Ti Tiriti o Waitangi

 Yesterday Brenda McPherson  Came to chat with us about Te Tiriti o Waitangi. She shared some valuable information about the origin and the implications of the Treaty. It was sad to hear how the Moari people were treated unfairly and what the implication was for them. It hit close to home for me, coming from an unfair system of appartheid. 

However, as Brenda emphasized, she did not share the information with us to make us feel heavy-hearted but to highlight the reality and the role we as teachers play in the way moving forward from here, especially as the Ministry of Education is not acting on this. 

The question that was left with me to ponder on was, what was I going to change or do next year, to uplift and build our Maori students. 

Our students have the right to enjoy their education, make progress and to achieve. Their culture should be respected and acknowledged as much as possible. 

So what am I going to do? 

I will start of with using the lovely Karakia that Brenda shared on her slide. 

Take the time to learn students names before they start 2021, and use the correct pronunciation. 

Use as many Te Reo words as possible during the day. I used Google Translate to look a few phrases that I often use up, however, I will need to check this with my Colleague Daniel.

Whakarongao mai - Listen

Enoho -sit

Etu - stand

Kanohi ki ahau - eyes on me

roto reo - inside voices

horoia o ringaringa - wash your hands

Further, I will continue to constantly link everything we do to our school values. And perhaps try to get some parents in to have a conversation with our class about building positive relationships and good work ethics. 

Incredibox Toolkit Term 4

 Slide presentation

Today I attended a Toolkit on Incredibox. It is an app that you can use to create background music. 

Here is my test drive where I added the background sounds to a slide animation of one of my students. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1obLEl7G3ONrW2f7m4SFlElfy6ATcrHwF/view?usp=sharing

Here is a screen castify of how it How It Works

Could I use this in class? Yes, although a lot of Cybersmart teaching needs to happen before the time. It's also important that a time limit is given and a specific task, as I can see that students can easily get "lost" in time on the application. It sure is fun and an interesting way to spice sharing up a little bit. 

Maths Discussion Forum (Assessment)

 Marie Hirst discussed the purpose of each assessment: 

JAM - Multi-strand - Non-standardised

GLOSS - Mental number strategies - results are subjective, but it creates lots of opportunities to talk to the students and hear what they are thinking. It was not designed as an end of year test. Non-standardised

IKAN - Timed test - trying to see if students know the facts or whether they are using strategy. Valuable as a formative assessment. You could scribe for students. Non-standardised

Lomas Test - Non-standardised

ARBS - Non-standardised

e-AsTTle - Standardised

PAT - Standardised

Additional information: 

GLOSS: Problems needs to be solved mentally, you could ask, can you do it in another way? You need to give the students time. If in doubt, continue with the interview to see if the students can cope. 

What if the strategy is right, but the answer is wrong? The expectation is that the answer should be right, you could give another example.  When students solve with an algorithm, ask them to solve it in a different way, or ask them to explain the algorithm. 

Do not use pen and paper accept if they got the answer right but struggles to explain how they got to the answer. ELL students might need a different test. 

Students need to practice Basic Facts. 

Modelling books could be digital. 

Number Talk (Jo Boaler) silent strategy practice. 

What stood out for me? 

It was really helpful to get an understanding of the purpose of each test and how to apply them. 

Next step: Developing using Number Talk in my class, looking into Jo Bouler's strategies. FIne tuning how I use the GLOSS as an assessment tool. Using ARBS as an assessment tool especially for strand. 

Leadership Coaching Workshop

 I had the privilege of attending a leadership coaching workshop with Roween Higgie and Tom Hullena. What stood out for me? 

The difference between mentoring and coaching, both powerful conversations for learning, but different. Each one has it's placed depending on the receiver. 

Growth Model Framework: 

Mentoring: Let's set up a goal for you. 

Coaching: Tell me about what's on top for you. What do you need to achieve? 

Mentoring: What is not going well? 

Coaching: If we think of a scale 1 - 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest, where do you think you are at towards this goal? What would it look like if you were at a 10? 

Mentoring: This is what you need to do. 

Coaching: What will you need to do to get this done? What steps can you take towards this goal? 

Mentoring: Speak to person X, they will tell you how to do it.  

Coaching: Who might you talk to? If I was a student in your class, how will I know what the goal is? 

Mentoring: I think this is a good place to start, this is the first step. 

Coaching: Looking at your options, are you going to focus on all three? What are you hoping to see when you are successful? 

Mentoring: You need to have this done by the end of the week. 

Coaching: We are meeting again in 3/4 weeks, you should have met the goal by then. I'm looking forward to hearing about your success. 

When setting up a goal, use the following framework: 

By ______________________________________

I am / have ________________________________

so that ____________________________________

e.g. By the end of week 3, I have a clear Maths planning sheet where I plan for number knowledge, group work, follow-up activities and problem-solving opportunities so that my students will get better at using different strategies to solve problems independently. 

Always remember that goals should be ISMART: Inspiring, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. 

Feedback Framework: 

Something else I found really helpful and would like to use as soon as I have the opportunity is the Feedback Framework. 

What I value in the work you do... _____________________

And it would be even better if... _______________________

Because/9or) so that... _______________________________

How do you see it? __________________________________

e.g. What I value in the work you do is that you do a great job on the facilitation and presentation of your course,  and it would be even better if you complete the paperwork and follow-up after the workshops, that will ensure our admin is accurate. How do you see it? 

Concern-based Feedback:

And finally, the concern-based framework. You will use this to address a persistent problem. E.g. I've noticed during Maths you are using mass-produced worksheets as the follow-up activities, the expectation at our school is that our students get opportunities to practice and apply their learning. How do you see it? 

This workshop was amazing, I learned so much, especially as it was all new learning for me. I'm hoping to practice this on a regular basis before I actually have to use it in a real-life situation. My next step will be to practice using it in a safe zone like my daughter or husband. Getting used to the framework and flow of the conversations. Then practice using it in our leadership team. I will ask Michelle or Gretchen to support me through this. 

Maths in class

After our GLOSS testing, I felt disappointed in the results. I felt like I let my student down, perhaps as I was so focussed on developing a great writing programme. So I used my time during lockdown to investigate how I can improve my teaching in order to accelerate their learning. 

The first thing I did was to get a good overview of what is expected to move students from levels 4 - 7. And having NZ video examples to link with each curriculum progression. 

ADD/SUB strategies progressions

Our year 4/5/6 team had a Google Meet and discussed a recipe that we all should have in order to ensure maximum learning taking place, especially as we have missed a lot of days of school due to COVID. 

This is what we decided: 

1. Start with 5 - 10min Number knowledge quiz or game

2. Strategy/concept teaching

3. Mon-Wed time for students to practice the strategies they learned in the group. 

4. Thurs - Fri Problem Solving questions where students get the opportunity to use any strategy to solve the problem, focussing on them explaining why they chose the specific strategy. 

5. Time to reflect on their learning.

Gretchen (Subject Lead) then collated a document with Maths Teaching Expectations  In this document she mentioned Number Talk. 

I investigated this and what this means. Gretchen shared with me more documents around Number Talk.

Number Talks: Crowd-Sourced Doc

Number Talk 

So what I want to add to my above mentioned "recipe" is to add a 5 - 10min number talk 3 times a week. 

Further, I re-looked at my Maths planning and setting it up in a clear way so that I can see in a glance what I planned, and that I don't try to thumb suck examples. 

What I'm hoping to see is more engagement of my students, using a variety of strategies to solve problems, and them being able to verbally explain why they chose a strategy and how they used it. 

Online Toolkit with Mark Maddren - Creative Collage for Descriptive Writing

Helpful for kids that are not engaged in writing. Also helpful to teach digital skills such as cropping and masking. 

This is what it looks like: 

All images in EXPLORE is free to use. To change the shape of an image click on crop and then the shape you like. The order in which you stack the images is important. Arrange, order, send to the back... Because of layering, it is important that students think through what they want to be at the background, start with those images, and work their way to the images that should be in the front. 

My attempt: 

Hahaha, this was done in about 6 - 8 minutes. So not very well thought through, however, it was fun doing it. This could now lead to a descriptive writing piece or many other writing possibilities. 

I am definitely going to use this in week 1. I think the students will love this. 

Middle Management Course - Courageous Conversations

During my last middle management course, I came to the understanding that having agency is not only for students but also for teachers. Giving staff agency is the step towards empowerment which is powerful. 

Our team at school should be integrated, and have a shared understanding of what our school culture involves. We must always think of how we can engage everybody, but sometimes, when staff is non-compliant, or un-corporative, we as leaders, should draw a line in the sand, especially when it affects the students. After you have done the loop a few times of requesting, support, checking in, requesting, support, checking in etc, and things are not improving, escalate to management. 

Leading has lots of inconsistencies. Therefore we should be as restorative as possible, but if you reach the line in the sand - pull the plug. 

As part of leadership is being punitive. When you pick up the stick of leadership, you also take on the accountability that goes with it. 

Then it's time for courageous conversations. However, always take into account how it will affect their livelihood, catch yourself if the stakes are too high. 

PREPARE FOR YOUR CONVERSATION: 

Always write it down: 

1. State the issue e.g. David consistently not coming to class on time. 

2. Express your concerns - say how you feel - e.g. ....keeps me up at night...

3. Ask for others viewpoint and how they see the situation. e.g. This is my view...what do I have right or wrong - your view. 

4. Use the ladder of inference to seek clarification. e.g. let's get clarification (go through each step).

5. Use active listening placement (paraphrase) and reflective questioning. Pick about 3 or 4 up front. e.g. This is how I see it...

6. Acknowledge what you both now know as a result of your korero

..... have I missed anything. 

7. Develop a plan of action. Constructed process. 

8. Follow up and follow through...be diligent. 

9. Keep close attention to the timing of actions around nr (8). Look at what you are requesting, it should be doable. 

10. Have data at hand to work from. Tip: Write in a diary. Use invitational language as much as possible w.r.t the above. Consistency leads to integrity and credibility. Consider collegial or other supports as necessary (both them and you). Ensure the plan is documented, signed off and achievable. Act quickly at post planning, however, be mindful of natural justice.  Document, document, document!

Try to avoid sh...t sandwich technique. Don't flower it up. This will give the wrong message on how important the issue is. 

So what: 

I found this workshop extreamly informative. Although I realise that there will certainly be lots of times that I will have to have a courageous conversation with a colleague in my career, I am hoping that it will not be needed often. 

ESOL Strategies Rm 1

I have had the opportunity to introduce some ESOL strategies in Room 1. Our first strategy was Running Dictation which is a listening and speaking strategy. Especially good for practising new vocabulary, spelling or even phrases. The students really enjoyed it and everybody participated. In our initial trial, we used adjectives to enhance their writing.

When playing it the second time, I realised that this game might be a bit hard for students with dyslexia and/or reading impairments. Therefore it will be good if the teacher stands close to the words and supports students that have reading difficulties, by doing this, it includes them in the game and set them up for success.

The second strategy I introduced was Say It which is a speaking strategy. The students work in small groups and get a chance to ask a question to anybody of their choice in the group. The person answers the question, they can then choose the question he/she wants to ask next and to whom. In this way, they can read a question that they already heard or a new question. I chose the topic of kindness to make the really low in context while introducing the game. The students enjoyed it and all participated eagerly.

The next activity that I introduced was Think, Pair, Share. 

This is a quick easy activity to use during any discussions to encourage sharing ideas and listening to your buddy. Students had to think for a minute before discussing it with their buddy and then shared what their buddy said. It was interesting to see who was able to report back on what their buddy said.

The last activity for this term was Shared Dictation. In this activity, two students sit back to back, each person gets a few sentences and takes turns to dictate to the other. They have to mention where the punctuation has to go. If they get stuck on a word, their partner can spell it out. I was good to see everybody participating in and completing the task.

I am looking forward to seeing these strategies used in room 1 and to see if it supports acceleration in writing. 

TLIF observation Term 2 2020

Sam and I had our TLIF observation this week. My lesson was successful as the students managed to answer the big question after a dialogue on whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable.

What I managed to do:
- Introduced Talanoa at the start of the lesson.
- Provide cue cards for student talk moves.
- Used wait time to give students the opportunity to share their thoughts.
- Used non-verbal cues to remind students to use Talanoa.
- Also asked students to respond in non-verbal ways (thumbs up or down) to determine their stand on a question.

What the students did:
- Some students spoke up by saying, " Can you say that a bit louder as I can't hear, please".
- More dialogue between students. The most interactions before I had to speak were between 3 students.
- Students used the talk moves a few times (but lots of room for improvement).

What next:
- Increase wait time even more.
- Extend dialogue by deepening their thinking. (Refer to page 91 of the Classroom Talk textbook).
- Use more pedagogy strategies so that students can practice talking to each other.
- Bump up the context to make room for deeper conversations.

Teaching with a difference.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at how we will do things different after lockdown. One of the promises I made was to move away from boring. So I tried one of the lessons from Te Rito Toi.

With Gretchen's support, we started off really easy games that introduce freeze frames and being creative. Then we started the L3 lesson plan for regulating Robot which teaches students the value of self-regulating. 

Initially, the students were a bit sceptic, a few sat out on the outer skirts of the class as they were uncomfortable with the unknown, however, later they started joining in. And today, after 6 days of doing drama, all students but 1 participated. 

The shifts I noticed was the students were more relaxed after the activities, the class was a bit noisy while doing the activities, however, when I counted down and said freeze they froze beautifully. The topic was of great interest to the students and they enjoyed working in design teams to design robots. They were capable of a lot more than I anticipated. The topic leads itself perfectly into reading and writing. Their listening and dialogue skills have improved tremendously. I am looking forward to seeing if they carry this through to our science discussions. 

Video Clip of the first lesson, where they were acting out a story that we read called No, David, No! One person had to act out the wrong thing they were doing, and the other person had to say No, David, No!. 

I really enjoyed teaching drama and this unit just confirmed the importance of making learning fun and engaging in order to lift the reading and writing standards. Now I am looking forward to seeing their designs and writing on the topic of robots. 

Returning after Lock Down

Lockdown - wow, what a journey. We had to learn so quickly, adapt and adjust.
There were positives and negatives to online learning. But what is certain, is that we now have the opportunity to hit the reset button. Reflect on what worked or didn't work in Term 1 and once again adjust to make it better.

My commitment to the way forward is:
Working more collaboratively with my Class Colleague and team. Developing workshops that cater for the whole class, not just a group of students. Teach to the gaps in their learning. Trust students more to choose what they want to do and in which order. Allow room for creativity. Giving students more choice about the way they want to present their work. E.g.

What I am dropping: 

Working in silo's, expecting a specific outcome, trying to control when they do the work and of course,  getting rid of boring. 

The Literacy Place - Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsy Online Webinar

This is just what I needed, a reminder of all the amazing activities there are to encourage students to engage in their literacy.
We zoomed through some ideas of how to use retelling to support comprehension, oral language and support writing.

What is important is quality over quantity. <=>
Work should be engaging - scaffolded - and feedback given.

In a balanced reading programme you will have:
Modelled Reading (I do)
Shared Reading (We do)
Modelled Reading (We do)
Guided Reading (You do)

These approaches are not linear and should be short in focussed time.

Reading is also divided into 3 groups: Reading for pleasure, reading to support writing and reading to learn.

For writing, there are 3 categories: Mini-Lessons, quick writing and writing lessons.

The Literacy Place
On this website, there are numerous resources and lesson plans. Including ideas around how to support oral language.
Ideas that I really liked and want to try are:
Prompt strips
Ice-block sticks (writing sentences from a story and students have to order them)
Retelling squares (Beginning, middle and end)
Pizza retell
Story Boards
Story Maps
3D Story maps
Map it - quick writing
Call a friend
Talking strip
Story making frames
visual summary
Senses summary
Sequence map.

These activities will especially be helpful with my students that are struggling with writing. It is crucial that I do oral language activities to support their writing, as learned in ALL and TESSOL. Looking forward to introducing some of these activities when we go back to school.

Te Whai Toi Tangata Workshop2

During our workshop last week we looked at different models to implement change under the heading of "Leading, enabling, managing sustainable change".
Leading - your dispositions and actions
Enabling - whether you embrace it or co-create
Managing - managing it - get to grow it
Sustainable - how to keep it sustained.

Different models we looked at are:
Stairway of successful innovations: in this model, it is key to focus on the initial 3 key ideas. If one is missing, the model has the potential to fail.

The implementation Dip: Where initiatives have their own life cycle.

Innovation Adoption Life Cycle: In the model, it is important that you get an understanding of people and where they fit. Get data. Eventually, it becomes too uncomfortable to be on the "wrong" side of the curve and shifts will happen. 

The Process of Transitions: In this model, you get an understanding of what demotivates people.

The model that I am most familiar with is The Process Of Transitions = the learning pit. It was good to see why people opt out of change and why it is important to understand the people you are working with and which model will suit your school the best.

A fantastic resource to invest in is Learning Talk by Joan Dalton. 

T-Shape Literacy PLD

I had the privilege of attending a workshop with Dr Aaron around T-Shape Literacy. This blog entry is a little long, but there was so much for me to take from this workshop, that I really wanted to type it up for future reference.

The workshop was built around a better understanding of how text can support students going deeper into their learning by providing a wide range of text. I really appreciate the explanations around the different text types, for example, what scaffolding text, complimentary text, challenging text and student text means. The part that I would like to get better at is the student text. I don't give my students the opportunity to choose the text on a topic and could really start having more focussed library lessons where they have a task to find information on a specific topic.

When then dug deeper into topics such as how we can teach aspects of literacy such as, "How do authors create a mood?". Lots of references were made to multi-model and finding text that has good examples of these.

After having all the text types and digging into the texts, you could prompt writing starting with provocative statements or questions e.g. zoos should be banned, is online learning the way to go?, the media always portray Papakura in a bad light. etc.

In order to be successful and giving students the opportunity to excel, we should increase their critical thinking about bigger issues, have more connection on topics that they have prior knowledge on, have more conversations that are authentic and relates to the text, bring creativity to the fore whether it is acting or a DLO, and finally, teach cognitive strategies e.g. skimming and scanning.

So where or how do we start?
1. Choose a topic and write provocations or a big question down.
2. Identify valued learning outcomes.
3. Think about the summative assessment & success criteria for VLO's (Valued Learning OUtcomes).
4. Curate text sets.
5. Engage with individual text.
6. Bring it all together.

Use as much local and relevant text as possible.
Think of ways that you can support students in "magpie-ing" new words as they engage in the text. (Hear, see, write, understand).

A typical vital lesson will be:
1. Create interest, enthusiasm and give a purpose.
2. Activate their prior knowledge and begin to build necessary background knowledge.
3. Introduce some key vocab.
4. Use Scaffolding text here (which is the first text introduced in a T-Shape literacy lesson).

Ideas to help with the introductions to the scaffolding text is:
- Create an anticipatory guide - what you thought about characters before you read the text and then after you read the text.
- Create a concept star where you can brainstorm text topics and find out what they know about the topic including if they know about any myths linked to it.
- Vocab jumble where students get a table of words has a few minutes to study it and then have to cover and write down as many as they can remember.
- Traffic light activity where the students highlight words according to the traffic light colours. Green: I am confident and know the words. Orange: These are words I have seen before, but are a little unsure about their meaning. Red: Words that are completely new to me.
- Writing frames: (this activity was quite fun to do).

We had to think of a very special place in our mind.
Write the following down:
- an emotion that comes up in your mind when you think of this place.
- place - where it is.
- a way of walking, how would you walk/run to this place (Adverbs)
- Colour - what colour jumps to your mind when you think of this place
- sound - what sound do you hear when you think of this place
- smell - what smell reminds you of this place
- Time of day
- what's the weather like there

Now use this information and complete the writing frame:

It was ... (time of day) when I walked .... (adverb) to the .... (place)/ It was a ... (weather) day. The sunglasses I was wearing made everything look .... (colour). There was a strong smell of ....(Smell). In the distance, I heard ...(Sound).

So what:
I really want to think more critically about the text I choose and focus on the first lesson to and how I can introduce new vocab. I will revisit this page often and try new things. The traffic light and writing frame activities grabbed my attention and I am sure the students will love using them.

Matific Online training

I had my first online training for Matific today and found it helpful.
What stood out for me was how you can use Classcast to show students what to do. When you use Classcast, it shares your screen with all the students in that group and gives you the opportunity to explain or demonstrate how something works.

Also, there are lesson plans available for teachers and you can print booklets of the selected activities. This will be very helpful tomorrow when I print hard packs for students at home. 

I want to start using certificates to encourage more participation. 

Tuhi MAi Tuhi Atu Teacher Meet: Wednesday April 1st

Wed we had our first Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu conference call. It was a short but powerful catch up with lots of good ideas and examples. Slide
What I took from this meeting was to develop a little commenting challenge for our class in order to get students connected. I downloaded Grid view for Google Meeting in order to see a few students at one time when having conferences in term 2.
I also gained a few ideas from this link about what makes an eye-catching blog post.

Dialogue

Where am I with developing dialogic teaching in my classroom? How well do I think I am at getting my students to do the "heavy" lifting of classroom talk? 
I have made a start with teaching dialogue last term. I am at the beginning stages of getting my students to do the heavy lifting.

PLD with Susan:
What stood out for me:
The order of introducing things - start with unpacking Talanoa, then Talk Moves and lastly Discussion Rules.
Be very explicit when teaching above mentioned. Make learning visible with posters, on tables, digital etc.
IRE is good for revision but we are moving away from it as we want to empower the students to take the lead in their learning. Talk moves help learning and has been proven in research as the best way to accelerate students learning.

Teach your students that when participating in talk activities, it is a safe zone, everybody is listened to and everybody's opinions count. Students should feel like they are heard and there is no right or wrong answer. When we ask questions, we are challenging the idea, not the person.

It is important to introduce your goal at the start or the lesson. Just state it. No need to get to the goal through questions.

To encourage everybody to participate, you could have talk chips (2), and you are only allowed to talk if you pay a chip. Or you have a sticky note with your name on, give yourself a tick when you participated. Teachers take these sticky notes in to make it valuable.

Another cool idea is that while early finishers are finished reading their text and waiting for the others to finish, they can write questions about the text on a whiteboard to ask the rest of the group when everybody is finished.

What are my goals for this term? 
Introducing Talanoa - teaching each aspect of it in short powerful lessons.
Focussing on easy strategies such as Think, Pair, Share.
Try and use as many of the interactive pedagogical strategies as possible to create opportunities

PES Data meeting

Today we had the opportunity to look at our recent assessment data. Michelle showed us how to navigate on NZCER and the different reports we can look at. I found this really helpful, especially looking at where the gaps are for each year level compared to the norm.

Maths:
Year 6 Gaps: Fractions, measurement, frequency, statistics
Year 5 Gaps: Statistics, Time, Measurement, Multiplication
Year 4 Gaps: Measurement, money, calendar, probability, equal sharing, fractions.

So what:
My next steps will be:
- Identify target students and really focus on the gaps identified.
- Teach strand in context, using a lot of materials.
- Look at the classroom on air teachers for examples of how students can practice their maths digitally.
- When students are with the teacher, they should be getting new learning.
- Look at ALL the NZ Numeracy development project books. 
- Rethink my planning for Maths. Do an inquiry on different ways that students can demonstrate their understanding of their maths.
- Don't teach what the students can already do.

Reading:
Looking at our reading comprehension data, I noticed that our students struggle with inferencing especially in small parts of a text.

So we identified target students:
Maths: Student I is at EL2 (Early Level 2) and needs to be at EL3.
Reading: Student N is at PTEL3 and needs to be at L3.
Writing: Student K is at PTL2 and needs to be at EL3,

So what:
- Collect data for target students.
- Plan according to gap analysis for the next 3 weeks.
- Keep track of the shifts they are making.

Why did I become a teacher?

This is the start of my journey to reinvestigate as to why I became a teacher. I could say it was because I wanted to work with kids, but although this might have some truth, it can't really be my why, because I could have then become a pediatrician, or a speech therapist. It's not for the salary, as we all know teachers salary is not great. It's not for the holidays, because most holidays I sit and prepare and plan for the next term. What is my WHY?

I don't know what drove me to become a teacher, but I'm hoping to backtrack my life as a teacher and find the point where I decided this is what I wanted to do. 

What is motivating me to go back to school every day, regardless of students being rude, despite me being tired and working long hours to prepare, despite my budget never working out...

This video brought tears to my eyes...why? Because it took one teacher to see the potential in a child, that other teachers deemed as naughty. This teacher gave this little boy a purpose to live and pointed him in a direction that made him famous. 

Is this my why? I don't know why this video touched my heartstrings, all I know is that I have always said that I want to mean something to somebody. 

Is this enough reason to be a teacher? My search will continue as I think it's a lot more complicated as that. I think there are many things in your life that contribute to the decisions you make. And just to say you like working with kids, does not seem to be a good enough reason. 

Enjoy the video.

Te Whai Toi Tangata Workshops

I have had the privilege to attend the Twilight Middle Leaders workshop presented by David Bradford. It was a full-on session with lots of practical ideas and 
guidance as to how to be a good leader. 

Here are some of the main points that stood out for me: 
- Allow people to talk - fairness is key. Don't share war stories. 
- If you go into a debate too soon, it is the loudest person that is heard first. 
- Start with dialogue, before discussion and/or debate. 
- The foundation for how we communicate is the school culture will influence
how we communicate. What are our shared understandings, the ways in which 
we engage e.g. giving the agenda out in advance. Riding the boundary - 
knowing when to do what - asking things like what is a priority - not just 
accepting things thrown at you. 
- Having a professional agency - where there are restorative practices and difficult
conversations. 
If colleagues are not doing what they are asked, start a conversation like this e.g.
"We've had this conversation before..." I have to ensure that I have my dates and 
data aligned, and have my facts straight. Work through the issue. If you don't, 
come to an agreement, shake hands and park things. 

This linked in with my initial appraisal meeting. My goals as a leader this year is to 
have a bank of tools so that I can make informed decisions about the best course of
action. 

So what:
I have to filter when colleagues ask me for help, is this something they can solve themselves, or is it something I need to help them with.
Research tools and put them to practice. Test and try.
Learn to prioritize in order to make deadlines.

TLIF Planning Day

This week I had the opportunity to spend a day playing for my term 1 science lessons. It was good to do it with Sam that is new to TLIF, as I was explaining things to him, I felt like I was gaining a better understanding as well.

Up until now, I have done short quick lessons using Explorify, but focussing on Talanaoa, especially listening part to each. Some students are great at sharing their ideas, but they are not so great at listening to others ideas. My concern is my ESOL students that are finding this really hard. What I need to remember is to say to them that they are allowed to speak in their mother tongue.

The first few times I tried Think, Pair, Share where my students had to share what their buddy said. I noticed that they struggled to remember what their buddy said or talked about. So then I tried the Think, Write Share strategy and that went a lot better. It seems that having to write things down made them listen better and ask their buddies to repeat if they could not remember what to write.

So I wanted to build on that. I am still keeping the content of the lessons low and fun, but trying to gradually increase the dialogue strategies. This term I would like to continue with my teacher goal being Time to think and also introduce Say more. I ensured that I wrote my talk moves in my planning so that I can look at it during my lessons.
My Lesson Plan

I am looking forward to next week when I will teach these lessons.

Kootuitui Staffmeeting Feb 2020

Today we looked at the RATE model.
R - recognise
A - Amplify
T - Turbocharge
E - Effective Practice

R representing us and our resources that is available.
A representing what we can use to amplify our teaching for e.g. Youtube, National Library etc.
T representing turbocharge where your level of interaction for the students increase.

We looked at possibilities available on a specific topic.

I have a better understanding of the RATE model and will use it in my planning around topics for especially science.

Signs and indicators of abuse & Seesaw

Today during our PLD, Heidi from IOSIS shared some information on what the signs and indicators of abuse are. We dissected the signs or patterns for different abuses. The signs may include physical signs, behavioural concerns, developmental delays, changes or signs, the child talking about things that may indicate abuse and the family environment.

Our job as teachers are predominantly to report to management of we are concerned about a child. We are the eye and ears on the ground. We could rather flag something and it turns out to be nothing, than keeping quiet. Our first priority is the children's wellbeing and safety.

The part that stood out for me was the guidelines for response. There are some basic things you say when a child discloses to you. Believe what they say, say I am glad they told me, say I'm sorry it happened, let them know it's not their fault and let them know I will help.
Never ask questions, don't say it will be okay, don't make any promises and keep a poker face. 

Take note: If a child refuses to chat out of fear that you will tell somebody, you know something is wrong and should flag it with management.

The second part of our day we looked at Seesaw which I feel pretty confident about. Looking forward to trying it out in the senior classes.

So what:
It was good to get a better understanding of the SWISS processes and the role and responsibilities. And it was good to hear that there are people working behind the scenes helping students in need.

I have a better understanding of the signs of abuse/neglect and will make notes if I am concerned about a child, keeping track of specific incidents and dates it happened.

PB4L PLD

Today we had the privilege of catching up with Karen. We focussed on the 3 'R's" of PB4L. Ratio, Routine and Relationships.

Relationships:
It is crucial that we take the time to build relationships at the start of the year. Steer away from questions that might be simple to us as teachers but might be really hard for students e.g. how many brothers and sisters do you have. When doing an "all about me" activity, focus on questions about school and what their goals might be. Look at the 2/10 Strategy of the PB4L booklet (page 20). Connect with focus students for 2min daily for 10 consecutive working days.

Routine:
In routine there is safety. Ensure a clear easy routine to eliminate anxiety. Think of little things that you want to instil in your class and feed it in without students realising it e.g. I really liked how you walked in with whispering feet. Do you all know what whispering feet are? What it looks like?

Ratio:
For every 1 incorrect behaviour, there should be 4 corrective behaviours. Concentrate on this as it is really powerful. Do not shout or yell, there is no value in it. Smile and boost the positives. If a new skill that is taught work on a ratio of 1:7. It can taper off as it gets generalised. Always remember to have an element of fun in your teaching.

So what does this mean for me? 
- I am going to sit down with Shalen and we will decide what our expectations for our class will be to ensure we are on the same page.
- Start working on our class matrix from day 1.
- Ensure our matrixes are visible in the class at the applicable spaces.
- Ensure my ratio is high when I introduce new skills. Referring back to them as much as I can.
- Use the right language as set out in our Matrix which was decided by our students.
- I will make the time throughout each school day to connect with my students and build a strong relationship.
- Something I am not very good at but has done before is to phone home with positives. I am good at chatting about it when I speak face to face to the parents, but there are students being left out as I never see their parents. I really do want to try and improve on this.

Here we go 2020!