Video Observations

We have just completed our second video observation feedback session based on Michael Absolum's Clarity in the Classroom text.  Our first one was a term ago and we received feedback based on a rubric then and have just had to redo this now.  This second rubric highlights the growth that I have made in regards to student and teacher understanding of what they are learning, how and why they are going to learn it and how they will know if they are successful.

Art and Creativity

As a school we have been lucky enough to have a local artist - Nicola Bennet - come to work with us during staff meetings and provide us with professional development around Art in the classroom.  As a PRT I have found her wealth of knowledge and experience extremely helpful and in my own way am playing around with some of the ideas that she suggested.

Attached below are the two powerpoint slides that she has shared with us in order to inspire us.  During each of these session we were able to experiment with and explore different aspects of her presentations.

Nicola Bennet - Art in the classroom

Anthropomorphic Images

At the moment in class we are doing an art portfolio unit where the children are being encouraged to explore a range of different types of art styles.  The pieces that we are working on include sketching with charcoal, watercolour sketching, collage, paint, dye and pastel.  The children are loving exploring their creativity through this unit and it is a wonderful opportunity to hidden talents emerging from a range of students.

One of the things that Nicola talked about was the way that Art is one of the things that people decide at a very young age that they either can, or cannot, do.  I find it quite special that in my classroom a culture has developed where students are so encouraging of each other and of themselves - one wee young boy came up to me today telling me "Miss M - isn't my art great.  I am so proud of it and I did my best - it doesn't look exactly like J's one - but I don't mind because it looks how I want it to look."
Another student came up to me whilst he was on independent writing today to discuss his work - he was thrilled with the creativity that he was involved in and shared with me how he was transferring his learning about gesture drawing in sketching into his writing.  It was an exciting moment for both of us.  My hope is that my students continue to feel this way about their creativity in art and across the curriculum for many years to come.

John Hattie - Success Criteria

As a school we have been focussed on ensuring that our learning intentions and success criteria are developed alongside our students in a way that enables the students to both develop ownership and achieve success.  We have been working through the book 'Clarity in the Classroom' by Michael Absolum.  I have really enjoyed seeing the link between university studies and working within the classroom as this is the first book that we have used at university that has linked directly into what we have been doing in the school setting.

Last term we were videoed and after that we worked alongside a mentor from the senior management team to develop ways in which we could be more successful in helping learning intentions and success criteria become more commonplace and effective within our everyday teaching.  For me, this is where all of my work with POGIL originated.

Last week in staff meeting we were shown this clip by John Hattie about learning intentions and success criteria and we discussed the importance of having these in very small breakable chunks for them to be most effective for students.  Below are the notes that I took during this staff meeting and presentation.  Some of this was just simply a reminder however aspects of it gave me something new to think about and consider.

• Learning Intentions are about what we are going to learn not what we are going to do.  Best way to show success criteria is to model what a successful one would look like.
• If you have a clear understanding of what success looks like you are able to get rid of what matters and teach just that.  If you don’t know what you want the kids to achieve in bite sized chunks, then it is impossible for the kids to know what they need to achieve.
• If we want to develop life long learning then we should not be the ones who are telling them they are successful – they need to be able to self regulate it against success criteria.
• Success criteria should not just be performance related – needs to be mastery focused also – and teachers need to show the students what mastery looks like.
• Need to have a deep understanding of where each child is to understand what success would look like for each kid – is it exactly the same for each child – and when it is not, how can we make it so that it is something that every child can achieve.  

I have attached the link below so that you are able to watch it - I personally found the first half of it most effective.

Ken Robinson - Inspiration and Food for Thought

I have recently visited a school who have taken a lot of inspiration from the TED Talk by Ken Robinson titled: How to escape education's death valley.

Watching it gave me a lot to think about - both in terms of my practice, the practices occurring within my current school and the practices that are occurring nationwide.  Below are notes that I took from this speech and that will influence the way that I continue to teach.

Human beings are naturally different and diverse:

The problem with education arises when education is being based on conformity and focuses on acknowledging children’s achievements against a narrow curriculum -  STEM. For the curriculum to provide opportunities for children to flourish it needs equal weighting also applied to the arts, humanities and physical education.  Research has proven that children prosper when they are provided with a wide curriculum that recognises all their talents.

Curiosity

If a parent or educator can light the spark of curiosity children will learn naturally.  Curiosity is the engine of achievement.  Teaching aligns with this as teaching is a creative profession – within each day an effective teacher may ake on the roles of mentor, stimulator, thought provoker, and someone who engages others.  When this is true it is important that educators continue their own learning and developing their own curiosity. 

Put at its most simple the role of a teacher is to facilitate learning – not to facilitate tests.  There is a need to move away from standardized testing – it is still important and needs a place however it should not be dominant but rather diagnostic.

Human life is inherently creative

Each day every one of us is creating our lives and with each decision we make we continue to create them.   Our role as teachers is to awaken and develop powers of creativity within our students.  At its most effective, learning is developed though curiosity, and the individuality creativity that stands alongside curiosity. 

Education is about people and seeds of possibility lie beneath the surface of each child waiting for the conditions to be right – and if the conditions are right individual success is inevitable.  Within education these conditions are possibility, positive relationships, high expectations, a range of opportunities, and the discretion to be creative and innovative.  Leadership and teaching in education should not be command and control but rather climate control – and creating a climate of possibility – when this occurs people will rise to and exceed expectations.

Benjamin Franklin once famously said that “All mankind is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable and those who move.”

My mission for myself: Be someone who makes things happen.

Reflecting on Room 16

Halfway through the year the students take a moment to reflect on their time in Room 16 - why they like being part of the class and what their favourite part of the year has been.

Feeling prepared and ready to go!

I love the holidays for two reasons. One - they are a time of rest and relaxation after a crazy term and two - you end them feeling like you are on top of everything and ready to take on the world.  And what a feeling it is!!

Every teacher - and every student - could tell you about the importance of teachers being energetic and lively and how this impacts student teaching, however I can certainly say that in the last few days of an 11 week term those words are not adjectives that I would have chosen to describe myself.

Having spent the past two days in school I feel refreshed, renewed and filled with enthusiasm about the coming term.  I have changed around my planning and have been inspired to create a mini inquiry into some of my lowest students for writing - these are students who are below and not quite well below but will still need a lot of directed and individual focus to get them to where they need to be by the end of the year.  My mini inquiry is based around the question: "If I work daily with my struggling writers, instead of seeing them twice a week, will this provide them with the structured guidance that they need to have moved up a sublevel by the end of term - and to also have transferred their learning across to their independent books?"  Usually I mark writing books with the students when conferencing and then make notes about what to discuss with them from their follow up sessions.  With this group I will be conferencing with the three of them daily in a group session but then also marking their follow up with them in the afternoon and having them hand in their independent writing books each night for me to be able to see also.

I have attached as google docs some of the planning that we have done for this term  - and also my weekly timetable for the first week.  I have not yet planned my Maths as the students will be doing a pretest before the lesson - also where it says POGIL this means that the students have their own sheets of activities that they work their way through - based on the focus within the teaching session and their choice of what they need to learn at that time - decided through conferences and goals.

Below are attachments that highlight what our focus will be for the first three weeks of school.

Unit Plans

Astronomy        Explanation Writing        Long Term Plan

As a school we don't do unit plans for reading or Maths - these are done individually as they are very particular to each class.

Class Plans

Weekly Timetable        Weekly Plan - Week 1

Examples of resources that go with plans

Reading
Speeches and follow up activities based on blooms for the follow people:

Bill Gates - Speech and Comprehension work

Malala Yousafzai - Speech and Comprehension work

MLK - Speech and Comprehension work

Kid President - Speech and Comprehension work

Kid President - Static text work

Writing
Explanation plan and written piece exemplars

Maths
Y6 Level Pretest

Closing one chapter - and beginning the next

I have been very lucky as a beginning teacher to have wonderful tutor teachers that have provided me with support and guidance over the past one and a half years.  Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for him) my tutor teacher has just become a principal at a new school.  The past six months have been a whirlwind for me and I have learnt more than I would have thought possible - and now that my final six months are beginning I have a new tutor teacher - who also happens to be my team leader.  In order to bring closure to the past six months I have compiled a written record of meetings and observations that have occurred in the first half of this year - in addition to this I also have pages of hand written notes, but will not put these up here as what I have recorded neatly summarises these anyway.  Over the past six months I also have records from observations from my team leader which I will post up here also as having all records of observations etc in one place will provide for an easy starting point for the rest of the year.

Tutor Teacher Discussions Feb - June 2015

Team Leader Observations Feb - June 2015