Zones of Regulation

As part of my behaviour management of a student in my class, it has been suggested that I use the Zones Of Regulation as a way to modify behaviour and support this child in the whole thinking process. The more I have learnt,  I have come to realise that this will work for more than this child in my class and am looking forward to the coming term to put into practice some of these ideas.

The "ZONES" has a framework that provides strategies to teach and support children to become more aware of and independent in the ways they control their emotions and impulses, manage their sensory needs, and their ability to problem solve conflicts.

The FOUR ZONES: 

RED ZONE: Is an extremely heightened state of alertness and intense emotions. Trigger words for the children are mad/angry, terrified, yelling/hitting,elated,  and out of control.

YELLOW ZONE: Is also an heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions but the child has some control. Trigger words for children are frustrated, stressed, worried, silly/wiggly, excited, and some loss of control.

GREEN ZONE: Is a calm state of alertness. Trigger words are happy, calm, feeling OK, focussed, and ready to learn. This is the zone where optimal learning occurs.

BLUE ZONE: Describes a low state of alertness. the words used to connect are sad, tired, sick, bored, and moving slowly.

Using the colours of red, yellow, green and blue can be compared to traffic signals. Green being a 'green' light for learning and everything is good to go. A yellow sign indicates caution and maens be aware. Stop for red which is the outcome you need. Being blue usually is a sign for re-energising or rest.

Everyone experiences all these states of emotions and are very normal, the framework will enable me as an educator, to empower my students how to recognise and manage their zone based on the environment, its demands and the people around them.

Where to next? What implications will this have on my teaching? How can I manage this so that it becomes part of 'the way of being' for my current class?

Where to next?

• Make resources such as posters, needed to scaffold the thinking for my students. 
• Create a space in the classroom where the children can refer to to assist each other. 
• Plan for time for the explicit teaching and role playing of the ZONES and what strategies we can co-construct for everyone in our class. 
• Create a classroom toolbox, as place for "things' that can be used for sensory support, card of yoga poses for calming techniques.
• Ensure that I have a bank of resources such as, music, movement games, breathing techniques that I can access at short notice.
• What sorts of resources will I need to source to empower and engage my Maori learners? Some research maybe needed to ensure that this covered.

So some work for the term break but hopefully in the long run it will be worthwhile.  Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come. Dwayne Johnson

Maths is a language

This term we have been changing our pedagogy in regards to the way we teach maths at our school. We start with a word problem and give the children time to notice things about the problem and how/what they need to learn to solve the problem so there so much more student agency around the learning.

The problem can be worked on over a number of weeks with reviews as the children learn more. The problems have been set at a higher level for all the children. The children are encouraged to work together to solve parts of the problem to improve their skills - we discovered that the children were unable to break a bigger number into 'do-able' numbers, using known fact to solve division problems and understand how decimals work.

As part of the follow up to the NOTICE, the children write their own learner pathways recording the learning they need to solve the problem. The planning is reflects the learning needs, we are now planning in response to what they children reflect on day by day. The activities each day are small bites of what they are learning - division of numbers, multiplication of 2 digit numbers, recording remainders as fractions and decimals. Because the children are working collaboratively, they are using the language of mathematics to explain to the others how they solved the problem. With the use of TALK Moves, the children's ability to verbalise their strategies with each other has given the learning more meaning and more purpose.

The improvement in the children's ability to verbalise the ways they are solving the problems has been amazing. When testing their strategy knowledge through GloSS snapshots has made a significant difference and using Seesaw has given them a platform to share their learning with their family and whanau.

Not only has the children's learning improved I know that my teaching has more questioning and the possibilities are endless, especially when my ADHD/ autistic child is solving higher order thinking problems then it is worth it. Also we are using the language of mathematics more as in this TED Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6yixyiJcos has made a difference in the way we are teaching mathematics.

https://www.weareteachers.com/multiplication-vocabulary-mistakes/ Is also a reading that has made sense in the way we are currently teaching mathematics in our class.

Being an Across School Leader for Eastern Kahui Ako

Theory for Improvement Document

As part of my role for Accelerating Literacy and Mathematics across the Eastern Kahui Ako, I have been working with my colleagues to create a mandate for the 5 schools and their staff to improve the learning for their children. This attached document is approximately 50 days work after our discussions with teachers, principals, and unpacking the data that we know so far.

My reflections on this journey so far

• Initially it was very unsettling as there wasn't any scaffolding of what our COL would look like.
• Feeling of excitement to create something new for our Community that could bind us more together - create a community.
• Having a clearer 'big' picture of the schools by unpacking the relationships between the 5 principals and their staff - has been key to our approach to the individual schools.
• Understanding the individual school's cultures has assisted in the data - both with the response to our questions and the results within the data and the range.
• Amazement - that there are still teachers who are teaching who are more worried about the workload as apposed to the children's progress and what it takes to improve their learning.
• Sense of pride - of what we have achieved in a small amount of time especially with this document.
• Science - and how you teach it and how it underpins all - reading, writing and mathematics.  It is what has been missing in our curriculum but  with this Theory of Improvement document there is a way ahead, especially with the approach.
• Grateful for the opportunities as I have been able to work with other passionate teachers who are willing to make changes in their pedagogical approach and that of others.
• Keen - to make change in my community, school and my class to improve the learning.

Where to next?

• Get PACT into the other schools so that they can be passionate about teaching.
• Make the most of my time in the role.
• Create a start point for the future for our schools.
• Be more present for the other schools, principals, DPs and their teachers.

Improving Writing for those who are struggling

This coming term, I am looking forward to teaching writing. During our planning day the Team analysed their data for writing and looked at what our needs were for writing in our cohort. There is a trend of content and ideas as well as language features being an area of concern. One of the teachers in the syndicate had found a link in tki about creating success for boys.

After sharing the link with the Team, we agreed this would be a way we could engage our boys and in turn improve the quality of the writing in our cohort. As I read through our planning I am feeling excited and engaged myself...hope I can instill these feeling of enthusiasm with my children.

There are some very important research I need to be mindful of as I teach these struggling writers which happen to be boys.

Except from Story Starters - Teacher Support Materials - HOW BOYS LEARN

RESEARCH
Learners, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, age or any other characteristic only learn when they are motivated to learn and are engaged with what is to be learnt. The evidence is that boys are not achieving as well as girls in reading and writing. The issue then, is how best to engineer learning environments that they find motivating and engaging. There is much research available that provides guidance with this.

The Best Evidence Synthesis Diverse Students1 (2003) was designed to provide a collation of the evidence of what works within the context of diverse classes of students which is the reality for New Zealand teachers. Ensuring that boys learn and achieve as well as girls is one of the problems of diversity that teachers face.

This resource specifically draws on many of the aspects listed in the Best Evidence Synthesis:
• Teaching and tasks are structured to support students’ active learning orientations.
• Students help each other with resource access and provide elaborated explanations.
• Pedagogical practice is appropriately responsive to the interdependence of socio-cultural and cognitive dimensions.
• Relevance is made transparent to students.
• Ways of taking meaning from text, discourse, numbers or experience are made explicit.
• Teaching builds on students’ prior experiences and knowledge.
• Student diversity is utilised effectively as a pedagogical resource.
• Teaching is responsive to all learners • Students have opportunities to resolve cognitive conflict.
• Optimal use is made of complementary combinations of teacher-directed groupings, co-operative groups, structured peer interaction and individual work (including homework) to facilitate learning cycles.
• Tasks and classroom interactions provide scaffolds to facilitate student learning
• Students receive effective, specific, appropriately frequent, positive and responsive feedback.
• Teaching promotes metacognitive strategy use (e.g. mental strategies in numeracy) by all students.
• Teaching scaffolds reciprocal or alternating tuakana teina roles in student group, or interactive work. • Teaching promotes sustained thoughtfulness (e.g. through questioning approaches, wait-time, and the provision of opportunities for application and invention).

Additional research has provided practical strategies for teaching boys that we have used to critique and shape the resources.

An international study by Richard Hawley and Michael Reichert2 examined the narratives submitted by teachers and boys from 18 schools representing the United States, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa of specific lessons and practices that they deemed especially effective.
“The successful lessons fell into the following eight general categories, each of which expresses a dominant feature of the lesson’s reported success:
• Lessons that produced products
• Lessons structured as games
• Lessons requiring vigorous motor activity
• Lessons requiring boys to assume a role or responsibility for promoting the learning of others
• Lessons that required boys to address “open,” unsolved problems
• Lessons that required a combination of teamwork and competition
• Lessons that focused on boys’ personal realization (their masculinity, their values, their present and future social roles)
• Lessons that introduced dramatic novelties and surprises

Nearly every reported lesson included multiple elements, as when a teacher devises a game in which boys form teams to create a product that will be judged competitively. It appeared increasingly clear to us as we reviewed the teacher responses that these lessons had a distinct for-boys cast, a finding roundly confirmed by the boys themselves.” Story Starters is a resource that is specifically designed to be used in ways that tick the majority of these features.

In summary, these resources are designed to engage and motivate boys because:
• Content has been designed by boys for boys
• The content is fun – in a boyish sort of way
• They involve videos that require the boys to address open, unsolved problems
• They involve team work
• They enable teachers to engage with humour with the boys sense of fun and drama So with
• They enable boys to connect with the teacher as relational learners (Wayne Martino, 20083 )

Story Starters is not a panacea for boys’ underachievement but, in the hands of a teacher who is keen to adjust his or her teaching to be responsive and to motivate and engage boys, it will prove a useful and fun resource.

So with this in mind, roll on Monday!!!

Dyslexia Staff Meeting

The first activity involved the staff discussing their weekend and then writing about it for 1 minute. After the minute, there was a word count. the next part of the activity was to discuss favourite take away and why you liked it for 30 seconds.  Another minute to write, but this time to write using the less dominant hand. This was a quick activity to show us the problems that children in our class have processing writing in an every day situation.

We were asked to share our feelings -
- frustrated
- too slow
- too hard
- messy
- poor quality
- distracting
- putdowns

This activity was to help us to walk in the shoes of the individuals in our school. I realise that I need to cater for my dyslexia in my class more.

What does mean for my class?
I need to enable my children with dyslexia by:

• Getting a 10 minute unassisted writing sample and then type this to have a screening as part of their file.
• Use memorized words of singing - from Production as a regular part of the week.
• Use clapping games to build memory
• Use funny rhymes to help the build spelling memory
• Use colour to help these children recognise words and ideas
• Repeat ideas
• Be patient
• Seat the child fairly near the teacher base so that I am available to help if necessary, or they can be supported by a well-motivated and sympathetic classmate.

Dyscalculic children are already spending a lot of mental energy trying to understand the maths, the last thing they need is to have to memorise the instructions at the same time.

I need to enable my children with dyscalculia by:

• Giving children own set of work to complete, which is at their level.
• Allowing extra time - even with problems they can do, dyscalculic children are much slower.
• Using written rather than verbal instructions and questions. 
• Focus on understanding (especially of quantity)
• Use concrete materials to help link mathematical symbols to quantity
• Start at a level which the child is comfortable at, so that they experience some success, and slowly move to more difficult areas
• Provide a lot of practice for new skills/concepts
• Reduce the need for memorisation, especially initially
• Ask a lot of questions to get the child engaged and thinking about their own thinking
• Make learning as active and fun as possible - a positive experience

TAI and ALiM

I have always loved everything about Maths and sometimes have not understood the difficulties people have understanding MATHS.

At the moment my Teacher Action Inquiry is on how an intervention can make a impact for the struggling mathematicians in my class. This has made me unpack what maths is, how it is taught (by myself and the school's protocols) and why don't these children "get it". These children have been failing in Maths for sometime and have been on the radar as children needing help. Of the 5 children in the intervention, 1 was part of an intervention last year.

What I first noticed of these children, was their lack of confidence and willingness to try to solve problems. Even when the problem was at their level they need more encouragement to use what they did know such as skip counting, making tidy tens and counting through 10s, 100s, 1000s. These children said out loud to me, " I can't do maths" "I don't get it" "Is the answer..." " I'm not sure, could it be.."

So how do you get children to take risks when they have always got the answer wrong? The approach needs to be about the learning not so much the answer.

• How will you find the answer? 
• What do you know and how can you use that?

I also decided that these children needed some of the fundamentals of how numbers work, what they look like and the unpacking of the language of maths. To do this I work with these children every day for an extra 15mins after lunch. They are doing the thinking and I am recording their thoughts, and materials to manipulate are used. I have used a range of number knowledge problems as well as taught them new strategies before the rest of the class (front loading) and their confidence has improved. Also at the end of the week, I teach them a game using counters, cards, dice and photocopied and laminated game boards to take home and play with their families and friends. The game reinforces the learning of the week. The children are required at the end of each session to tell me what they have learnt and how they can use the strategy or knowledge in the real world.

As part of the intervention (funded by the Ministry) parent contact is a requirement and the ALiM mentor ran a parent night to informing the parents of why their child had been chosen, what we hoped to achieve and what they could expect during the 15 weeks. I have used my class dojo to regularly inform the parents of the children's efforts and how they are progressing. Also when those parents come to class, I make an effort to reinforce the progress the child is making in maths and asking them what they have noticed.

 I have discovered that the children are now more willing to share ideas with their peers when first challenged with a new problem. They want to record their thinking and will challenge others when they think/know they are wrong. The children are often ready before myself after lunch and want to learn new maths. Also some of the other children in the class have joined in the group as they see themselves not doing as well as the selected group.

My challenge is to sustain the confidence and knowledge for these children for the rest of the year as the problems become more challenging and without the intervention. Maybe I need to set aside time for these children to come for help/ next steps when working with the normal rotations.


Here is the link to my updated Inquiry template so far. SH - 2016

Student Lead Learning - Student Agency

This subject has been on my radar since my appraisal last year and since the new DP has come to our school. Many times this year during 'Walk throughs' with him, I have begun to question my own teaching practice.

Am I moving with the times? What does student lead learning look like in my class? How am I guided the learning? Or am I still driving all the learning in my class? Do my children understand what they need to learn or am I telling them?

A profession development was run in our school early this week,about using learning in the 21st century and the use of Google clssrooms. The first session was full of questions around what will the children who have just begun school, 5 year olds need when they hit the work force and how the technology in the world maybe used and what as educators are we doing to set up these children for success. The presentation was all questions, which resonated with me, made me feel uncomfortable and excited at the same time. Are the children in my class compliant or passionate about learning?

Earlier in the same day I had conducted observations of 2 colleagues teaching Mathematics  with the DP and we discovered a common need in the classes. It was the learning process, parts were missing. There were WALTs and success criteria and the children could verbalise what they were learning but when asked they asked why they were learning the concept, the children were unable to answer. Also where was the application of the strategy and what did they do when they "got it" and how did they know.

The DP has a strong belief that in Mathematics we should start with a problem- solving approach and ask the children to share ideas to solve the problem, then discuss what we did to solve the problem and construct the WALT and SC from there. Once the strategy (Teacher Guided) is shared and unpacked then the children, discuss the why (which would be more evident using a problem to start) and give the children an opportunity to practice the new strategy. During this practice time the children should be marking and reflecting on their progress. If the children "get it" then they should be given a "real life" problem to solve applying the learning.

So as part of my discovery into changing my pedagogy I have been reading about The Learning Pit and learning in the 21st century. My brain is full of ideas, and I am mindful of what the facilitator said that it is a journey, start small and think what is in place already in your class to make this work. Maths is my strength but I feel the children have a better idea of what they need to learn in writing from the assessment I have shared with them. I'm going to try and have go at guiding the learning using a opt in approach- the children will on Monday, plan their writing timetable for the week. I will make time for them to reflect and evaluate their learning after each session. The children will need to understand what their writing needs.

My task now is to create a template of the writing plan, I will need to make provision for those children who will need more support, maybe even a checklist that the children can mark themselves on when they have "got it". So Monday's planning will need to be about using a timetable and about what we as a class hope to achieve. Excited and nervous at the same time!

Teaching Writing

Writing is not my strength and I have been working on improving my practice. My planning has changed as I am trying to implement ideas that I learnt during my ALL Teacher Action Inquiry last year. This year the teaching is all about the purpose - the WHY?
I have been using the Writing Learning goals to shape my lessons and what I have seen in the children's independent writing books. I have also used next learning steps when I mark and use peer evaluation in response to the Literacy Progressions of children shaping their writing in response to feedback. I found this most helpful in developing Student Agency.
As a Team Leader I have had the opportunity to observe the teachers in my team although this has been to improve their practic,e I have found the discussion with My DP most informative and has made me reflect on my own practice.
So when I was send an email this morning to ask if The DP and another teacher could observe me to show her how to complete an observation I was quite looking forward to being able to reflect from the "inside out" as apposed the looking in from the "Outside".

Here is my observation notes -

What was seen:  

Description of lesson:

• Writing lesson includes rotations (guided, follow up, independent writing, computers)
• Use of ALL strategies evident (purple pen in guided etc)
• Students all engaged in learning tasks which manages behaviour in class
• Context of guided writing connected to Science unit - water cycle

Guided teaching

• Use of IWB for WALT and co-constructed SC. WALT - write an introductory paragraph using clear and specific language/vocab
• Teacher selecting a range of students for ideas and explaining.
• Used resources for assisting constructing SC.
• IWB used before students write. This allowed oral dialogue.
• Shared construction for a starter (hook). Teacher then revisited the SC with the group for collaborative peer assessment.
• Computer students were writing a letter. They are aware of the process but not necessarily following it through (e.g. planning)
• Some students using Writing Fun to publish their explanation. Not sure of visual language features being used.
• Independent writing allows for free choice of writing but with a skill focus
• Teacher roved at appropriate times for assisting other students
• Teacher built on students current level by being positive about students
• Feedback/feedforward frequent in independent writing books.
• Routines well established for student agency - resources available for student success
• Students worked in guided circle, at desks, on mat (less engagement from one boy), and at computers

Student Voice:

What are you learning?

Student - In my independent or guided? We are looking at using specific language in an organised way.

Why?

Student - So the reader can understand what a water cycle is and how it works

How successful were you with your learning?

Student - pretty good as I have organised my idea using specific language. I could change my full stops to create complex sentences. The plan was good to organise my ideas. I would use it again to write about how things happen.

What does your teacher do to support you with your learning?

Student - She provides a focus for our learning and gives us ideas and planning templates. She gives ideas when she teaches or marks my book.

Is there anything else your teacher could be doing to further support you?

Student - Nothing really because she explains things in a way that I understand.

My Strengths

• Learning is engaging and provides a great climate of learning
• Good use of technology for teacher and students
• Positive learning routines that encourages student agency supported by students appropriate resources
• The use of student voice in the guided session promoted positive learning and ownership. This was also used formatively by the teacher. This allowed the teacher to provide appropriate scaffolds for student thinking and contribution to the writing lesson.

So where to next

• How can clarity be built for all students where all students are connecting between  strategies from guided learning to applying them in independent activities. (Most students showed strong connections but there were a couple of students that lacked depth of application due to not using the strategies that have been developed)

• How do you differentiate learning for all of your students in Writing and track the achievement of this learning?

• How will you go about sharing the positive practice in teaching Writing across your team?

Reflecting on Leadership

I have nearly completed one year as team leader at Lynmore School and as the time came up to reapply for these positions, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on all I have achieved, what I still want to achieve and my philosophy of leadership. 

When I think about what pushes me to do my best as a leader, I realise that I am influenced by wanting everyone to achieve at their personal best and know that I will do whatever I can to help them achieve it.  I was looking up quotes about leadership and this one rang true to my leadership style

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches but to reveal to them their own."

I have decided that the best way for me to do these reflections is by relating each aspect of my job description to this quote and to how I have achieved these in relation to this quote over the past year.

As both a teacher and a leader I believe in the importance of three way relationships for helping children to achieve success, both within my team and across the school.  As a result of this throughout the year I have personally kept in contact with the whanau of children within my class and have encouraged my team members to also.  We have done this in a variety of ways and these include: blogs, emails, phone contact and through meetings such as the parent evening for accelerating literacy learning.  In addition to making contact with these parents I have also valued the expertise that they can offer my team - whether this be on school trips, coming in to provide feedback/feed forward for students learning or through providing their children guidance through student led conferences.  Through these learning conversations with parents across the team there has been the development of parent led initiatives where they develop kits alongside their child's teacher that fully develops and supports what their child is learning within the classroom. 

In addition to this, across the team we have provided appropriate and engaging support for special needs students that allow them to become included within the everyday classroom programme whilst still having their educational needs met.  Individualised Educational Programmes have been discussed with parents, whanau, the special needs co-ordinator and teacher aides that work with these students to ensure that all students are provided with the opportunity to experience success. Through  working with family and whanau I have helped both students and whanau realise the riches they can and do bring to the educational journey.

In order to be a good leader I think that it is important that I first ensure that my classroom environment is representative of what I am asking others to do also.  As a teacher I consistently vary my teaching approaches and methods to ensure that I am meeting all of my students learning and cultural needs, this is done through providing students with an environment where they feel comfortable asking question about, and making suggestions to, their learning.  I provide learning opportunities that ensure children are intellectually engaged in challenging context and that all children have had appropriate modelling to help them achieve at the top level that they are able.  Within my classroom, there is a culture maintained where students encourage each other to step outside their comfort zones, knowing that they are in a psychologically safe environment in which to do so.  High expectations of all learners and relationships between student and student and each individual and myself ensure that this culture occurs.  Both within my classroom and across the classrooms of my team members there is consistently strong learner influence, engagement and achievement - this has occurred through students having input into their learning, and through providing learning opportunities that are relevant for students at the time that they are learning - sich as conducting a social studies integrated unit that aligned with the celebration of ANZAC 100 years and using the Rugby World Cup for students to do a statistical investigation on whilst it was being played out on the world stage.

I have in depth curriculum knowledge, sound pedagogies that influence the way I teach and why I teach that way and I consistently use formative assessment to enhance the learning opportunities provided to my students.  Formative assessment is used regularly in order to diagnose evidence of learning for individual students and this information is married seamlessly with existing planning.  In addition to formative assessment I also use summative assessment to evaluate where students are at as a cohort and to help myself articulate with clarity what each students needs are and how I can provide pathways that enable students to meet these.  In regards to my teaching, planning, reporting, classwork, classroom environment and attending extra curricular events I am a positive role model for my team.

As a leader, I have helped to ensure that all teachers in my team are clear about where their students are and can provide evidence about this also.  I have worked with members of my team consistently throughout the year in order to ensure that there are pathways in place for all learners across the team and that there are planned approaches to respond to the individual needs of these students.  Evidence of this is through assessment folders and analysis of all assessment, completed both as a class and as a team.  Through analysis and assessment, I have ensured that as a team we have identified out most pressing priority learners and addressed them with fast and best fit solutions - evidence of this is present in the ALL work that we undertook as a team when we identified that over 30% of our students were well below in their writing after our first team writing moderation.  This analysis of assessment is also supported by professional discussions at team meetings each week where teachers have the opportunity to engage in professional discussions about where children of concern are at and how we can continue to move them along.

When I consider professional dialogue and how I have and can continue to engage teachers in dialogue about their practice I reflect on the fact that each teacher I am working with has excellent knowledge, practice and capabilities and it is my job to ensure that they make the most of these.  I have done this in a variety of ways throughout the year.  Making observations of my colleagues and providing them with feedback and feed forward has allowed me to help them identify their key areas for development and next steps whilst still acknowledging what they are successful at.  Through minutes of meetings and notes of my observations I also pass these onto the senior leadership team so that they are able to support me in my role of supporting the teachers within my team and can provide me with advice and guidance.

In my role I ensure that I make time for my team and asking about what is working and what is not - based on the benchmarks from Tony Burkin.  This has been evident in 'Clarity in the Classroom' and ALL working on ideas together and where to for term planning, we discuss the way the planning is going, how we changed ideas and share resources to aid the learning in our classes.  Last term my team were all asked to share something they had learnt - and lead our own PD around it - items ranged from professional readings, sharing power points, using new resources to teach maths, interactive web 2.0 tools, and blog sharing.

Interlead Appraisal helped me to voice my awe of the expertise within my team and how they have the 'goods' and are making a difference for their children.  Speaking with the music teacher I commented on how he used his 'Measures of Success' - he was full of praise for the process from the 'Clarity in the Classroom' and how it was helping him to create WALTs and gives his teaching more purpose.  As part of the ERO process of auditing our school, ERO met with the other team leaders and myself.  We were asked how we are supported in our roles and what helps each of us - I discussed "That often we relied on each other for ideas and direction and as part of my leadership PD - with the collaborative futures academy that I felt that there was a need for an alignment of our curriculum across all the school."

Also this year, I have been enrolled in a course with Vikrum Murthy - Academy for Collaborative Futures and yesterday I worked with a group of leaders from around Rotorua. At the end of the day I always leave feeling positive and empowered ready to take on exciting new challenges and fantastic opportunities.

I am looking forward to next year still as a Year 5 Team Leader with a new team and 'the world is my oysters' as they say. Roll on 2016.

Literacy Circles - Clarity In The Classrrom

This term we are working on writing and illustrating a picture book.  During reading I have been using narratives and articles from the School Journal to give the children background and scaffolding to assist their understanding how a narrative "works". The articles were about two New Zealand illustrations and what they do to illustrate - their inspiration, how their day works, what process is needed to get their drawings approved to use in books.

I can sometimes struggle to use the correct WALT - what do I want them to learn? Yes, they need to know the structure of a narrative, but what are the skills needed to identify that structure? From the PD I took part in earlier in the year with Jeff Anderson, the phrase "What do you notice about what the author has written?" - helps me to redefine this. I am asking the children to understand the author's purpose, finding the evidence within the text, using inference to understand the 'hidden message', make connections with they know, ask questions, use clues to work out unfamiliar words as well as skimming and scanning to identify the main idea. So do I need a WALT? Should it be WDYN - What do you notice? and How did you do that? Helping the children identify the skills they used is very important to improve their own understanding.

To teach reading when the children can 'decode', is all about the understanding/comprehension of the message. This can be fiction or non-fiction, the skills needed are the same and the children need to use a range of skills and strategies to fully understand what they are reading. They need to practice reading - ask questions when they don't understand and think - How can I understand this better? Good readers will use strategies confidently and without thought. How can I make my good readers more mindful of what they are doing?

I have chosen to use novels with my more able readers to motivate them to read with more intent and to extend them more with fictional genre. While discussing the progress so far with a colleague, I mentioned that one child was relying on his knowledge of the movie based on the book. She asked if I had used Literacy Circles before and she would send me the labels for the jobs to do this. So tonight I needed to do some research on what a Literacy Circle was and how it worked. I was quite excited when I realised that this just what I needed to make these children be more mindful of what they were reading and to take more ownership of their learning. So to make this work I will work with this group to teach them the skills for each role, use my guided sessions to gather them together and unpack their success.

The difference intervention can make

One of the children in my ALL group has been part of my Inquiry - how can I make writing more successful for her with her dyslexia and elins glasses. I discovered that using different coloured pens would make her feel "special" and that she can write. Often her ideas have been over shadowed by her ability to write.
So here's the proof :-)

Student Lead Conferences

The weeks have flown and now Student Lead Conferences are here! This year I made the decision to let the children share "their" learning with their parents. This meant that I did not give them the graphic organiser with boxes to fill in, or teach them what to say during my guided sessions or put markers (stickie notes) in their books.

This was because a couple of weeks ago, a child in my class was going to be away for these conferences and her parents wanted to book in a Student Lead Conference, and because I had deadlines for reports and other school stuff I hadn't set her up as before. So one Friday, she came with her parents after school, sat down with her books, a whiteboard and proceeded to tell her Mum and Dad what she had been learning! Not the doing... She was confident and very clear about her achievements and what she needed to learn next. She even showed them the strategy she was learning in Mathematics and taught them how to do it.

The most surprising thing about all this was this was a child at the beginning of the year who used to drive me crazy asking for clarification every time after instructions were given. I taught a unit at the beginning of the year about how we learn best - she had great understanding of herself and now knows how to she can best learn.

So this week all I asked the children was to share their learning - and they are!  I have empowered them to share with their parents and anyone listening what they now know. It was refreshing to hear parents saying that they had learnt from their children, and were actually surprised by what the children could tell them.

I did mark their books vigorously and made sure that they had all work up to date. My style for teaching in my guided sessions has changed too. I now make sure I discuss the why and the success criteria - how do you know you can do this? The children help with the setting up of task boards and constructing the WALTs. I have tried very hard to give  the children a variety of perspectives and cross over ideas/concepts through curriculum areas to build a deeper understanding. THis has been most successful.

How will I run Student Lead Conferences in the future? I think that the children need to tell me.

Managing all the areas of need in the class

At the moment I am struggling to make time for the other children in my class with needs.
This morning before school after discussing Mathletics with a colleague, a couple of the children asked me to show them how they are going on Mathletics - certificates, points etc.
One of the child asked if I could help her tell the time as she could pass the measurement activity I had set for them. I spent nearly half an hour with 2 children learning to tell the time.

My question to myself then was _ "Am I doing for those in need or just those who asked?"
"What do I need to do to ensure that they get it? Mathletics?"

Then just before I received an email from our SENCO asking about a Maori boy in my class who sent alarm bells ringing at the beginning of the year, with his data. He is well below in all areas - reading, writing and maths. He had been in radar, but nothing had been done for him last year (2014) as far as we could find in the records. So I was able to have a Teacher Aide for him, covering Reading Mileage and another Teacher Aide for Mathematics knowledge  (Stage 4) for the first Term. This was such a boost for him and the other child failing.

But for this term there hasn't been any intervention for him - just me. He is improving and progressing as he is part of my ALL group and is having an intensive guided session for writing everyday and the language is flowing - such an improvement. So when the SENCO asked should he be on an IEP - Yes because he has slipped through the gaps before and No, because he is responding to the class environment and he beginning to share his ideas.

So what next? I need to make time to really look at my data and pinpoint those children who need a "lift" and explicitly teach so that they don't fall behind.

ALL - What's working? What's not!

After today's sharing of blogs and the Team Leader's meeting, I realise that I need to make time to reflect, make changes, records those changes and try something new/different.

So to do this I will try to begin with questions.

What's working for my struggling writers?

Because I am working with them each day for guided writing (20 -25 minutes) and then an extra 45mins over 3 slots, the children are feeling much more confident.  They are now following aspects of the writing process - planning, drafting, revising and in some cases publishing.

The children are using a range of sentence starters and structures - moving away from simple sentences and adding depth to their writing. Ideas generally haven't been a problem for this group and orally their language is quite good. Now the children are stretching out the sounds they hear within words and are beginning to use tools - exemplars, essential lists and try/spell notebooks.

When the children are working in their independent writing books I have noticed some changes in the amount and the content for some of these children. The most noticeable change is their willingness to write - actually seeing themselves as writers, not as a subject.

What's not working for my struggling writers?

Mileage! I don't seem to be able to get through as much as I plan to do with this group. By the time we discuss what we are writing about, include everyone's ideas and plan, the actual writing in their books isn't being done in a timely fashion.  I need to build in some urgency - but this has been the problem for these children in the past, the pressure to get pieces of work completed.

Independently planning - As part of our experience I have recorded the words for use later, and then we have planned as a group together in our first session. generally I scribe and the children tell me their ideas, some children are asking if they can use other words in their planner.

Verbalising the learning - the children reflect and evaluate at the end of each piece. This gives them their next steps for their next writing piece. While the children are doing this, they are animated and can easily tell me what they need to work on.  I feel that when I'm not there beside them that this not at 'the front of their brain' helping them make decisions while they are writing. Could they tell someone else what their next steps are? Some, but not all!

What next?
I need to discuss with the children what 'we' can do to write within our time, more writing. What would help them? I will try to use Jeff Anderson - 5/7/10, write for 5 minutes, read and discuss your ideas/ improve it from feedback (spelling, editing) for 7 minutes, continue writing for another 10!

Encourage those who want to be independent in the planning stage to try to get the main ideas down and then to come back to the group and share. Give the graphic organiser (large copy) to pairs of children and get them to record what they want. Use sticky notes ( I do now - I scribe them) with more independence - children to write on them.

Before writing the children will be asked to share what they are working on in this session - I will write this onto the top the page for them to look at during this piece. Hopefully they will tell each other before  they start writing if I make "verbalising their next step" part of the practice!

How will I know if I'm successful?

My struggling writers will be able to tell me what their steps are, there will be more independence for the planning stage and there should be more writing.

Reading - Purposed Based Writing

What struck a chord with me was that "Good writers use text  features ( anything from elaboration, to description, to opening general statements, text connectives, figures of speech such as metaphor, commas for embedded clauses, and even spelling) to serve its purpose."

From this Reading - I sort of got that the basics are the same - take time to analyse good exemplars in depth, deconstruct and reconstruct to find how they work and extend of their purpose with your writers.

As Teachers we need to provide exemplars text to unpack and draw ideas from (scaffolding) so that they can get the writing done. This is still as important as the writing. The basics of planning, drafting, does the writing work? ( meet the purpose) rewriting and rewriting again - make writing, writing.

Taking the time to listen

Every Friday I have special time to work with just the children in my intervention group. This morning due to some miscommunication I didn't get to my experience off to the flying start I would have liked. The plan today was to celebrate their writing and to put it in the published work folders and cover their draft books making them more personal.

I decided to put a STAR on a piece of blank paper and the children to get words and letters that describe themselves from magazines. I will put a photo on each start and cover seal them onto their draft books. During this cutting time, the children were conferencing with me on their finished piece and deciding on what their next steps would be.

After I had completed the conferencing with those who had finished I listened in on the conversation on around me. It was all about words and letters, not pictures but the children helping each other to form words, find words and use descriptive language.

The publishing folders weren't done so that's Mondays job and to establish that GOOD feedback using the language of writing. For my next experience I think I will do adjective synonym poetry, to create word banks for our writing tool box.

The Importance of an Audience

Yesterday I decided to "pinch" one of the ideas for our ALL Meeting on Wednesday. It was sharing the children's writing with their parents. A wee girl in my group always has wonderful ideas but the dyslexia and handwriting skills make reading her writing a mission. So pushing the aside the surface features and writing it so you can understand her expression and ideas - I published her writing in an email to her parents and on our class weebly.

Awesome response from her Mum. She immediately emailed back and commented on the weebly.
I will make sure to capture those warm fuzzies  for each of the children in my ALL writing group.

What a simple idea for my colleague - but so effective.

ALL Team Meeting

This morning the teachers involved in the ALL intervention, all met to discuss the gems, challenges and celebrations. We are being lead by the AP who is setting us - readings, supporting our ideas, challenging our thinking and helping us to collaborate.

My first thoughts were that this was just a meeting to tick the boxes for the invention. I was pleasantly surprised to sit around the table and share what has been happening for each of us. It first started with the team reporting/sharing what resonated with us from the reading - Gail Loane "I've got something to say".  It was so fantastic that the reading appealed on so many different levels and there was much nodding around the table.

Points made - Everyone can write something
                    - The importance of good feedback (modelled and children using the learning to improve each other's writing)
                    - The children's writing is about their lives/experiences
                    - Reading aloud their writing to share ideas - deeper features over surface features
                    - Taking time to craft ideas
                    - Sharing GOOD writing and other writer's work

So after that we shared - gems, challenges and celebrations. Gems are as the name suggests - moments that needed to be captured. These ranged from using sticky notes to sequence ideas, parking the planning and explicitly teaching ed endings, the children's willingness to write (these children are reluctant writers) and the use of oral language.

One teacher had used the ALL 'experience' time to send emails to the children's parents with a snapshot of what they had written with a personal note from the child. A great way to create an audience for the writing. The teacher was so impressed with the instant feedback from the parents. I need to give this idea a go, so that I have more buy in from the parents.

I shared my challenge for one child in my ALL group who has great oral language but the surface features (spelling, handwriting and lack of spaces between words) make it hard for her to read back what she has written. I realised the wealth of knowledge sitting around the table. From drawing a happy face on a finger, using handwriting cards so she can see correctly formed letters, using coloured paper and having larger lines for her to write on, were some of the ideas forthcoming.

The meeting/sharing was very empowering and has given me more enthusiasm again to do the best I can for these kids. What a journey we on together!

Using words to describe

We visited the bush last week and played "Hide and Seek". The children were excited and were able to give be some words to add to our planner. After looking through the words given I discovered a real lack of depth to their words - words like fun, nice, noisy etc.

So today I was given the opportunity to re-visit the bush and add some more words to our planner. We went outside into the bush situated along side our school again. It had been raining hard yesterday and the area was damp and rather chilly. The children were wearing mainly shorts with a sweatshirt. With the help of the Teacher Aide, we took the children blindfolded and made them stand in places on their own where they couldn't hear each other and waited...

It was interesting, a couple of children had to look, some stroked the trees around them, some stamped the ground and some shouted. So we 'released' them and asked them to tell us how they felt, what did they hear, did they smell anything and so on. We had prompted them before hand to think about these elements before we took them on their travels.

It was like pulling teeth, they didn't have many words for cold, (like the wind was whipping through the trees and the Teacher Aide was turning blue!). Some of the children were rubbing their legs and rubbing their arms but still they could only come up with words like cold, really cold...
After getting some words out of them and it was beginning to rain we went inside to write some synonym webs for cold and scared.

After the children came back to class, I asked a colleague for some resources around words and what she used to develop the language for her children who were struggling with writing as well. As we have been given some more allowance on our photocopying budget I have gone a bit mad.

Lots of laminating tonight, hopefully it will help tomorrow when we make more synonym web for describing words for out Hide and Seek writing.

Inquiry - How do I help my struggling writers?

 I have selected 8 children  to work with using the ALL programme. This is a programme where the children are exposed to guided teaching for a period of at least 170 minutes - 200 minutes per week. This will happen for 15 weeks with the expectation that the children will move a year's progress - A JUMP START. The children are exposed to more oral language, scaffolding, any assistance that the Teacher deems they need.

So, after selecting 6 children with advice and knowing that 2 others are on the fringe and would benefit with extra support, I have 8 children in my ALL group. The selected children were given an e-asTTLe writing test - this was a cold sample, a picture cue and time for brainstorming and then writing for 40 minutes and 5 minutes editing. The expectation was the children would write a piece of descriptive writing. Of these selected children 3 are diagnosed with dyslexia, one who wears rose-coloured glasses to help her with visual dyslexia.

As part of the preparation for ALL - the children were all surveyed to find out how they feel about writing and how the feel about being taught writing.

The children are given a special book - a science book where the left hand page is blank and the right hand page is lined like normal. The blank page is for gluing in planning, graphic organisers, stretching and chunking words and practising writing a sentence. The book is set out with a learning goal sheet, Essential spelling lists 1-7 and success criteria for writing. I call the group my writing club.

I have struggled to plan for these children as I want them to have some input as to what to write about. So I started my first session with them today. I first showed them their books, asked them what they what to write about. The children came up with ANZAC (as the classroom is full of ANZAC, as it is our topic study), holidays, dolphins, fantasy & futuristic stories, and animals. I have created a list to use and guide the children. I began talking about animals - Pets and I found out that all the children in the group all have a pet of some sort. Mostly cats and dogs as well as a horse.

This has become my starting point as I want to develop the children's ability to describe when writing and it is always good to start with something they're familiar with. As I needed to work with the rest of the class on deconstruction of the new genre, I sent the writing club group away with a fat strip of paper and the expectation they would write one sentence about their pet.

Tonight I wrote out their sentence using Comic Sans font and the children can use this as the starting sentence for the piece of descriptive writing. Tomorrow together we will plan using a main ideas spider graphic organiser, word banks and write what next step they need to focus on during their writing.