My evidence of bicultural partnerships

GRIP student leadership conference

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the GRIP student leadership conference in Auckland with our DP and 12 of our newly appointed student council for 2016. The GRIP Student Leadership Conference is unique in that it concentrates specifically on training student leaders for their role as SCHOOL LEADERS. The style, topics, and content of this conference focused on what the students can do RIGHT NOW.

 The goal is that our student leaders would leave our conference with a clear vision, a solid understanding and dozens of ideas for their time as a leader. Many students assume that leadership is something that some people are chosen for and others miss out on. This presentation presented the view that everyone has the opportunity to lead in different situations and therefore everyone is on the journey of growing as a leader. Using the analogy of a growing tree, this sessions ensures that students are equipped to grow as a leader by establishing core values, combining with other leaders, contributing to others and continually learning. Leaders need to be continually reminded that leadership is not about themselves nor those in their closest circle. This sessions made our student leaders aware that all people are important and that they have the opportunity to positively influence younger students, their peers, teachers and the wider community. Activities during the sessions students were able to have discussions with other schools to share experiences and generate ideas together.

 The focus for this conference was around the four different ways to 'Stand up' and lead. Stand up when there is an opportunity, Stand up for what is right, Stand up for others, and Stand up for yourself.

These values are perfect for our leaders to look at and explore more during their time as leaders of our school, but I also can see me using these phrases and ideas within my class building sessions during Term 1, as our senior students are of course all leaders of our school during their time in our senior syndicate.

I was really proud of the way our students interacted and involved themselves in the different workshops, and with the students from the other schools, particularity the four students who are from Room 14.  Check out some of the photos from the day below:

Maori Lesson Observation

Today I had an observation on a Maori lesson by Lorelei.  Must say I was quite nervous!  Of all the subjects I teach, this one is the one I am the lest confident is teaching.  I have had a lot of fun teaching the focuses we have had at Vardon, and this term the focus is on movement.  The structures and ideas that have been provided by the Maori team have been so supportive and have given been a lot more confidence in attempting teaching Maori.  And my class just loves it, they really get into the activities that we do together.  It has also provided opportunities for a few of my Maori students to be the experts and leaders, when usually they are too shy to share.

The lesson went really well, and the kids had retained so much knowledge from the previous week, which I was really excited to see.  We recapped the words we had learnt, and connected these to images.  We then moved onto learning the question 'What are you doing?' in Maori, and then replying in Maori.  During the lesson Lorelei reminded me about parts of the structure and things that she suggested should go next.  She also modeled some parts for me to refocus things that I had forgotten from the correct structure.

At the end of the lesson, Lorelei gave me some pointers for my next lessons:

• ensure during oral choral that I build up from the end to the beginning
• practice saying the Maori phrase with the whole class together first splitting them into half (perhaps even using the finger eyes.)
• After getting the students to practice in pairs, get one or two pairs to share in front of the class
• Play 'ping pong' to get students to practice the phrases even more
• my next thing i'd like to try in my lesson is 'penei, pena' - simon says

  

Problem Solving Within my Team

Recently in our leadership team we had been discussing how we help to problem solve issues that may present itself within teams.  (see our notes below)

This discussion made me reflect on how I support my team with problems that they come to me within our syndicate.  I realise now that I will often give a list of possible solutions to others to help solve the problem for them straight away.  The discussion we had at leadership level made me realise is that i need to help facilitate my team to come to the solution themselves.  Making the solution more powerful for the person who came to help.

I was able to put this into practice recently when one of my team came to me about a student they are really struggling with behavior wise in class.  Instead of telling all the things I would try, I listened to her concerns, and then asked her questions such as 'Have you noticed that certain times of the day are worse than others?', 'is his behavior due to seating arrangements' and 'What have you tried already, what worked?'

This conversation went really well, and I felt that she felt better getting her concerns off her chest.  We also decided together that their needed to be some kind of 'cost' incurred for this child, as his actions were very disrespectful and the RP chats she is having individually and as a class weren't resulting a positive change.  So we decided that we would enlist the support our DP to see if he had some ideas that we could adopt to support my team member to work with this student.

Our DP suggested that we adopt the time out strategy. We started this today.  Our DP explained the new process with the student today.  My team member was pleased to report that he had a pretty great day, after hearing their will be consequences for his disrespectful behavior, he tried harder today to do as he is told.  She was really pleased with the outcome and the fact that their are some new things that she can try and implement.  

Notes from our leadership meeting:

1. Problem Solving shared agreement as Leaders of Vardon School

Solution oriented mindset

How do we expect to solve problems or issues that arise at work? with other staff? with children?

Looking at the four R’s and using these in our leadership roles.

Don’ts :

             Trying to solve problem ourselves

             Listen in a public place

             Don’t buy into it

             Don’t take it personally

Do’s:

Ask questions to find out where ‘they’ want to go (to solve the problem)

Role modelling

What do you want to happen?  What do you need?

Find out who owns the problem

Take time to listen

Change venue

Suggest another time when you are better able to support

Define the problem/issue

Make a plan/explore

Remember the RP script

Follow up to show value and support

Young Authors Day - Waikato Literacy Association

One of the events the Waikato Literacy Associate organises every two years is the Young Authors Day.  We held this last Saturday at Morrinsville Intermediate.  The day is designed for students who are keen on writing to spend time working with published authors and illustrators.  

The workshops are designed for children aged 9-13 and were grouped between 15-20, working together with an author or illustrator.    

Each author gives 3 workshop sessions of around 50 minutes, working with a different group of children each time. 

We orgainsed the day as follows:

9.30  am  Students register - Morning Tea for Authors/Illustrators in the staffroom

10.00 am Assemble, Formalities, Introduction 

10.15 am Workshop 1 commences

11.05 am Drink/Snack/Toilet break 

11.25 am Workshop 2 commences

12.15 pm LUNCH

1 pm    Workshop 3 commences

2pm          Assemble in hall for wind up session for everyone, at which each author talks for around 5 minutes, and/or reads from their work.

The children were expected to bring some writing of their own to share with the authors and with others in the group. Generally authors or illustrators talk about aspects of their own work, read passages relevant to what they are saying, or discuss illustrations, and also invite children to contribute to the session. The children also spent some of the session writing.

The children were selected by their school and we found that all students in attendance were highly motivated and enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with people 'real life authors'.

The conference finished with a combined session of half an hour where authors had 10 minutes each, sharing a piece of their own work or an experience they had had.

The expectations for the authors sessions were that they shared their work and the processes involved in producing this with the students. Most authors were keen to get the students involved with writing/revising/creating new work.

Our students loved the day, particularly getting meet authors they knew like Des Hunt. Here are some photos of our Vardon kids enjoying the day:

Mihi Presentation this Friday

This Friday we will be presenting our Mihi's that we have worked on so hard this term.  I have given students the choice of either presenting in front of our whole class, or in front of a smaller group if they are nervous about presenting in front of everyone, so that everyone feels like the can achieve success.
We have also invited our two Whaea parent helps - Billie and Denise to come and listen to our presentation.  I will add some photo's of these up later in the week.

Writing Reflection - Our New Goal Boxes and the Ladder of Success

A few weeks ago I posted about attending a teacher only day at Southwell School and listening to a presentation by Lynden Cook about how he sets goals with his students for writing and how he runs his writing program.  Over the last few weeks I have been trailing something similar to the goal boxes he shared and his ladder of success.  I have found that this has been going really well in my class.
Firstly, students now understand much more explicitly what the purpose for their writing and what type of writing they are doing.  This is because before we look at what our goals are, and what writing we are doing, we discuss who will read our writing and what we want them to understand after they have read our writing (purpose).  We then discuss why our writing focus (genre) will meet this purpose best.  I have found that in being more explicit with the purpose, students have become more aware and focused on the fact that someone else will be reading it, and so they need to make sure their writing and easy to read.

Having space to include two goals on the same box helps to get everything central. The goal ladder to the side has become extremely useful as well.  The ladder helps students to be reflective about how they have gone with their two writing goals.  It enables them to have options to show how they have achieved their goals - meaning they don't just have to select either achieved or not achieved - they can show that they are on their way to achieving the goal.  They then have the chance to select this goal for the next piece of writing to continue working on it.

I'm enjoy using this, and starting each writing piece completing this process.

Priority Learner Profile for Room 14 2015

Consulting our Community - Home Learning Survey

Both the middle and senior syndicate are looking into how our home learning is running in our syndicates. We feel that we are all going to a large amount of effort to create enriching tasks but that for a number of students it was not completed each week. We decided to survey our families to gain their thoughts about how they were finding their the home learning experience.

Overall the families who completed the survey liked home learning - the majority commented that they like the home learning that their children can complete independently.
Overall, it seems families in our syndicate are mostly happy with home learning with some even requesting more! It will be interesting to get together with the middles and compare with their results.
Here is a summary of my survey results:

Room 14:

Overall parents had mostly ticked ‘yes’ to the statements that they needed to make a choice for, except the question ‘Do you help your child with their home learning - where the majority ticked ‘no’.

Comments ranged from things like:

• having activities that needed no parent help at all
• having activities that didn’t require the computer as there are many children at home needing the device at the same time
• more spelling words
• activities that involve more sports activities (interesting as we have just finished our focus on ProJoe!)
• the home learning is good, as it important to get students ready for intermediate
• think home learning is great the way it is
• if my child was more excited about their home learning then it would probably get done sooner

Student Led Conference

Last week on Tuesday and Thursday we had our senior student led conferences.  This is where the students have a chance for them to share the learning they have done and the goals they have achieved since the first report was written at the start of term 2.  I had a great uptake on these, with all by 4 families coming in to hear their children share their learning.

Student led conferences are my favourite way of reporting back to parents.  It makes me so proud to hear my students talk about their successes and how they have grown as a learning.  It also gives students a buzz and empowerment to see the growth they have had and to understand the progress they have had.

Below are some of the photos of the students during their conferences: