Self and Leader Review - Appraisal Connector

This year as part of the Appraisal process at our school, we have been using Interlead Appraisal System. As teachers we are required to self review our Teaching Practice and then our Team Leader appraises us within the same time deadline. 

We have completed this appraisal once in March and once in September - below are aspects of my reports that I think highlight key aspects of the reports.

March: This is where I self assessed myself against the Registered teacher criteria and Tataiako in March

 The following areas were areas that I felt I needed to put specific work into.
 - Using curriculum knowledge in ways that honour students with different languages and from different backgrounds
 - Using student achievement data as a basis for reflecting on and making modifications to how curriculum is covered and students are engaged.
 - Students knowing the criteria for both summative and formative assessments.
 - Blending Maori culture into planning and teaching programmes.

Based on feedback from my students and leaders I believe that I have had success with the last three of these areas that I chose to work on.  The first areas is one that I am continually working on and adapting my programme to help honour these students.

September:
The September appraisal was slightly different as it made comparisons between both appraisals.  I have uploaded my data from the second appraisal here also. These first two are judging positive behaviour management (this was cut off) and the rest have titles that explain the picture.

I am please with how these appraisals have come out and believe that they do a good job of representing my growth in my journey towards gaining full registration. 

Students... A few of my favourite things

I am sure that we all know the song 'My Favourite Things' from The Sound of Music.  If you are 
unfamiliar with it it goes like this... 

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Silver white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites, when the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad.

I was walking along the beach in the holidays looking out over the sea and marvelling at how lucky I am to be working in a job where I am able to take holidays in order to rejuvenate and regain my spark back for the following term when I realised that as much as I love the beach and the holidays I only have one more term left with my class before they move onto intermediate and that they truly are my favourite things.  These children are the reason that I became a teacher and they bring joy, laughter and brightness into my life everyday.  I decided to write my own lyrics to favourite things...

Bright eager eyes and a passion for learning

Telling their stories and playing with yearning

Watching young children frolic and swing

These are a few of my favorite things

Duty with kiddies holding my hand

Listening to my students play in the band

Helping my students to grow their own wings

These are a few of my favorite things.

Students in leotards doing forward rolls

Young students singing with all of their souls

Those 'aha' moments that make kids go 'ping'

These are a few of my favorite things

When reports are due, when markings not done,

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel quite so bad.

Recently I was talking to a teacher who is trained in high school physical education.  She noted that the amount of work that we have to do as primary teachers is phenomenal compared to what she had to do at her old school and queried how we manage to get through it all.  At the time I just shrugged my shoulders and was not sure how to answer, but when reflecting back on this conversation I realised that I do it because I love the children I work with and I know in the bottom of my heart that if I did anything less than the best I could for them then I would not be worthy of being their teacher.

At the moment that workload is growing even more - we have normal school life, summative assessments needing to be done, reports that are due in and camp that we are needing to prepare for - however students still deserve to see the best of us every single day and not have teachers who are worn out, stressed or tired.  I know that I can be talking to other teachers in the morning and be feeling stressed out about what I have not yet done as the to do list in teaching is never ending, however the second I see my students those feelings of stress dissolve and smiles and laughter fill their place.

Part of what makes working with children so special and so rewarding is finding out what makes them tick and what helps them learn.  This year I have a number of Maori/Pasifika students and so this has influenced the way that my classroom has been run, from our greetings, to commands, to the way that the students are able to work in groups and support each other.

I feel blessed to be working in a job where each day the relationships that I have with my students and their families makes a difference - whether this is due to a child achieving something special and their parent knowing, helping a young child who is hurt on the playground or looks as though they need a smile, encouraging a student who has lost all motivation or cheering a student on as they achieve a goal that they have been persevering with.

Assessment - For and of learning.

With term four comes reports, and with reports comes up to date summative assessments.

As a result, summative assessments have already begun being carried out in my classroom - so far students have all sat an IKAN test and some students have completed running records.  The great thing about summative assessment is it shows visible growth that students have made as they have sat the same standardised test earlier on this year.   It also shows me as a teacher where I need to place more focus and which students continue to/or are starting to need specific help or extension and as a result I am able to make changes to my programme.  I was especially pleased with the IKAN results of my students as it demonstrates that our math warm ups and number knowledge revision games have been effective in helping children to grow and maintain their number recall.  The running record results of the students who have sat it so far have all been positive as all students have moved up a reading level and the students have all made progress in their comprehension also.  The moment that inspired me the most with my running record data however was when a student took the ability to transfer her summative assessment and make it into a formative assessment for herself - she said to me - I know that I need to work on inferencing now - I am going to make that part of my self directed learning programme for the rest of the term.

However, the one thing that frustrates me is about summative assessment is that all students are required to sit the same/similar tests - and this is where assessment for learning becomes a real positive - this is no longer the case with assessment for learning.

Each child is provided with feedback and feed forward based on where they are at and the assessment becomes real for them - it becomes a tool that they can utulise - whether in the form of feedback and feedforward from me as a teacher or whether via self/peer assessment and feedback/feedforward.

When I came back on Monday of term 4 I was unsure how much of the work around success criteria influencing assessment for learning that my students would retain as Term 3 had left them all very tired and they had just had two weeks break.  However, within the first block of learning time I overheard a number of students referring back to their success criteria both individually and to help others achieve their WALTs.  This was a real positive for me as it showed that the work that my students had been doing on having clarity about their learning was transferring through all curriculum areas for all students - making assessment something that they then began to see as something that helped them learn rather than something that was there to judge what they had learnt.