Filling the Bucket

In response to the Management Teams commitment to filling our bucket and it's extension to all staff I have decided as a part of our Hauora to do this with my students.

Hauora - Student Voice

My class blew me away today! We had been talking about Hauora and the four aspects of Hauora for a week or so, so I asked the children to tell me the different ways James Street School meets their Hauora needs. I recorded their ideas on strips of paper and then they put them under the appropriate health aspect. OMG! talk about filling someone's bucket they came up with so many ideas. It was really fulfilling to see that they really do get what we are trying to do for them. We are not just here to teach them how to read. I was so impressed I asked Norah to come and see what they had done and I have typed it all up and am displaying it in my windows for ERO to see.

YAY ALL TAKE 2!!!!!!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo pleased we are doing ALL again. I really enjoyed ALL last year and developed a lot of new skills for teaching writing. I have no doubt I am a much better teacher of writing for having gone through the programme. So I am super excited to be doing it again this year. I have maintained full and updated Learner profiles for my At Risk students this year so they are all ready and I know exactly who I'm going to work with.
Yay ALL here we come!

Hmmmm, different kids this time, different challenges. The video taping and observations (although always slightly awkward) are really helpful for that reflection. Ana has been a great sounding board as I knew something wasn't going as well this time but couldn't quite articulate what it was. After talking it through with Ana I am now back on track and meeting my ALL writers needs.

Awhi 4 Autism

I had a new student start this term. He has Asperger's Syndrome and has a tendency to react aggressively if he thinks someone is laughing at him or bullying him. My other Asperger's student has been interesting to watch interact with my new boy and I have tried to allow them to get to know each other. Unfortunately my first student, who has come a long way regarding being a part of the class and following routines, is now showing signs of her old behaviours. Today a colleague and I attended a brief afterschool course on Autism. It could not have been more perfectly timed as I have worked with a severally aggressive Asperger's student at a previous school, quite successfully, and was reminded of all the things I knew then about how best to meet my new boys needs. It was refreshing reminder that I can do it and manage the rest of my class.

Matariki Day, Maori Langauage Week and Star Jam

Busy, Busy, Busy. My kids loved creating resources to take home to support teaching their family Te Reo for Maori Language Week. They feedback that they enjoyed using the sandwich methodology and differentiation activities with their whanau as they felt like the teacher.
Matariki day was a great success, as always. The rotation went well and the children's recount writing of the day were all very positive. Jump Jam for Star Jam was a blast, I think we should do Jump Jam as a whole school every Friday morning.

PB4L (GGL)

Having just attended the latest PB4L cluster meeting I am reminded how far we are down the PB4L pathway. We have truly integrated throughout our whole school. Our school wide discipline plan is run directly off our PB4L behaviour plan. There is no discrepancies between classrooms or syndicates regarding the behaviour management procedures and the kids are responding well to this. My colleagues have feedback positively regarding the hand-outs I create each term break to re-direct, remind them of the up coming terms expectations.

Reciprocal Teaching Reflection

The children still use the language of the tokotoko during reading and are still able to run their own session. They really enjoyed the whole process, as did I. The thumbs up has naturally translated across the subjects. Unfortunately I did not take any photos during the process as it was always just go, go, go! Wish I had. The programme was great but not as easy to replicate without the extra support of the two extra adults in the room. We are learning to infer and re-organise with my L2 early readers and above as the pre and post probes showed they are not great at either of these skills. Due to this I am only actually running the RT system with my turquoise and gold readers.

At Risk register and OTJ's

It's that time again, writing At Risks IEP's and making OTJ's. So much easier now that I've clicked to doing it at the same time! Very excited as I now have children tracking across 14 IEP's looking foward to taking them of the register at the end of next term, all going well, that's a third of my IEP's! Majority have meet their goals which is great. Roll on next Friday as spent all of last weekend writing reports and this weekend writing IEP's. I am looking foward to chilling and watching my many hours of back logged recorded programs .

Reciprocal Teaching

This term we began our Reciprocal Teaching program. It has been really interesting seeing how quickly the children have adapted the system and are now using thumbs up when answering any questions during group teaching time regardless of the subject. My level 3 group has run with the system and could easily run the session independently, they are loving sharing what they know and researching the parked clarifications afterwards. The level 2 group has the ability to run the session independently but is still working on managing themselves when I am not with them. I anticipate the level 2 and 3 readers making the most gains from this program. The two level one groups are enjoying the process but I am not sure they will make the same gains, but we will see.

Staff Meetings For Term Two

We have been learning to use eAstle at our staff meetings. I have used Astle previously at my last school and really enjoyed using it. I am looking forward to using the new eAstle this term. I think initially it will be very time consuming but will get quicker as I become more familiar with the marking schedule.
This week (week 3) we re-capped the methodologies for Te Reo. I am going to print out and laminate the methodology sheets and attach these to where i can see them to ensure I am following the process correctly.

Reciprocal Teaching

At Edgecumbe Primary today for reciprocal Teaching PD. Very interesting and looking foward to starting in the classroom.

Star Testing

I have just finished analyzing my star results and overall they were good. My next steps will be to include a guided lesson on closed comprehension each week rather than to just include it in my tumble, as this is the problem area that stood out for my children who achieved a stanine 6 or below.
I will continue to do the DTRX and wood hunt during guided reading lessons as this will help to develop the children s vocab. I am off to the Reciprocal Teaching training on Monday and am looking forward to seeing how this will impact  my reading lessons as I am lucky enough to one of the two trial classes.

Interschool Swimming Sports

I took 12 students down to the Aquatic Centre on Wednesday to participate in the interschool swimming sports. It was a very hot day with a lot of time in between the events. The kids managed themselves very well and again demonstrated how the GGL culture is carried outside of the school, sometimes even better than in the classroom! Its always tough for our kids at swimming sports as they are often competing against children who have had swimming lessons and some who belong to the swimming club. We were the smallest group there but three children managed to qualify for the next level! These kinds of days are not really my thing, I would much rather be in the class, but having said that apart from cooking all day it was a real pleasure to watch the kids compete and gave me the opportunity to make connections with senior students I may not otherwise have had a lot of contact with except on duty which is usually because I have had to respond to a problem behavior.

Meeting with the Architect

The architect came this week and presented two possible plans to the staff. They both gave us plenty of food for thought and generated a lot of discussion. The plans have been posted on the wall for feedback. I don't really know if there will be a consensus come to but at least people will be able to share their views. At this point in time it all seems a long way away but potentially very exciting.

eAstle and GGL Parents meeting

Today at staff meeting we watched a video outlining how the updated eAstle writing assessment works. We will be doing further PD on this in term 2. I have used Astle before at my previous school and am looking forward to using it at James Street as I really liked using it. I lead the second half of the meeting as we feedback on the last fortnights GGL data and feedback on the GGL parents meeting. The GGL parents meeting had 8 attending and was very positive. Norah presented a power point on the origins of GGL and how we have progressed through the programme, parents were then able to ask questions. The final part of the meeting involved me giving the parents a tour through my room, Ponga and outside to look at the visuals used to support the programme. In response to a parents query about how we inform parents of when their child has received a major referral, we have now asked staff to contact parents after a child has received their third referral. The highlighted again the importance of making those positive phone calls in between.
GGL Parent Meeting Power Point

House of Science

Had an excellent staff meeting today with the Maples introducing the new House of Science resource. Looks awesome and can't wait to try it in my class. Great self contained science units with everything you need to run the programme. This was our representation of the eels that were killed after a pond was drained.

IEPS

Writing IEP's can be a long and arduous task, but a very valuable one. They seem to take me ages as I have to constantly refer to the curriculum documents and other support material. I went through my previous IEP's and inquiries to see what strategies were successful and what ones might apply. For each goal I created a hyperlink file which my students can access to support the learning of their goals with targeted online games (targeted practice). I referred to the PD's on writing inquiry and IEP's to remind myself to keep my goals SMART and to focus on strategies not the activities. I wrote new learner plans for my writers as these give a clear view of their 'best-fit' writing age and updated my returning students.

Maori Achievement Strategy and Te Reo Maori me ona Tikanga Implementation

Kiri and Norah have updated our implementation plan and went through these changes with us during the staff meeting. There is a greater emphasis on student well-being and Maori leadership which Kiri is going to take a greater role in developing our Maori leaders. Our updated implementation plan has also been sent out to our parents to keep them informed. Part of our responsibilities is to ensure Maori students are given the opportunities to learn in contexts that are relevant and authentic to them and their whanau.

Literacy Inquiry Staff Meeting

Today's meeting focused on identifying all children below or unlikely to meet the standard by the end of the year. We were challenged to think about what new strategies we can use to move our targeted students forward in a short time frame. It was really difficult and frustrating at first trying to distinguish strategies from activities. Ana directed us to a great resource 'Reading Rockets' on which I found some great strategies  that I am now using in my reading programme.

Literacy Inquiry PD

Growing Great Learners

A new year and new experiences as Lead Coach. I am passionate about GGL and have seem amazing changes in our schools environment, physically and socially. Our GGL Monitors are loving the new vest, hip bags and dollars. The monitors are showing leadership, self management and are participating and contributing.

The student coaches seem to be a hit and are attracting both juniors and seniors.The recent GGL cluster meeting was an opportunity to meet the incoming area coach and farewell the outgoing area coach. 

At Risk Staff Meeting

As a staff we looked at our class data and identified our students who are not meeting or tracking toward the standard. Ana led the meeting. After identifying our At Risk students Ana reminded us of the need to write SMART goals. In small groups we discussed what the data was telling us about or students and what their next immediate learning step would be to best accelerate their learning. We shared our SMART goal with our small group and discussed any changes that may have been needed.

At Risk PD Slide Show

TOD Hauora and Behavior Analysis

Our first TOD was run by Denise Simons, who is a life coach from Relate Coaching (www.relatecoaching.co.nz.). The primary purpose of the session was to offer us tools we can use to help manage our stress so that we are not running ourselves down and needing time off. We began by identifying the positive and negative aspects of 2014. By doing this we were beginning the process of letting it go so that we are not carrying old stress into the new year. It was quite cathartic being able to voice the challenges of last year, as it was an exceptionally challenging year in many aspects. Next we listed the positives and negatives we anticipate for this year to help recognise and then manage the stress we are carrying on anticipated future stress. Which when you think of it seems a waste of energy to carry anticipated stress. I liked having the opportunity to express how I feel about the time off I had to have due to my back, as it wasn't only difficult for the school, it made my life extremely difficult and stressful. Next we were introduced to the concept of a Committed Listener. We practiced being a Committed Listener. I like this concept as I am one to talk my issues out and I will often seek out a colleague to bounce off. It's nice to have someone whose role is to be your listener and to be able to offer this back to another colleague. I am always impressed with what a open and communicative staff we are. We are very good  at sharing our views and thoughts and listening to others. Finally she talked to us about our 'skin bag' and our 'wairua'. our skinbag is our physical body and the nagging voice at the back of our mind. Denise talked to us about not letting the skinbag overtake our wairua. Take time to pull our wairua forward and find our center again. Overall I was not sure how the day would go I thought it would be airy fairy and of little use, but in fact it was great! 

The second TOD was run by Robin Harawera. The focus was on functional behavior analysis. We talked about how to identify the trigger to the behavior, what happened next and what was the direct result of the child's behavior. We talked about the need to recognize when a string of behaviors are all still a continued response to a single incident and not to treat them as separate incidents.As a result we have now modified our GGL behaviour tracking sheets to include the functional analysis. 

Maths Teaching Inquiry PD Reflection

Today we have been looking at our data and identifying our three groups of learners. Those who are above, at or below the national standard. Once identified we needed to select with group of priority learners we are going to target in our first maths inquiry. The key thing we needed to think about was what is their next immediate learning step as these inquiries and designed to be short, sharp, tazered targeted learning that result in realistic and achievable movement of our priority children within or through to the next level.

We have been asked to reflect on the following questions as a response to the teaching criteria 9ii:

I am already above the NS expectation for my age / year.

• What actions are you taking to ensure I continue to work above the NS?

• I am exploring and accessing e learning and hands on games and teaching sites that are challenging and target problem solving (as they are stage 8). These boys love to share their mathematical thinking with each other and challenge each others strategies and problem solving procedures. So I give them plenty of word problems with multiple stages of solution to solve together as they love to use maths speak with each other.

I am already meeting the NS expectation for my age / year.

• What actions are you taking for ME so I continue to meet the NS or accelerate above the NS?
• I hold my children who are at to high expectations as they can become lazy or complacent in their learning when they know they are meeting standard. I do not allow them to resort to lower strategies for ease of solutions and challenge them when they are with me to look at new ways to apply their knowledge to solving a problem in a new or more advanced way. When they are working independently the tasks are far more scaffolded to allow the children to have a sense of success without becoming bored or unchallenged.

I am a priority learner in maths. I am below / well below the NS.

• What actions are you taking so I begin to taste success in my maths group?
• Incorporating fun and interactive learning sites that are aimed at their current level to allow them to feel success, As many children who are below become disheartened easily if they are not managing the tasks difficulty level I leave the challenging tasks and new ideas until we are working together. The teacher group dynamic has been activity set up to be a safe place to take risks and ask questions when in doubt.

Routines and Expectations Visuals

I have spent more time on establishing our class routines and expectations this first term than I ever have before and although it is only early days I am seeing the benefits of giving this enough time. Several of my returning senior boys quickly showed me that they hoped to fill the gap left by my previous year sixes by showing off. Being consistent from the get go in what is expected of our children, particularly the year sixes, has helped to tone down the over excitement of these few boys in a way that I will endeavor to maintainable as we move into the term. We have worked on table set up, mat manners, book work presentation, entering and exiting the class room and how to move around the school in lines. All these key expectations are tied into our GGL programme and are rewarded with dollars. The children of Kahihatea have taken these expectations on board with enthusiasm. On Thursday I enforced the expectation that we wear hats at lunch and gave school hats to the children who did not have hats and we walked out to lunch looking very smart. As an added reinforcement the teacher on duty (whoever that was, thank you) gave nearly all of my students dollars throughout the lunch hour for wearing their hats and being great role models. They were all very excited that they had been acknowledged for wearing their hats. What a great example of GGL working as it should.

Reminder visual for bringing a positive attitude to school 

 Visual for lining up and being sunsmart

 Visual for table set up

Bonding In The Pool

Kahikatea having a great time in the pool, bonding and breaking down personal space barriers. A great activity for helping the children become more comfortable with each other and to co-operate together.

Kahikatea 2015

What a great start to 2015. This is my fabulous new class. Our signs say JSS, GGL, PB4L, we rock, Kahikatea, safe, proud, respectful.
These are the key words that reflect what is important in our room.