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.

Show Me Your Understanding - Update

I have been fortunate enough to pick up some time with our Agency team where I spend time observing another teacher's lessons to see how they are promoting agency within their practice.  Based on discussions had so far, I realised that I have been promoting aspects of agency within my numeracy programme based on the initial hunch I had earlier this year about the learners I am teaching.  Student agency is something that I have been wanting to investigate more due to moving to a different year level so I am grateful for the opportunity to spend this term doing so.

Reflection:
I have always given learners the opportunity to reflect in various formats however I noticed that this year I needed to dedicate specific time each session for learners to reflect on their learning.  I updated my modelling books to add in a slide like the one below where I ask the learners to reflect on what part of the learning pit they found themselves in during the session.

This is the basis that the learners to use and I found that it reflects the concept of the knowledge action gap that I heard about when attending the NZAI presentations earlier this year.  Each session learners have the choice to upload in SchoolTalk an element of evidence on that session.  Historically learners have seen this as completed work however I have been encouraging them to upload learning that they are still completing or reflections on how they have been finding the learning.  This is great as I am getting snapshots on all the groups thoughts.  Here are some examples of how the kids have been reflecting:

This has been going for a few weeks now so now the next steps is to build the kids confidence in the articulation of what specific elements of the learning that they are having issues with so I can tailor learning to help them with those.  I am still modelling thinkalouds to boost discussion and reflection in the moment so they feel confident to discuss at any part of the lesson.

Looking ahead:
I have had some conversations with the kids and their whanau about anxiety in maths.  When we discuss where this may come from, a lot of the conversations come back to some of the kids feeling surprised when we start a new unit of learning.  While at Claremont, I saw a wall display where the teachers encouraged questions from their learners on the next week's learning.  They will display both the learning goals or main objectives for the next week as well as resources for the kids to help them to make meaning of the topic.

As the kids love Padlet, I chose to create a digital format of this display which looks like this example:

After asking questions on the learning goals, I give the kids the option to book into a workshop based on their confidence in this topic.  So far the kids have really enjoyed this weekly part of our learning as they are coming to the relevant workshop with a lot more confidence and the questions they ask help me tailor the learning to any specific knowledge gaps.

Next Steps:

So how has this focus on communication impacted on the kids understanding?  I did some analysis based on the learners' Gloss assessments from Term 4 2017 to Term 2 2018 and for the majority, they have made shift in at least one element of this assessment (green). 

Looking forward to working with these kids for the remainder of the year!  We have moved into a strand focus with looking at elements of geometry and algebra which is new to both the kids and me so I am enjoying learning alongside this group of kids as we continue to communicate with each other about our numeracy.

How to teach spelling like a pirate?

Roll on Term 3 and Hub Whenua are already into assessments with our mid year snapshot of learners spelling ability.

The learners who I am supporting with their writing have come such a long way with their spelling as detailed in this graph where I compared their result at the beginning of the year to what they were able to achieve this week.

This success has come from the learners being determined, fantastic support from whanau and the inclusion of spelling into my practice each week.  However while these results are fantastic, I am not seeing the transition of this confidence with vocabulary when the learners are crafting their writing.

This has got me thinking about how I can redefine the spelling component of my practice.  How can I turn something that has the potential to become 'boring' and 'repetitive' into something that learners want to engage with and can make links with while writing.

I am currently reading "Teach Like A Pirate" by Dave Burgess and one of the first areas of passion that he writes about is content.  While I consider myself to be a confident speller, I really need to up my game with knowledge to be able to confidently pass these skills onto learners.  I am fortunate to have worked with our PE specialist Rachel and she has introduced me to activities to help develop confidence with spelling but I feel that I need to continue to explore this area too so I have a kete of resources to use.

Stay tuned - this pirates spelling ship is just setting sail!  Always grateful for ideas or insight into others spelling programmes.

Term Two Reflection and Next Steps for Term Three

As I have already reflected on my practice in relation to the learning areas of reading, writing and numeracy - this reflection will look more at how I have been building relationships with the learners this term and outlining some small personal goals I have for the next term.

Our Term Two concept was "Being My Best Self" that linked with our schools vision for wellbeing but we also chose to expose learners to the concept of hauora where we explored and investigated the different realms of wellbeing.  This term I felt that we had more learners open up and discuss who they were as a whole person because we gave them the opportunity to both explore and express these facts.  Another great initiative we created in the hub is the daily affirmations at the end of the day where learners were able to share when they noticed someone else in the hub being their best self.  This experience showed me that this concept learning had heightened everyone's knowledge about one another so it was great to hear when a learner who historically may have been distracted in numeracy learning be nominated for being extra determined with their learning for the day.  We found that learners were not nominating their friends and the sheer look of joy or surprise when someone heard their name being called out meant that we were all leaving the day on a positive note.

I asked my Guardian Group for some feedback at the end of the term about how they had been enjoying our time as a group and here are the responses.  The fact that the majority of the group put down that they enjoy "Fun Day Friday" means that the time that we are spending as a group is well worth it - this is where the group have the challenge on Friday to make me laugh when we are doing the roll.  These are moments where I see learners that are usually reserved really open up and I have a few masters of the worm who like to bust it out.  While it was nice to get some affirmations in the "What would I like Mr Lewzey to know about me?" section, my eyes went more to the responses like "nothing" and I have massive respect for the learner who called me out on not pronoucing their name correct all the time.  So I still have a long way to go with some of my group, however while this survey was anonymous, I have a good idea about which ones I need to continue to build relationships with.

Here is when my Star Wars fanatics wanted to do the roll on May 4th:

However that is only 22 of the 70 learners in our hub that I interact with and there are still learners in the hub that while I feel I have a good understanding of, I need to keep on trying.  We have done some regrouping for Term Three so this means that I will be working with some learners that I have not had the opportunity to work with this year so far so I am looking forward to building those relationships.

In regards to relationships with all hub learners, we check in with the learners each term to see if they have a significant adult at school and more so in the hub.  Here are the results from when we asked the learners this term:

My eyes go direct to the nine learners who do not feel confident to talk to any of the teachers in the space, whether they have a problem or would like to share something.  Learners have the chance to acknowledge other teachers within the school, however looking at the data, these learners have indicated that they do not have anyone and coming into half way through the school year, this is something that we as a hub team need to address quickly so we have tagged ourselves to particular learners and will discuss with their families next term to see if we can get some more insight into this.

I still watch this video when I am feeling a bit down about my practice as it helps me remember a key component of my beliefs as a teacher: everyone needs somebody who believes in them.

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.

Stop, Collaborate and Listen...

You may ask why am I starting this post with the lyrics from a one hit wonder created by Robert Matthew Van Winkle in 1990.  In response, I would mention that these three actions were a huge focus for last week as I came into school to prepare for the first week of term.

Trepidation is a word which I do not use enough, however, that was the emotion fuelling me for majority of the week.  The beginning of the week was spent engaging with my hub team as we prepared the learning spaces and began to work out schedules, numeracy and literacy groups and general housekeeping for the term.  I am fortunate to be working with four other experienced teachers in the hub and this has helped me feel more comfortable as a beginning teacher as they are extremely patient and helpful with all my questions so far.  Arranging the space is somewhat of a blank canvas at this stage as both it and us as teachers need to be reactive to the needs of the learners so there will be a large amount of observation this year.  These two days also gave me great insight into my team and how we work both as individuals and collectively - I am one of those type personalities who enjoys collaboration and the bringing together of different perspectives.


This is a great sedge way into the beginning of the "Teachers Only Days" which kicked off on Wednesday.  We were very fortunate to have Nicky Benson come and facilitate a workshop on building Resilience.  This is where the "stop" part of the title comes in as the main focus from the workshop was building the self awareness so we could focus on managing our own energy - finding those activities, be it physical, emotional, mental or spiritual and using these to refuel our tanks.  We also did some work with communication styles and how this can influence the way in which we interact with others and how to build this awareness into daily life.

The afternoon session moved into collaboration which bled over to Thursday with an Amazing Race event.  I found this a great way to bond and connect with people I have had yet to meet or interact with.  Our locations had us doing challenges around various Auckland landmarks before heading to Ngā Wai o Horotiu Marae where we were welcomed onto the marae and this was our base of operations for the remainder of the day.

We were again fortunate to have another presenter come and present to us - Ann Milne from Kia Aroha College in Otara - where she presented "Leading and Learning in White Spaces: Critical Pedagogy of Whānau", where she showed us the journey of her school and challenged us on our perspective of what does success "as Maori" look like.  I found this presentation very thought provoking and have a lot more that I want to unpack in this space.

After a bit of down time (the Amazing Race had challenged a few of us a bit too much), we were able to watch "Most Likely To Succeed".  The leadership team had chosen this documentary as a way for us to start to dig into one of the strategic goals of "What Learning Matters".  I personally recommend anyone who is working in the education field to watch this as it does make you think (it also made a few of us cry) about what does education really look like.  I particularly enjoyed it as it has given me the confidence to challenge some of the norms that I had perceived around teaching.  I have a feeling that reflecting through blogging will also help me start to articulate some of these challenges more and I look forward to this as I move forward.

After dinner, we practised some waiatas and it was great to see that all the staff members had held onto their energy as this was clear especially when there was a bit of competition on who could sing them better.  We have been challenged to sing at an upcoming assembly to show our community our talents.  Before retiring for the night, there was some reflection on what has challenged us over the last couple of days and I feel that as a whole, there is a real trust between the team as the reflections were very authentic.  It also allowed me to realise that I am fortunate to be part of a high performing team.

Friday morning arrived and after the comparisons of how much sleep you actually got or how many mosquitoes had feasted on you the previous night, we returned to school to finish the last of our professional learning where we got to analyse our graduate learner profiles to see if we are staying true to what really matters for our learners futures.  I do not think the leadership team intended for us to finish this, rather have it as an active challenge as we move into term one to really identify with how and what we are teaching and if it is staying true to the values of the school as well as the changing needs of our learners.

So how was I at the end of this week?  I was pretty tired - not physically (even with the lack of sleep of Thursday night), but more emotionally as some of the activities has challenged my current perception of how I will operate coming into the school year.