Staff meeting 11/8

At this week's staff meeting, we took time again to view and discuss another set of possible questions pertaining to the ERO school visit in week 6. Again we worked in small groups and then shared our findings with the meeting. our questions this time were 
What does effective teaching look like for our school?

What does moderation look like in our school? 

Again very insightful discussion took place and I have made some notes for my own reference and a collection of answers to these questions over the 2 meetings will be available to us in the near future.    

6/8 syndicate meeting

Instead of syndicate meeting we had a staff meeting to discuss the upcoming ERO visit and how this might proceed.

In groups we discussed some key questions for our school.

What are the six things you are most proud of at our school?

What defines our school culture?

How do we keep our students safe and manage bullying at James Street School

What are the key aspects of the James Street School curriculum?

Much insightful discussion and sharing happened and recorded for referencing.

Junior syndicate followed the meeting with time spent wrapping rewards for growing great learners.  

   

Staff meeting 4th August

Focus of tonight’s meeting is ALLs Accelerated literacy learning.

Ana explained that the focus for All’s was looking at what has been successful, what are the barriers to learning, and what have been useful resources. That we were first doing this as a small group discussion and then sharing to the meeting as a whole.

What I took from the small group I was involved in was a couple of Shelley’s ideas. Like having a shopping list of ideas for her children and involving children numbering their ideas 1, 2, 3 then this becomes what’s the first thing that you are writing about then what’s next going back to the shopping list to remember what they have decided to write about, also in use for her low learners is a picture planner where they draw a picture of what they are writing about so they have a visual to refer to for their writing.

Then sharing continued staff-wide with many meaningful successes, barriers to learning, and useful resources shared.

Can’t emphasise enough how valuable it was to be involved in the sharing and problem solving with peers.  Ana also gave us all accelerating writing achievement by Rebecca Jesson a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of Auckland reading to peruse in our own time.   

Staff meeting 21/7

For our staff meeting guided by Ana, we read a 1^st chapter copy from the book Learning in the fast lane 8 ways to put all students on the road to academic success by Suzy Pepper Rollins. Having not read this book I am only summarising my thoughts from this copy of the 1^st chapter.

In this chapter we deal with the issue of remediation and how this could be hampering our students that are deemed to be the furthest behind (gathered from the many various diagnostic pre-testing that teachers perform routinely) and that it is widening rather than closing the achievement gaps.

Suzy Pepper Rollins an experienced classroom teacher and educational consultant explains her belief that the best way to support struggling students is in the acceleration of their learning. Pepper Rollins goes on to explain her thoughts and how to implement her steps.

Including make standards and learning goals explicit to students i.e. learning intentions (Ana gave us all a copy of How I explain the importance of learning intentions to my class, Barabra Anne Alexander)  

Increase students' vocabulary—a key to their academic success; Build students' motivation and self-efficacy so that they become active, optimistic participants in class; Provide rich, timely feedback that enables students to improve when it counts; Address skill and knowledge gaps within the context of new learning.

After our reading, we then participated in a Rubric evaluation of the Effectiveness of classroom teaching practices for students achieving below curriculum expectations in literacy.

Being involved in a discussion at where your peers think their classroom practises and expectations sit within the rubric was interesting and thought provoking.  

Teacher and Teacher aid only day in Matai

Lead by senior Natalie Williams

We started the morning with a share of something personal that had special meaning to us our Taonga our treasure. This gave us an insight to what was dear, important to us above all; and for all of us it is family they shape us they are there through the good and bad, we don’t always stay on the same page in our books of life nonetheless on a whole we are there for them as they are for us.

Term 2 in Matai   

Natalie presented what she envisioned our learning environment to look like for the second term 2015. Acknowledging and welcoming new staff, discussing general housekeeping and administration.

We then viewed concepts to help staff reflect on their own professional practise. Discussion included no question is a silly question, that we are all learners, our own limiting beliefs and how we apply these to our children.

Natalie finished with a statement that I believe was like this (tried to remember it fully but may have paraphrased a little)

I have the belief that our children have the amazing ability to surprise us…… however if we don’t allow them to try then they will never have that opportunity.

After lunch we participated in a workshop for Anaphylaxis management.

Anaphylaxis – allergic reactions

These reactions can happen to anyone at any time but of course are more prominent in someone who already has a known allergic reaction history.

For a very useful training resource follow this link    

www.allergy.org.au   click on Anaphylaxis resources for schools and early childcare to do the training. 

During our workshop we were able to view, discuss and participate with the two adrenaline auto injectors the Anapen and the Epipen.

These pens are automatic injectors that administer a single dose of adrenaline. 

Adrenaline is the ONLY effective treatment for Anaphylaxis, this is (adrenaline) a hormone that is naturally produced in the human body and is very safe when given in a single dose via an automatic injector. Adrenaline assists with the breathing, maintains heart function and blood pressure works within minutes and last for approximately 10 - 20 minutes, reverses a severe allergic reaction and can be life saving 

Anaphylaxis is potentially life threatening and should always be treated as a MEDICAL EMERGENCY.    

ANZAC assembly/Grandparents day

What an emotional day, starting with a assembly celebrating and remembering the New Zealanders that faught and fell during the first World War. Like many that attended this day I am so proud of all our Tamariki who showed such poise, dignity and maturity beyond their years.
The outstanding leadership shown by our senior students set the tone for our assembly and many visitors commented positively about this. From Mrs Sells jump jam stars, Mrs Forster's shining choir to the many students that shared their writing, facts and art, leading to the placing of a wreath at the  remembrance garden James Street school shone.
After the assembly  grandparents and visitors were invited to view the visual displays and spend the morning in their mokopuna's class.

Staff meeting 24/3/15

Writing moderation

Before the sharing of student writing examples of a recount, we spent time previewing the New Zealand curriculum writing standards, for  more about the reading and writing standards including using the standards look here http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/National-Standards/Reading-and-writing-standards

After our preview of the examples we got together in small groups to share and compare the process of writing to ether confirm or adjust writing levels of students this was a group collaboration to establish an understanding of what the standard looks like and whether the student has the requirement of the achievement level. This lead to various discussion to use the evidence to judge each students writing in relation to the national standards making an overall teacher judgement from specific evidence gathered and teacher experience from a particular point in time.  

I see the need consistence and comparability both in the task set and the marking and to understand is close enough good enough to establish an agreement of their writing level. This is easily said however I am thinking not so easy to be done in practice.  

For a Ministry of education Moderating asTTle writing power point look here  http://connect.vln.school.nz/p11095800/     

Staff meeting

An interesting presentation from Ana about the Ministry of Education revised  e-asttle writing complete with online video  explanations. This online tool is designed to assess childrens' writing progress from years  1- 10 by providing a variety of communicative purposes ie describe, explain, recount, narrate persuade. A valuable tool with quality exemplars to track student writing.

Amber and Roz spoke about GGL and showed a tracking graph (which was informative as I had little knowledge of what happened from the form being filled out and the child spoken to, nice to have the elaboration)

1st label post

Developing my Learning

A great and informative teacher only day,

A lot of learning going on and some hair pulling :( but I have managed to keep up and develop some new knowledge of blogging :) 

Community breakfast

What a great day for an early start, with the sun shining we served a hearty breakfast to our tamariki  and whanau