Thursday 11 February 2016

Connecting with the Community

Tonight was "Meet The Teacher" night so I was feeling a bit nervous as I would be presenting to parents at two sessions.  Luckily I was presenting as part of a group and the team were awesome at setting me up for success with the information that I was presenting.

We had a pretty impressive turn out, especially in the second session and it was great to have dialogues with individual families as they moved around the hub.  I think part of my nervousness was down to my perception that I am a beginning teacher and I may have not the appropriate experience to answer queries at this stage.  However the majority of the questions that came my way was more about who I am as an individual, my background and how am I connecting with the learners and the school.

Our families have a huge amount of pride in the school and it was evident to see when they spoke of their child's achievements so far.  It was also beneficial for me to listen to some of the questions that came from families in relation to the use of devices in the learning spaces.  There is some natural concern that the devices will be the focus while the students are in the classroom so I need to be conscious to remind myself that it is another tool in the space and how it complements my pedagogy.


It was really awesome to see that families stayed afterwards to enjoy a picnic as well as the waterslide (very popular and the kids were so patient while waiting in line!) and other games and activities we had put out for everyone.

While it was a long day, I was glad that I was able to make these connections with the community and look forward to growing them during my time at the school.

2 comments:

  1. I love this part Heath - " I need to be conscious to remind myself that it is another tool in the space and how it complements my pedagogy". Sometimes we get a bit overzealous with technology and forget it is just another tool, to join the many tools we already have. Thanks for the reminder! :)

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    1. No worries, I think it was very timely as we move quickly into our digital immersion days to think about how we can use the technology to bolster our practice. I can imagine our cohort will have some great discussions over the next couple of years :)

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