help me to develop as a teacher.  In addition to this, I am planning on starting my Masters next year and I know that to work full time and do my masters I will have to trust in my ability as a competent and confident teacher.  What better time to do that than the present.  In conversation with my principal the other day a couple of things became evident. The first was that she truly does believe that I am a capable and effective teacher. If she, as an experienced professional, believes this than who am I to question it. The second is a reflection that I am sure will surface at a later date.

Reflect on children's targets with them - and develop my student's confidence in leading conferencing discussions.

Each week I have a half an hour block set aside where the students have the opportunity to reflect back on whether or not they are achieving their goals in writing.  During this time, the students are required to discuss their goals with other students, find evidence of achieving their goals in their written work and reflect on what new goals they wish to set, if appropriate.  I have found that having time set aside to reflect specifically on these goals has led to the students being more aware of their learning goals during the week and during guided teaching sessions also.  I have found that as a result of the student's sharing where their learning is with their peers, they have become more confident leading discussions about their positives in their learning and their next steps with myself also.

Full class reflection:

As a beginning teacher I am continually reflecting on where each student is at in their learning journey, the special needs of any extension or remedial students and when 'testing' occurs, the abilities and next steps for my whole class within a specific subject, or area of a subject.  Rarely do I sit down and analyse the overall changes that my whole class have made on their learning journey over the past two terms.

Management have just asked us for a class description that both analyses our class goals for the first two terms and requires us to make new goals for the whole class to achieve over the next two terms in reading, writing and mathematics. I have completed the analysis of my class's achievements and areas to continue working on and I have found it so rewarding to sit down and be able to see visible movement across all the 'main' curriculum areas for my whole class.  As a result of this I am also looking forward to creating new goals or focus areas for each of these subjects that I wish to encourage my students to strive towards over the next four months. I have high expectations of my students and because of this they reach my expectations, which leaves me feeling filled with anticipation, excitement and wonder about what the next four months may hold for us.

What a wonderful career to be in, where each day leaves you looking forward to the next, and where there is so much room for hope, excitement and growth.

Student Voice

In order to maintain an open growth mindset I have asked ten of my students to provide me with honest reflections about their experiences of being in my class.  They were asked to answer the following five statements and questions:

1. The way that my teacher helps me the most is...
2. One thing that challenged me most was... I overcame it by....
3. I enjoy being part of Room 3 because...
4. The thing I am most proud of this year is...
5. One piece of advice I would give to my teacher is...

Below are videos of these students reflections.  Please enjoy and leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.

Student Reflection on being in Room 3 - 2014

What goes around comes back around

One of my goals for this term was to begin to more confidently share the knowledge that I have around teaching and learning and specific subjects with my peers and colleagues.  I am the type of person who is very goal driven and once I had set this goal I was determined to achieve it. Luckily for me the opportunity presented itself nearly straight away - perhaps opportunities had been presenting themselves the entire time and I was not ready to receive them yet... Who knows!?

At our school we have community once a week, which is a style of assembly that is based around a different class each week doing performances.  Being from a drama background, and being in Year 6, I straight away nominated my class for this opportunity.  When talking with another PRT, I found out that she was not confident in this area and so I offered to help her create her class community item also and encouraged her to put her class down to present this term.  We have since spent a lot of time working on choreography, choosing songs and deciding on the theme. It has increased my confidence in myself as a professional knowing that I am able to help other teachers.  I have also had opportunities to do this with our drama unit that we are doing at the moment. 

Through working towards my goal I am feeling a constant sense of growth and achievement and I am thriving off this.  I have such a positive feeling about this term and I am thoroughly enjoying working towards ticking off Year 1 of my provisional registration

Rekindling my passion for Research

Whilst at university I was the type of student who loved reading, and loved reading about teaching.  I think having an Aunty who was a teacher, and that I have always looked up to, inspired this love of literature - discussions with her whilst she was doing her Masters during my first year of university allowed me the opportunity to realise both the breadth and depth of knowledge that other people have and how easy it is to pick up a book and help others to help you.

Over the past couple of terms I have been getting my head around teaching full time but now I am looking forward to re-establishing a reading routine.  I have searched for and read two articles tonight that have captivated me and will share my learning from them below.

 

Article One

Smith, P. (2002). A reflection on reflection. Primary Voices K - 6, 10(4), 31 - 34.

• Learning communities boost reflection - By getting together and sharing ideas openly and honestly and being able to trust that idealistic aspirations will be treated seriously, we are more open to share our positives and our negatives, and therefore receive a range of opinions and support about how to make changes that will benefit our students.
• Questioning practice leads to growth - This is something that I strive to do as openly and as honestly as I can and I am lucky to have a supportive tutor teacher who helps me answer my questions I have about my practice but also questions me about a range of other aspects of my practice.
• Increasing the frequency of reflection increases the accuracy - When we take the time to sit down and write reflections that identify the positives, negatives and any queries we may have we are forced to reconsider our practices in a constructive light.  By doing this frequently we are afforded the opportunity to recognise patterns in our practice and either reinforce or change these patterns to best meet the needs of our students.
• To engage in critical reflection it is absolutely vital that we take on the role of learner once again - In order to grow as teachers we need to allow ourselves to be learners and recognise that we are always learning and that every colleague has something to teach us.  By recognising that we are always learning it is easier to be more critical about ourselves and to accept constructive criticism from others as instead of failure it becomes an opportunity to grow as a learner and increase future successes.

Article Two

Macfarlane, A. (2000). Listening to culture. Maori principles and practices applied to support classroom management. SET: Research Information for Teachers, 2, 23 - 28.

Behaviour is often defined and understood within a cultural context and yet many Maori students live in cultural and community contexts that differ from those of the school they attend.  As a result of this it is very important that students and teachers work together to make a clearly defined culture within their classroom that belongs to all students and that all students feel comfortable operating within. 

Macfarlane suggests the following ways to do this:

• Huakina Mai (Opening Doorways) - The teacher needs to know the students and the students need to know the teachers expectations and feel that they know the teacher. Rules need to be put in place to protect the rights of the whole group.
• Kotahitanga (Unity) - In relation to behaviour management it is of importance that students, teachers and whanau members together negotiate rules and behaviour management strategies.
• Awhinatia (The helping process - Interventions) - The way that Maori (and all) students feel about themselves affects their ability to engage in social interaction with their teachers and peers.  It is important that feedback is culturally responsive and incorporates both aspects of Maori language and references to the cultural framework that Maori culture is based around.  Comments such as "Whakatikanga tou waka (steady your canoe) can be more appropriate and more effective in changing inappropriate behaviours than feedback that does not acknowledge students cultural identity.

Experience is Everything

One of the biggest struggles that the extension children in my class make often, and that I am continually attempting to change, is the fear of failing. 

These children have so much knowledge and potential, and have succeeded so many times before, that failure and making mistakes are new concepts for them - concepts that they are only coming across by beginning to face the realities of the world outside of their bubble.

Something that I will be showing them this term is an image that I stumbled across that highlights the difference between knowledge and experience.  Knowledge is great to have, but unless it is applied, and children are provided with the opportunities to engage in experiences around their knowledge, it will often take a back seat and not be useful in their everyday lives.  With experience, as shown in this picture, children will be able to, and know how to, apply their knowledge in ways that are beneficial to their learning and growth.

My aim is to provide these children with the opportunity to make mistakes in my classroom, to let them transition from being filled with knowledge to being filled with knowledge and having had experiences to apply their knowledge in a place where they feel safe.  

Managing Maths

At times I forget that I am a beginning teacher and expect myself to have everything perfect all of the time.  As someone who has high expectations of myself it is frustrating when I can see what I want to do and what others are doing but am still getting my head around how to put what I want to be doing into action. 

Maths is an area that I feel I should be able to teach easily because I have the content knowledge and it is a logical subject.  However, whilst Maths is logical as a learner, trying to control four maths groups number rotations, strand rotations, and set appropriate interactive work on the computers has proved slightly more challenging.  I aimed to break down what it was that was challenging me about Maths and at the start of Term 2 I set myself two goals: 1 - I would make sure that I always had appropriate equipment out for the groups that I was teaching that would allow for easy transitions between using materials and imaging and 2 - that I would get my head around the way that strand is taught at the school that I am teaching at.

Number 1 seemed to be fairly easy to sort, the materials when sourced were at the appropriate level for my children and seemed to really help my children grasp difficult concepts easily.  Number 2 was slightly more tricky but I have managed to now set up a programme that involves weekly check ins and exploration of the strand topics that I am teaching and allows me an opportunity to discover which children are struggling in which areas and why they are doing so.

However, when I got to the end of last term, I taught a unit of maths that still made my head swim.  Maths that should have looked like this:

Quickly began to look like this:

I could not for the life of me figure out why - I knew the content, I was planning weekly, I knew the teaching style that best suited my students, I was using appropriate materials and doing everything agreed upon by myself and my tutor teacher.  My tutor teacher was away during this time and so I sought the advice of a trusted colleague who has enormous amounts of experience within the mathematical field.  She was able to help me ensure that my unit looked and was manageable again but I still was not able to place my finger on the problem.

A couple of days ago, I was looking at the long term planning for Term 3 and it struck me - and became exceedingly obvious.  While I was weekly planning for maths as I did for every other subject I was doing this from a framework of making educated predictions about where the children would be.  I had no long term plan for maths.  This term we are recovering two topics that we taught in Term One and so I have created long term plans for Maths for these topics. These are not incredibly detailed and they are certainly not long and extensive but they provide me with a framework upon which to base my weekly planning for maths.

Here's hoping that these long term plans will allow me to breathe and continue to focus on exactly how I am teaching maths rather than worrying about what I am teaching and whether the lessons that I am teaching are covering what they need to and whether or not they flow well together. 

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders! Wooo - Sometimes all it takes for things to make sense is a moment to step away from it all and breathe!

There is a Time

For everything there is a time, there is a reason and there is a season. I have believed this in my life for a long time but now I am beginning to see that this is true in teaching also.

Over the last term there have been a number of moments that have led me to question how things work, why things work and what I can do to make sure that everything runs as efficiently and as effectively as possible. These moments have ranged from interactions with students to interactions with other staff members to seeds of thought that have been planted in team planning days and have been expanded upon since then.

Interactions with students:
When I think about the students at the school that I teach at I see students who are well catered for and well looked after and told that they are pretty good at most of the things that they do. These children as a consequence of this have started to expect that pretty good is excellent and that they should be recognised for being pretty good. Don't get me wrong, being pretty good at something is an achievement in itself but if pretty good becomes good enough then these students may soon find themselves struggling in a world where they have every opportunity to succeed to an extremely high level if they are not happy with pretty good and continue to push themselves to achieve personal excellence and be the best they can be. Thinking about this led me to reflect on a poem that a friend of mine who teaches Year 8s has recently shared with me. The poem goes like this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkKIwF7d9Y

I am going to share this poem with my students this term during circle time and have them reflect on what they believe is pretty good and whether or not they should settle for pretty good. I know that my expectations of myself and of my students are that excellence will be achieved and am hoping that by showing my students this poem that they will realise that their goals are too for excellence and not for pretty good.

Interactions with colleagues:
During the past term whilst my tutor teacher has been away I have needed to receive the support that she would normally provide me with from a number of different teachers. The interactions with different teachers from around the school have varied so much with some being extremely positive and leaving me feel empowered and as though I am on the right track and with others leaving me questioning what I am doing. My students, being with me 6 hours a day, have observed me during and after each I these interactions and recognise instantly what impact these different interactions have had on me as a teacher. When my students have picked up really positive vibes I notice that all my students become easily excitable and are really engaged in what they are going to be learning. However, when the students don't notice extremely positive vibes they are more likely to play up and make a big deal out of something that is not necessarily a problem at all. Watching how these children pick up on these interactions without me saying anything to them has lead me to question whether or not or to what extent relationships between staff members impact relationships between students. I know that at university it was drummed into me that modelling is one of the most effective ways of teaching and I cannot help but think that these relationships, whether negative or positive and effecting the relationships that we see occurring between our students in the classroom and the playground. Having studied both teaching and health and physical education in depth I am extremely interested in the total wellbeing of our students and am aware that social and emotional well being play directly into a students ability to learn in any given situation. I am doing my Masters next year and would be extremely interested to investigate how the relationships between staff members influence the types of relationships that occur between students and in turn how this affects a students ability to focus, concentrate and learn.

Playing to my strengths:
I am so excited for our afternoon programmes this term as I feel that they really allow me to play to my strengths. The programmes that we are doing are a drama programme, a chemistry programme and an outdoor winter sports programme. I feel like with all of these programmes I will be able to share my depth of knowledge around these areas both with other teachers and with my students. Having a drama degree, a sports degree and having completed year 13 chemistry has left me feeling confident that I will be able to teach all of these areas effectively and efficiently.

There is a time, there is a reason and there is a season for everything. For success and for learning and for helping others and for being helped. I am looking forward to a term that I cannot wait to get back into when I still have a week of holiday left. Woohoo.

Thoughts at the end of Term 2

I truly can't believe that we are nearly half way through the year.  It feels both like this year has already passed by so quickly and that I am still brand new at everything.  When thinking about this term there are things that have gone smoothly and things that have made me feel like I am drowning.  Thankfully the things that have gone smoothly have all been inside the classroom and the other things have been outside of the classroom. 

During the term I have had a number of different students begin to test the boundaries and so I have put in place a number of behaviour management systems.  We now have systems in place that both reward individual students and the whole class and that provide consequences for individuals and the whole class depending on the situation.  Having positive whole class incentives has lead to the students providing each other with positive peer pressure to be doing the right thing at the right time always so that the whole class is able to benefit from this.

I have been running gymnastics for school this term and have really enjoyed the opportunities that this has provided me to get to know a number of students that I would not come in contact with on a regular basis if I was not running this programme.  I love gymnastics and so this also provides me with the opportunity to let off steam, contribute to the Lynmore community and take my mind off things that are bothering me.  I am really looking forward to the competition next term and watching all the children that I have been coaching enjoy competing and participating in a setting that many of them are unfamiliar with.

Growth - In order to ensure that I am maintaining a growth mindset I have been thinking a lot about what has been successful and what I can influence to change within the next term. Below I have listed areas that I believe I can influence and begin to work on right from the beginning of next term and that are measureable.

Goals – Term 3

Professional
To begin to more confidently share the knowledge that I have around teaching and learning and specific subjects with my peers.
How will I achieve this?	-          Share my knowledge in team meetings, when observing others and if a colleague is stuck and I can help out in any way.
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          When I no longer have the mindset of the fact that I am a BT and that none of my knowledge is useful when compared with teachers who have been working for a number of years.
To back myself and not question my ability as a teacher at every moment.
How will I achieve this?	-          Take on positive feedback that I receive from parents, colleagues, students and management and connect it with what is happening within my classroom so that I am able to see that their feedback is genuine. -          Celebrate each success that I have as a teacher.
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          When I receive feedback from people such as the principal and my tutor teacher and don’t dismiss it as them simply trying to be nice.  When I believe that other people are providing me with feedback that is honest and when I am able to question their feedback and see that it is evident within my practice.
Classroom
Ensure that all of my planning WALTs and learning outcomes are derived directly from my team planning and meet the needs of each student within my classroom.
How will I achieve this?	-          Ensure to have my team planning open when doing my weekly planning each week. -          Use my formative assessments to ensure that the planning is directed at the level that each child is at. -          Use hot spot teaching to ensure that if my formative assessments are slightly off that that child still receives teaching that is differentiated to their individual learning needs.
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          Sharing my planning with my tutor teacher and receiving her feedback that she believes that this is occurring -          This will always be an on-going goal as my planning changes each week and therefore this will need to change also.
Reflect every week on the children’s targets with them and ensure that they are meeting these and if they are not that there is a plan in place that will help them to meet these.
How will I achieve this?	-         Use Friday’s writing time to ensure that the children have a specific opportunity to reflect on their learning goals. -          Conference with students if they are unsure about where they are in relation to achieving these goals.  Sit down with these children and provide them with resources that will help them to achieve these.
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          When children begin to independently reflect on their learning goals and are confident in knowing whether or not they have achieved these and what their next step would be.
Develop the ability within my children to lead their conferencing with me about areas in which they think that they could improve.
How will I achieve this?	-          Question children when I work with them in conferencing before sharing my opinion on their work, what they have done well and areas in which they can improve
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          When the children are able to come up to me and confidently share their positives and next steps before receiving feedback from me.
Stay on top of my marking for strand and independent.
How will I achieve this?	-          Create a timetable for when to do marking of each subject and make sure that I stick to this timetable.
How will I know when I have achieved this?	-          When my marking is always up to date.

Sarah's Superheroes

 

My release teacher is head of an ICT company and provides both my students and myself with some amazing learning opportunities for how to integrate ICT effectively into our programme in a way that enhances the learning of my students. She has helped me to create a website that will record the learning, fun and excitement that happens within Room 3 - http://sarahssuperheroes.weebly.com/learning.

 

She has also shown us how to make iMovies and has create iMovies for us that capture aspects of the children's learning. Below is an example of movies that she has created about bike safety lessons that we received from a local policeman and about our music lessons.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbwgaS38oU

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQFfh0nVWY

Student Led conferences - encouraging my students to have voice in their learning and own goals.

Working through student led conferences and preparing students to have informed discussions with their parents about their learning has really opened my eyes into how much I guide them through the discussion process. Whilst some of my students were able to independently discuss with me where they felt their next steps were others were waiting for me to provide them with these.

At the moment we are implementing a new type of goal setting programme for the students where instead of targets constructed by the teachers for the teachers, students have voice into what they think their next steps should be and record these in the back of their books. We are doing this in writing at the moment and this should help the students to feel that they are identifying their own next steps and have control over their learning. The students complete a national standard evaluation at the end of each piece of writing and identify what areas they have achieved and which areas they are still working towards.

I am hoping that through making the goal setting and evaluating whether or not the goals have been achieved a routine process all children will begin to feel comfortable leading conferences and discussions about where they are successful or not. I will be making this part of our weekly writing routine from the beginning of next week (Monday 23rd of June) onwards.

Keeping Kids Engaged

Over the past week or so it has seemed that the students in my class have been unengaged and unmotivated. The reason for this eluded me until I was in discussion with my tutor teacher yesterday. As a class nothing we were doing changed and therefore I could not figure out why the children's attitude had. My tutor teacher pointed out to me, in a round about way, that that was in fact why the attitudes had changed.

If children are expected to do the exact same thing the exact same way every time, they quite simply are going to get bored and become disengaged. Children need to be challenged in a variety of ways and I have had to question whether my programme is allowing them to do just that.

In our afternoon programme which is currently focussing on simple machines the children were doing hands on work, but the very similar types of hands on activities each time. When I questioned a student on what a 'load' was she was unable to tell me. My TT suggested having the students come up with a rap that requires them to explain all of the concepts covered in the unit before they try and solve their scenario. I am going to give this a try - who knows how it will go but I will make sure to come back and reflect on this. In the mean time I am going to be as creative as I can and ensure that every child has an opportunity to learn and reach their full potential within every subject area.

Reports - about targets or about children?

I am currently writing my first set of full class reports and have liaised with four to five different teachers about what they need to include, how to write them and what to focus on. At first I struggled with what I needed to incorporate to meet the school's standards of report writing, but after sitting down with my PLG leader it became clear that the most difficult part of writing reports was going to be ensuring that my spelling, grammar and punctuation were dotted and crossed. In terms of what was included in reports we simply needed to record each thing that each specific child has achieved that aligns with what the MOE determines to be the national standard for each age level. In essence, what 'targets' has the child achieved in the first half of the year. Next steps for each child simply were transferred from the target that child had set and ways to help at home aligned easy teaching points with the next steps.

Discussions that I have had with parents in my class and discussions that I have had with teachers leave me wondering who we are reporting for, are we writing reports because it is a MOE requirement and we are trying to successfully tick boxes or are we writing reports to genuinely celebrate and express concerns about children who are placed in our care each day. I know that the majority of teachers I have had this discussion with would prefer it to be the second one but they find that with what and how we write being so prescriptive it is hard to do just that. I know that the parents that have come in to discuss their child thus far this year have not queried about what numeracy strategies and reading comprehension strategies their children are applying to their learning but rather about the Hauora and total wellbeing of their child each day. They want answers to questions such as is their child happy? Does their child contribute in class? Are they confident when working with others? Are they engaged in authentic learning? Is their voice heard? Are they making progress in their learning? Questions that I am able to answer without looking in their child's book because I have formed relationships with that child, work closely and conference with that child about their learning each and every single day and because I care.

I care about education, I care about children and I care about each and every child in my class reaching their utmost potential throughout their year with me. I care about engaging parents with their child and their child's learning and encouraging parents to support their learning at home. I care about supporting what is happening in each child's home in my classroom.

I care but at times I question whether with the reports that we write and the multitude of targets that we have to meet for board and Ministry requirements children are able to see and feel that care. A child in my class the other day was hit in the eye at lunch time, I was on release and so only saw this child after school, but between lunch time and home time this child came across five other teachers. I asked him how he was feeling and whether he had informed any other teachers and iced his eye and he replied that he had not as they all looked too busy and he did not want to stop them from achieving what they had to have done that afternoon. Their target for the afternoon so to speak. At what expense are we setting and reporting on targets?

A question that I ponder each day is if my students were to report on me as a teacher, as I report on them, would they be reporting on whether or not I was setting them targets and analysing their results of these targets within a week or would they report on me as a person? I can only hope that they would report on me as a person and recognise that I care for and love these children. I feel it my duty to report on these children in the same way I hope that they would report on me at this time of the year, not against targets but against progress that they are making as a person. The small box at the bottom of the report with the smallest text is the most important box on the whole report in my opinion and I can only hope that I can use those five lines to share with parents their child's successes as a person and any concerns I have.

Linking Learning with Life.

The first week of school has passed by in a blur with two days of relievers and a myriad of tests and out of classroom activities taking place. So here I am, on the Monday of second week, finding that I finally have time to reflect on the week that has past.

Cycle safety played a massive part in last week. The children were taught road rules and how to cycle safely on the roads by a policeman. Once they were competent on the practice course they were allowed to participate in a road ride which each and every single one of them thoroughly enjoyed. The children were hooked into their learning because it was physically active whilst still allowing  them to reflect on and cognitively engage with what they were learning. They could see the purpose of the activity and make connections with their everyday lives as many of them bike to school and go riding with their parents. This is  a video of all their favourite moments put together on iMovie by Wendy Stafford: http://leos-learning-lab.weebly.com/12/post/2014/05/bike-safety-with-constable-neil.html.

Today, during reading time, a student started making connections that I had not expected him to make so early on in the unit we are doing on fairy tales. 'H' was comparing and contrasting the fairytales of Jack and the Beanstalk and The Helium Seed Watermelon Boy when he noticed the difference that a good ending makes to a story. He discussed how when he was writing he wanted to focus on creating an ending that left the reader engaged and feeling like they had connected with the story. Another student jumped in at this point and mentioned that it is similar in life but instead of writing the ending to the story it is the choices that we make that determine the ending of each 'mini story'. I was blown away by the insight that these students had had in a lesson that had not focused on making such connections. I cannot wait for us to begin our fantasy writing unit now where these students will have the opportunity to focus specifically on the endings of stories and how different endings affect the audiences perspective on the whole story.

My most significant goal for this term is providing students with activities that link their learning with their own lives in a visible way. Here's hoping that if both my students and myself continue on the path that we are own this goal will be a highly successful one.

Time for Term Two

As I sit here on the last day of the holidays it is hard to believe that I have been in charge of my own classroom for twelve whole weeks. At times those twelve weeks flew by and it seemed like I had been teaching for far longer but at times it felt like I had only been teaching for a day - there are always 1000 new things to learn.

Heading into Term Two I am determined to take the most out of the experiences that made me a stronger person and better teacher in the first term and apply the lessons I learnt in them to every new challenge I face. Observations, chats with colleagues and just taking a moment to breathe and laugh with the children when out on duty all helped me to realise that I am not the only one on a path of learning but so are all of my colleagues. They may be at different stages of their journey, but nonetheless we all have something to learn from and teach to each other.

I am nervous in a much different way this term then I was last term. Where last term I was concerned about whether or not I would be able to teach my students effectively now I know that with preparation I can do that and am instead nervous about the amount of assessment and reporting we need to fit into a term that is three weeks shorter! Moderating writing, e-ASTTLE, IKAN and writing reports all seem intimidating when you are a new teacher who has never done them before but the biggest lesson I learnt last term was that people don't realise this unless you ask for help so that is definitely something that I aim to do more of!

I am so so excited to see my students again - never would I have thought that I would miss working with them as much as I have done. I am most definitely looking forward to another fun-filled exciting term with them starting off on the first day with bike safety.

Term One - Nearly Done

Wow. What a crazy term it has been. I have learnt so much about what I love in a school and about what makes me tick as a teacher - insights that I had not gained on practicums even whilst being exposed to a range of experiences. Over the next week or so I will endeavour to record as many of my thoughts as possible from my first term as a PRT.

Room Three.

Everyone always told me that my first class would be one to remember and that certainly is appearing to be true by all accounts. Twenty nine ten year olds and twenty nine distinct personalities awaited me on my first day, and, day by day I have grown to know them and love them. Behaviours of certain children have challenged what I believed to be effective behaviour management processes and thus have helped me to grow. Other children simply make me smile everyday by just being themselves.

My most entertaining moment to date with these precious children was earlier on this week. Our school had a full school mufti day where each class dressed up according to a theme. My class decided that they wanted to dress up as ninjas and all the children were very keen on the idea. That is, until one girl piped up (very seriously) concerned and asked how I was going to be able to teach them if I couldn't see them because they were ninjas.

The importance of children having an opportunity to own their learning has been highlighted time and time again this term with the children being most engaged in activities that were specific to their class and their individual needs. One of the 'units' that has thrived and the children have been fully engaged in is an inquiry unit where they are looking at what it means for them to be healthy. Through this unit the children are exploring and will continue to explore; social, emotional, mental and physical wellbeing, how community support affects someone's health, statistics, information literacy, report writing and presentation and collecting and collating data. This is a unit that was developed by the children in my class for the children in my class. All the children feel listened to and that they are contributing. In contrast to this, my students have just finished a unit where they were carrying out 'inquiry' tasks based on caves and caving. Whilst students enjoyed this topic many failed to see the relevance that it had to their lives and therefore were less stimulated by it.

The importance of having an opportunity to own both my learning and the teaching that occurs in my classroom has also become obvious. I have found that the times that I have been most frustrated in and out of my classroom have been times when I have not felt afforded the ability to exercise my professional judgement about what would most suit the needs of my students. Having the opportunity to put my PD into practise and be able to apply it instantly has had such a positive impact both on how much I am learning and how much I feel I am able to teach and help my children. As I grow as a teacher I look forward to having the confidence to suggest more of my ideas with my team so that my knowledge and up to date professional development and studies are able to benefit both my team and myself also.

Support

For a beginning teacher having an effective support structure in place is vital. I have been so lucky to have a wonderful tutor teacher, two teachers on my team that support me and help me realise the ins and outs and ups and downs of teaching and two enthusiastic and knowledgeable deputy principals that are more than happy to lend a hand the second one is needed.

My tutor teacher has been my saving grace. I feel both extremely supported and encouraged and pushed to reach my potential. Monthly observations help me to recognise whether or not I am on the right track, how well I know my students and whether or not my reflections and analysis of students are correct. Weekly meetings and the on going support and availability of this wonderful lady have meant that I feel supported and heard both inside and outside of the classroom environment.

I have two teachers on my team that are angels in disguise and help me to realise that what I am experiencing and feeling is normal and that it is important not to beat myself up. These two teachers come with experience within both this school and other schools and provide opinions and explanations that truly do help me survive some days. I am extremely fortunate to also have two wonderfully supportive deputy principals that work closely alongside me both in helping me to develop my programme and helping me to develop my sense of who I am as a professional.

I look forward to blogging about curriculum coverage and will be doing that my next blog post.