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.    

Art in Matai

We have been enjoying our art in Matai
and this time when we went for one of  our  walks we collected natural things we could paint with. We found many things including branches with leaves, flower heads and seed pods and the following afternoon we got to try out our findings.

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.  

Term three :)

Wow first week of term is over already and it has been a challenge getting back into work mode!!!

One of my goals for this term is to write on this blog more, trying not to be overwhelmed by the work involved picking the relevant content to go into
this forum and keeping it short and concise :)

Think maths

Really enjoyed a chance during the term break to go along to Mt Manganui intermediate with colleagues for a maths symposium. Taking the time to learn about developing spatial awareness in geometry, algebra in the early years and number sense. These work shops had very informative presenters along with an impressive key note speaker was well worth the time.

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.    

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/     

I E P's

This post is not a reflection on any one student.

With gaining a full 11 weeks employment in Matai (special needs unit) for term two I have been trying to gain as much insight as I can to these learners hence I spent yesterday morning viewing a selection of Individual Education Plans An IEP sets goals for the student and shows how the student will be supported to meet those goals. It is developed by the team of people who support the student, including their parents, family, whānau and the student themselves. to find out more follow this link to the Ministry of Education http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/SpecialEducation/ServicesAndSupport/IndividualEducationPlans.aspx      

By the implementation of consistent management and communication strategies for the immediate learning and safety of the student I hope to develop an understanding of their learning, the resources and equipment needed for his/her strengths and needs to be meet through my teaching.

A sensory profile presents information about how a students experiences and processes information from various senses from auditory (hearing) vision (sight) vestibular (movement against gravity) tactile (touch) smell taste proprioception (deep pressure/body sense from joints and muscles).

This can tell me many things as a teacher such as whether a student is wary of loud noises, how able the are to sit for a long time, needs a favorite object in his hand , the need for simplify instructions.  

There's an involvement of many different services including but not exclusive to physiotherapists and occupational therapists to work with both student and teacher; viewing effects such as safe movement (both the students and their ability to move and accesses within the classroom) student ability to take part in the learning activity especially physical and the tools needed to undertake and complete the lesson.  

Ladybirds in Tawa

Introduced the theme of ladybirds with a poem then discussed words to describe what ladybirds look like thinking about colour and what parts they have. Children then drew a ladybird and wrote a simple sentence describing their ladybird.
We then looked at rhyming words for bug ie hug, mug, jug, tug, dug, pug.

For maths we counted how many parts there are to a ladybird ie eyes 2, legs 6, wings 2,  body 1,  head 1,  antennae 2.
Also through out the day we had been making our own ladybirds, which we then added spots starting from 1 to 7, we then used our ladybirds for counting on by counting how many spots on the first wing and counting on with what was on the other wing.

After a warm up of buzz, I used the abacus to revisit 10 and...... (teen facts) as the teacher had explained that the children were quite confident with these facts. We then compared some teen numbers and ty numbers and what they look like on the abacus ie 12 & 20, 13 &30, 14 & 40, 15 & 50.

Jets making connections between finger patterns and sets of objects
10 fingers is the same as 10 bears
7 fingers is the same as 7 beans
3 fingers is the same as 3 dice

Then moving onto
8 fingers is the same as 8 bears is the same as 8 counters on a tens frame

Writing and maths in Rata

While working in Rata and with support from the teacher I had clear ideas and expectations for the writing and maths lessons.
After interval with the children on the mat and the Walt written on the white board (we are learning to start our sentence with a capital letter and read our story so we know what comes next)
I started with My cat likes to..... children brainstormed ideas (ideas recorded these on the white board) so our sentence became My cat likes to sleep in the sun. To enhance the sentence we brainstormed again this time focusing on descriptive words so then our sentence became My big fluffy cat likes to sleep in the sun.
Leaving the Walt in place, children were given two pictures of cats  (the higher group were able to work independently) while I work with the others I the mat, where I modeled what was happening in the pictures ie a kitten had found a ball of wool and in the next picture the kitten is tangled in the wool, these children then chose their own prompts and I supported them with the writing process. As I was in this class the following day I was able to get the children to read through their work, reading to see if it made sense,had they used capitals, full stops and spaces between their words.

Pirates in Tawa

We started our morning brainstorming what the children thought a pirate looked like or what he/she (no one thought there was any girl pirates) does  (this was used to engage prior knowledge). After this was completed I read a poem describing what a pirate is/does from this we we're able to confirm the prior knowledge we had and extend with what we didn't know.

Later I shared Jolly Roger and the treasure  (yellow) with the class the children got to colour and decorate their treasure chest and write a simple sentence (modeled and sounded out a simple sentence on the white board).
Later in the day we made our own stuffed pirate

Art in Kowhai

A busy day based on the book Taniwha by  Robyn Kahukiwa with handwriting, shared story, brainstorms, writing and maths lessons we decided we would draw a large Taniwha. All the children helped decide how long and wide we would make our Taniwha,with everyone participating in sketching the outline and how we were going to decorate and add our own patterning to our Taniwha.

#2

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 :)