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 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.

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 .

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

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.

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.

Participating and Contributing

Parakuihi @ e te kura

Seven am start worth it great turn out yum yum can't wait to eat.

My Second Labels Post