Term 1, Week 8 - A Bit Late!

Focus #1 - continue to work on the work-life balance

Focus #2 - grow my own passion for literacy

Focus #3 - grow my practice in numeracy

Focus #4 - building my practice in a traditional space

How’s this week been?

I am slowly getting into a routine with the workload with working to 5pm three nights a week so I can head straight to the gym afterwards.  I am finding that this time helps me finish any jobs after school as well as get organised for the next day.  This also means that I am getting around 3 decent sessions at the gym before going home.  I’m finding that this also means that I am not taking as much work home so once I get home, I do not have much to do in the evenings.

I have been using Goodreads to track my progress with reading books.  I am currently reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller which was her debut novel.  I had previously read Circe, her second novel which helped me remember all the Classical Studies I did at university.  I also found a Myth Atlas which I added to our class library and it has been great to see the kids show an interest in myths and legends.

Numeracy has been interesting - I have been doing some addition/subtraction diagnostics with the kids and moved into showing the kids some different strategies for this.  I have been showing them the reversibility of addition and subtraction as the majority of the kids are saying that they are confident with addition, however, struggle when it is subtraction.  We have been practising family of facts which I have been able to adapt for my four maths groups with the numbers used.  I need to explore resources in the Junior School as I have a student operating at Stage 1 of the New Zealand Maths Standards.  While challenging, I am excited to work at that level of maths as it will help me build an appreciation for the foundation of skills that all my class need to progress.

I have also noticed that I am doing a lot more whole class teaching which is something that I need to look at for Term 2.  The majority of this term has been the build-up of our expectations and routines in Room 13 however it is slowly becoming the default for most of my literacy and numeracy teaching so now that I am getting a better understanding of the kids and what they are capable of, I should be starting to differentiate based on their needs.

Teaching Highlights:

I was really proud of the kids this week as we had our first set of goal setting conferences with our whanau.  For all the kids, this was the first time that they did this and they handled it amazingly.  From previous experience, I noticed the majority of students tend to freeze in the moment so I thought I would keep this clear and simple of the kids by using a template.

The result was that all the goals presented were ones that I co-constructed with each student meaning that their voice was more present in the conference rather than me taking the lead.  The majority of the feedback was that the kids are enjoying being part of Room 13 and love coming to school so I was really happy to hear that.

The Next Chapter!

Kia ora whanau!  I have finally unlocked the blog for 2019, admittedly I had a few technical issues as I had forgotten to link my own Google account to this blog however I'm here now so let's get into what has been happening!

The major change this year is that I have moved schools and am currently teaching in a more traditional setting (ie, one teacher and a class of students).  This is more commonly known as a 'single cell' set up but this terminology has never sat well with me so you'll find me refer to it as traditional in relation to an ILE where I taught previously.  My main decision for moving schools was to experience this as my time at Stonefields meant that I only knew team teaching and I was not able to compare the two teaching experiences to help better inform my practice

Some things have remained the same - I am teaching a composite class of Year 3 and 4 (29 students) so my content knowledge from the last three years will help me as I work with my class with navigating Level 2 of the NZC.  While there is technology in the class, the ratio is 1:3 so one of the opportunities this year is how to maximise the affordances of technology as well as grow my practice as I learn to work with more of a balance with the digital resources I have at my disposal.

As it is a new year (yes I know it is Week 7), I wanted to let you know about what some of my focuses are for 2019.  I will look to update these as the year progresses.

Focus #1 - to work on the work/life balance.  Now that I'm in my fourth year, I want to really work on how much time I am spending with school and how am I ensuring that I am looking after myself.  I have started a new gym and am enjoying these sessions so I am using that as motivation to keep better hours at school.

Focus #2 - continue to grow my passion for literacy.  While I enjoy reading, I have found that lately that I have either been reading for school or university.  In the past I have called myself a reluctant writer however I do want to continue to develop my skill in writing and would like to make more time for that.

Focus #3 - grow my practice in teaching numeracy.  Our school focus for 2019 is to lift achievement in numeracy and I am keen to develop my practice as well as look for more opportunities to integrate numeracy into my programme rather than teaching it independently.

Focus #4 - reflect on how my overall teaching practice is operating within the traditional space.  Naturally, the first few weeks of Term 1 are used to get to know the kids and start to bring in the routines and expectations but now I am seeing that without other adults in the classroom, I need to ensure that I'm focusing on the consistency and transparency of my teaching style.  To help with this focus, I want to continue to read professionally as I feel a lot of my practice has come from observing colleagues in action and my luck and chance while I stumbled through my first few years of teaching.

Twitter has been great in me seeing how all my colleagues from Stonefields and Manaiakalani are starting up and focussing on for 2019 so it was great to see how Nicola was doing a weekly update and I liked the snapshot approach of her blog posts so I am going to endeavour to keep more regular updates.  Look forward to sharing more!