Clarity, Share and Understand Learning Intention and Success Criteria

What is the aim of learning intentions and success criteria? It is not to help the students complete the activity - it is help them learn.

I was given this reading of Chapter 3: Embedding Formative Assessment and it has made me rethink how I use WALTs and Success Criteria. Also I have been thinking about using a whole class approach and this reading has given me some scaffolding for what these lessons will look like.

Here are some pointers from the recap -

• I may not know exactly where the lesson is going - it is the experience rather than the outcome.

This has happened when I gave the class a maths problem I thought they should all be to work through if they worked within a small group. The problem was too hard and I realised the children were unable to recognise the patterns of 3/4 digit numbers - how these break down into smaller workable numbers. This was good as it gave the children loads of questions regarding what they needed to learn and therefore the writing of their learner pathways was way easier.

• Keep the context of the learning out of the learning intention.

I have always struggled with WALTs and how to create them, during my observations of colleagues, I discovered the importance of keeping the context out and how it makes the learning more transferrable for the children to apply the learning. This has happened more since using a whole class approach and asking the children at the end of the lesson what they have learnt. 

• Start with samples of work rather than rubrics, to communicate quality

Using Notice, Think, Imitate and Innovate has given more scaffolding to my class lessons. By using 'good' exemplars the children have become more aware of the standard they are trying achieve and where they need to go with their learning. It has changed the way the children 'think' about their learning, and what steps they may need to get there. The children are beginning to show this in Seesaw when they realise what they have learnt.

• Use big ideas, learning progressions and staging posts

As part of the team planning, we are unpacking each big ideas and finding all the learning progressions needed to solve the problem. It is rich learning because each child is able to take what they need and this in turn build more student efficacy, which is what we after for 21st learning.

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.

New Team 2016

This year I am leading a new team for my syndicate. After our first meeting and one of the team not arriving on time...2 hours late. I realized that I need to do some Team Building and create more trust within the group.

What went wrong

• I was away for the planning day at the end of 2015 but as a team we had begun our planning earlier in the month and had got some ideas together. Only 3 present out of 4 present - one sick.
• Planning day - I wasn't there but had booked a date with the others but had not specified the time.
• Sent an email the day before for the time of the planning meeting.

What have I found out since

• After reading the "10 Truths about building school teams by Elena Aguilar", in point 7 she says "The health of a meeting reflects the health of the team.
  You can take the pulse of a team's overall health by observing ten minutes of any meeting. If you want to strengthen a team you lead, focus on designing engaging, reflective, and meaningful meetings. Make sure that what happens is relevant. Make sure that you get feedback on your leadership. Make sure that people know what they're doing there and why they're meeting. For every hour of meeting time, you should spend two to three hours planning. (Yes, that much planning time -- that's what it takes.) " That the planning for the meeting takes time!
• I spoke to my team member, who came late to find out that she tends to avoid everything when she is under pressure. (She is currently working to complete an assignment for an out-of-school course, she has had an extension to this as well). She had been reading (avoiding) and wasn't reading emails etc. A colleague within school was able to contact her and she did come to the planning meeting. She was apologetic and contributed to ideas for the rest of the meeting.

What to do next time

• Send out agenda for meeting well ahead of time, spend time to ensure it works for all, especially the children
• Make sure when the pressure gets too much that all team members are supported and given enough time to complete what is expected of them.
• From the "10 Truths about building school teams by Elena Aguilar", she says "Learning is the primary work of all teams. Whether you're in a leadership team, a data team, or a curriculum design team, your work is to learn. The only way we'll make a dent in the mountain of challenges that we face in schools is if we, the educators, never stop learning.

So as I get ready for the year ahead I am looking forward to meeting the challenges of a new team and to keep on learning.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” 
― William Arthur Ward

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.

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.

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!

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.

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