Term Two, yahoo here it goes!

I am really looking forward to Term Two. As I wrote in my last post I had rough Term One. I initially pitched my program too high and had lots of issues. Once I asked for advice and support from my management team  (which was completely provided) I was away. The last three weeks of Term 1 were so much better. I am finding myself feeling very behind after the rough start but will dig away until I am caught up.

As well as missing the mark with my class I was also constantly tired, emotional and did not feel 100% at all. Over the holidays I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes which explains how I have been feeling. I have completely changed my diet and have lost 6 kg in two weeks, my doctor says if I maintain my efforts by my next check up I may well be diabetes free. Now that I am not overloading myself with sugars that my body can't process I am feeling a lot better, clearer headed and evenly 'emotioned'. My blood sugars effect my moods really badly I am either very tearful, aggressive or both, I was like that when I had gestational diabetes with my son 14 years ago.

I am looking forward to ALiM and ALL, I always enjoy ALL and have already found some great problem solving sites for ALiM. 

This term I hope to continue making connections with my parents through our planned trip to the observatory and a bush walk planned for the end of the term. Unfortunately my call for parent helpers in any form  was completely unsuccessful but I will keep trying.

This term we are looking at Maori Mythology, the children voted for this. The topic will be integrated throughout our three key learning areas. The space topic we did at the end of the last term was brilliant and the kids really enjoyed it. 

I am going to incorporate science and music into our tuakana/teina time with Sandra every Friday, haven't quite finalised how this will look yet. 

I have been working on my data and am in the process of redesigning my planning sheets to include identification of my target students (ALL, ALiM, At Risk and School targets)

and identification of their 'next step, I am doing this to ensure they are always consider ed when I plan and their needs are in the fore front of my mind when planning.

So as I said in the title Term Two here we go!!!!!!!

Term One Overview

It has been a very challenging term for me. I had a great first two weeks getting to know the kids and we had lots of fun. Week 3 was all about establishing routines and teaching the expectations and procedures needed to follow my Daily Five and Daily Three rotations. I had researched this and spent many hours setting up my program to ensure success and engagement. I created a visual for each rotation and a buddy system so every child had a support person. I was confident I had set my class up for success so when it started to fall apart through weeks 4-5 I struggled to understand why. I have a group of 7 boys who are challenging and need constant management, I was beginning to feel like they were trying to sabotage my program. I was exhausted and unhappy, the class was not positive and I was starting to sound like 'one of those teachers'. I was away sick for the first 4 days of week six and when I returned Friday I knew things were not right and it was not just the kids, but I couldn't figure out what was wrong. After talking to one of our T.A's during morning tea on Monday week 7 I realised I needed a new perspective. I met with management after school and by the time I had talked through what was going on I had basically identified the problem myself. I had designed a great program for seniors working at L2e and above when really 20 of my 27 students are working a L2e and below. So with some guidance and a kick start from management I spent week 7 throwing my program out the window and launched our new Space focus with lots of fun activities and began bringing the joy back to my classroom. With the help of my mum I completely re-did my classroom, making room for daily craft, construction and play. I also redesigned my rotation program to suit children who are closer to juniors than seniors. I looked back to when I taught years 2-3 and pulled out things that worked well. By Monday week 8 I was shattered but the reaction from the kids when they saw the room and the many positive comments and hugs I received made it all worth while. Its not perfect yet, still things to tweak but my class is so much happier, I am happier and we are all feeling success and having some fun with it. Initially I was so disappointed in myself for missing the mark with my program and not initially being able to see what was wrong. But then I realised I am a reflective practitioner who is always willing to seek support and will listen to advise given. This is a strength and I need to give myself credit for this. Luckily enough to have a supportive management and great colleagues.
  

Yay I'm back in!

Wow I have certainly hit the floor running this year! It started with an additional seven students I  wasn't expecting due to a colleague taking leave.  For the first time I had an actual holiday and did not start doing school work from day two of the holidays, instead I had a well needed break from all school work and did not pick up any work until the week before we went back. I am really pleased for me and my family that I took the break BUT I am now working overtime to finish all the prep I would have normally done over the holidays. I had spent a lot of time toward the end of last year exploring options for my learning program and had a good idea of what it was going to look like. However what I didn't account for was the amount of time it takes to create the visuals and sort supplementary resources. Thank goodness for my husband who has spent too many hours laminating and cutting for me.
Having said all of that the original version of my program would not have worked in that form with this class so I have been tweaking it for the last three weeks and possibly saved myself from making a bunch of displays and resources that were not needed.
It is all coming together now and i am excited to see how it works with this years group of children.

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.

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.

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.

Reciprocal Teaching

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Blog reflection.

Today I have been learning about how to set up my own blog to record my personal professional development. I did this as a part of James Streets Schools Teacher Only Day. The purpose of the blog is to record my PD and to share ideas with my colleges. I am looking forward to adding future posts and making the most of this resource.
We collaborated on this document today to list all of our blog addresses and ideas on how to ensure we are using this tool effectively and regularly. Click here

My Second Labels Post