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:

Room 14's Tapa Cloth

We have been busy this term preparing ourselves for our school production which will happen later on in this term.  The theme for our production is 'Our many cultures'.  So in class we have been studying the different cultures that our within our school community.  Recently we looked at cultures that make tapa cloths and what makes these cultures special.  A Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a 
barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far 
afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea (particularly in Oro Province around Tufi) and Hawaii (where it is called kapa).
After we learnt and read about these cultures we worked together to create our own tapa cloth.  Each of us researched a traditional design and draw a draft.  We then created an 'authentic piece of paper by screw it up 10 times and then ironing it flat.  We then painted our designs using both sharpies and different dyes.  We then put our squares together with the whole class to created our completed cloth.

This is our finished design:

New Writing Focus for Goal Setting and Reflection

Over the school holidays our school attended a teacher only day at Southwell School as part of the ConnectEd cluster.  I was lucky enough to attend a workshop by Lynden Cook from Rototuna School.  Some of the things that he is doing with his Year 5/6 class to do with student voice and choice, goal setting and reflection and also buddy work was so expiring!  There was probably 50 things that i came away from the workshop thinking 'man i can't wait to try that with my class'!

Thankfully i made sure i honed in on just one or two things to focus on first so I didn't get myself too overwhelmed and swamped!  I decided to start by first looking at something similar to his goal setting box and a 'ladder of success' as this linked nicely to the goals setting and student voice focus we are currently undertaking in our inquiry project in the senior school.

Here is the goal setting box that i am currently trailing and using with my class:

The blue part of the box is for the children to write the purposed of their writing.  Up until now, I have found that students didn't really understand the three purposes for writing, and the purpose for the writing task they were doing.  Now that we are have these goal boxes, the purpose for writing is always the first part of our writing lesson.  This also leads into our audience - who will be reading this text and what do we want them to be able to do after reading our work?  Students have become more focused and understand why we are doing different pieces of writing - meaning that their writing is better.

The green box is for students to write the style of writing we are doing

The white box is for students to writing in our class focus goal and their own personal goal which they will select from the writing matrix in child speak that we have created as part of our inquiry writing focus.

Underneath this is some check in boxes.  These checks are completed with their writing buddy or by themselves.  These boxes are designed to help students be more self regulated and less dependent on myself or have to wait for me to check planning or to tell them they are now ready for buddy conferencing.  They can follow the checks and make these decisions themselves.

The ladder of success is a way for them at the end of a piece of writing to assess how they went with the goals set before starting their writing.  Instead of reflecting on goals and going on either 'ive achieved it' or 'i've not achieved it'  students can now assess themselves on the ladder.  Meaning if they feel they haven't quite made it to achieving the goal completely, they can still feel successful by moving themselves along the ladder one or two steps.

Support from our Parent Community - Mihi

On Friday we were very lucky to have two special visitors Whaea Billy and Whaea Denise come to support us with saying our personal mihi's that we have been learning.  They were particularly helpful with our pronunciation, as some words were a bit tricky for both the students and myself to say correctly.  It was great to have them on board for support, as they are familiar faces in our school and our class know them quite well.
Our two experts took small groups out to the staff room to practice together.  These groups were great as the kids felt comfortable together, and were confident to attempt their mihis, with the parental support
The students are now so much more confident saying their mihi's, and are looking forward to sharing them with an audience in a few weeks time.
THANK YOU SO MUCH Whaea Billy and Whaea Denise!  We really appreciate it!