Manaiakalani  & Outreach Principals Wananga 2018

1 Whiringa a Rangi Panmure Yacht & Boating Club

In week 3 of term 4, Mel, Andrew and I headed to Auckland for a Manaiakalani Outreach day.  To be honest I wasn't overly excited about going but actually came away feeling inspired, amazed and also a little bit daunted and extremely reflective of my own practice and what and how I do things.  

The people who shared their Innovative Teacher work were all amazing and I found the mahi they have been doing to be quite jaw dropping and impressive.  There are many things for me to explore further and different areas I want to look into more closely. 

Russell Burt-We are here as whānau to support our tamariki being focused on rangatiratanga.  Equity, Equality and Liberation.  

Pat Sneddon-Spoke about us all supporting each other and encouraging others to 

Aaron Wilson- When we are looking at data we focus in on details but also need to view from afar to get a look at the big picture.  When looking at data closely, we don't always see the broader patterns.  Learners must always be at the centre of these inquiries.  
Aims: is to work together to build capability, maximise the group size, 
Today was a zoom out and our job is to take the big patterns and zoom back in at cluster level, school level and class level. 
Graphs and data was shared and explained. Link to copy of slide shared.

Teacher Questionnaire Feedback~Looking at two questionnaire that have been done.  Looking at relationships between learner and teacher questionnaire.  Common theme is around whanau connection is not as evident as it could be.  


Implementation Leaders Questionnaire~66 leaders from 45 schools.  

Roving was quite high on the graph.  Discussion around why teachers rove, the purpose of this and how we might give this a nudge.  Critical thinking scored quite low.  Not much commenting on blogs was observed however this is likely to be because teachers knew they were being observed.  Very little collaboration was seen.  Incidental conversations happened rather than deliberate opportunities.  What does collaboration look like compared to co operation.Using student writing as a model was seen.  Would be good to see more wider world, global texts for students to explore rather than just texts designed for students.
Four types of feedback looked at during observations:  Evaluative Descriptive Generative Online

Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher Presentations #1

Clarelle Carruthers Pt England Language Acquisition in Mathematics

Link to learning site

Link to Clarelle's slide

Heather Matthews Hornby Primary School Unpacking a Key Competency

A book collaborated and created by heather and the tamariki in her bilingual class. Children are able to reflect on this competency as they shared a journey in creating to learn.

Link to Book

Link to Heather's slide

Hinerau Anderson Tamaki College Visible Teaching and Learning Site

Development of Visible Teaching and Learning site to use rewindable learning tools for students at Tamaki College.

Link to Hinerau's slide

Caroline from Noel Leeming~

Introduced to a portal designed to make procurement of devices for schools easier. Pathway A and B as far as financing goes.

Zac Moran Pt England School~Engaging Boys in Writing Movie Making

Link to Zac's slide

Link to Zac's Class OnAir site This is impressive. I have had a quick look at these Class OnAir sites previously but got a bit lost. I am really impressed with the mahi Zac is doing here. This makes me see how basic our learning site and our planning is.

Kariene Gardiner Ohaeawai School Recognising What Makes Effective Acceleration of Priority Learners in Writing

I like the Enhancing Writing Framework that identifies where teachers are at in rubric format. It covers pedagogy, constant innovation etc. I like this a lot.

Link to Kariene's slide

Link to Enhancing Writing site

Jacob Wesley Intermediate AsTTle Student Website

This is a bit mind blowing and very impressive. Is in prototype stage but what an amazing resource. Not only is this an amazing learning tool for students, it is also amazing for students.

Link to Jacob's slide

Link to Jacob's Prototype Site

Dorothy Burt

I wish I had started taking notes at the start of Dorothy's presentation. I just had an inspiring moment as she spoke about creativity. With the help of teachers across the country, circle wedge visuals have been created and developed. She spoke about teaching strategies for way back still being valued.

Danni Stone Pt England Unlocking Literacy

Link to Danni's Slide 

Link to Danni's Text Bank Site

Rebecca Spies Park Estate School Using Argumentation Boards to Enhance Critical Thinking and Accelerate Achievement in Literacy

A resource bank around argumentation.  (First time I have even heard of this).

Link to Rebecca's Slide

Link to Rebecca's Argumentation Site

WFRC

Provocation

The better you are at connecting with whanau, the more learning and progress takes place.

What do you want whanau to noticed and is it visible? How are you connecting with whanau?

How do children take their learning and use it in their future?  You have not learned to read if you can't read unfamiliar texts.  Mileage, mileage.

How does the learning design in our tasks, provoke empowerment.  

Given that we have said this a number of times, challenges work for some teachers, for some the change has not happened, so what is it that we can do better to support and challenge teachers?  How do we work so all are clear about what is involved in the challenges put down?

Cluster Convo

Future Focus:  Three things we will do.

• Whanau engagement-Look at ways to increase it, blogs etc (50 parents from our cluster participated in parent questionnaire?.
• Feedback, Critical Literacy, Extended Learning Conversations-
• Observations-Lead teachers to do observations looking at different types of feedback etc.  

Manaiakalani and Outreach Programme Slide (This is a goodie).

Interesting:

• One of the areas Woolf Fischer aim to increase is blog commenting. 
• When asked about how Learn, Create, Share helps keep learning interesting, enthusiasm in Year 3 is quite high then sees a significant drop as kids head towards Year 13.

• Cultural Connections with Learn, Create, Share.  Across the clusters, Maori and Pasifika students within Manaiakalani are happy, confident and see their cultures valued.  There is a slight mismatch between teacher and student perception.

• From this data is shows that across clusters we are posting on blogs more than commenting.

• Throughout the teacher questionnaire, teachers often selected 3 as a score rather than being definite in their decision.  A scale to four rather than five could make teachers chose rather than selling selves short and going for the middle of the road.
• Cybersmart programme needs to be embedded.  You would not send children out into the online world without having them educated in ways that keep them safe.

• Be informed by research and innovations related to: content disciplines; pedagogy; teaching for diverse learners, including learners with disabilities and learning support needs; and wider education matters.

Concept Based Curriculum

Concept Based Curriculum Learning With Kate

One of our school wide professional development areas of focus is about Concept Based Curriculum.  We have been working with Kate as a staff and within our hubs to develop our own understanding and ability to plan and implement this.  The concept for the year is:  Thriving communities have active members, each with roles and responsibilities.

This is an example of our learning and work at hub level:

What is working well?  

We have made a start.  The discussions have been good.  Some kids seem to have grasped the ideas and some not so much.  Sharing of activities has been good.

Next steps-Look at key competencies of participating and contributing.  What could our role/ responsibility be?

Looking at roles and responsibilities.  Starting at home level first.

Active-  How will be get understanding of this?  Look it up. Have images on cards that require children to actually  move. Have a look at what is active and what is inactive? Constant use of the word and the same language.   Great links to be there.

Don’t try to do too much at once.  Go through the active part for a couple of weeks and then introduce thriving.  Competencies need to be developed.

Have a look at the people who make up our community.  Can look at the obvious ones, Liz etc and why a plaque was made.  Look at why we would have a plaque for some people. How have they contributed?  How do they participate? What do they do? People who are active in our community.  Bring in other people when we want to venture out more. Volunteers, sports clubs, police, church people, St Johns etc.  

What do we do to participate and contribute within our school community?  It’s up to us to be active, not being told to do a job. What could we do to be more active?  

Questions:

To encourage student thinking, use question stems to discuss and direct.  Prompts can be used when having a visitor etc.

Content Neutral Questions Doc

Lots of skill building needs to be done as far as being skilled to ask questions.  

Take a Moment-

We have a school copy of this book.  Good for a point of reflection.

Link to PDF-In whole school inquiry folder.  We need to get kids thinking.

Have you used any visual thinking organisers?  Just KWL and is/isn’t.

To motivate thinking, children can use what if...to discuss and pose questions such as... What if everybody littered?  What if we didn’t have a caretaker?

Freeze frame-can show what active means.  

Characteristics of people who have contributed to communities.

Object walk-Variety of items around the room, kids wander around and record ideas abo9ut communities.  

True/False/Not sure statements.  Read out a series of statements. Does this mean you are active?  Yes, no, not sure, Could hold cards up to indicate thinking.

Effects wheel- use like spokes of a wheel. Write in the middle of a piece of paper “What is the effect of contributing to a community? Then links off each idea with the effect of that. Good way for kids to think of ripple effect from one big idea.

Example:

• Engage in professional learning and adaptively apply this learning in practice. 
• Be informed by research and innovations related to: content disciplines; pedagogy; teaching for diverse learners, including learners with disabilities and learning support needs; and wider education matters. 

• Actively contribute, and work collegially, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility. 

Learning Resources

Te Ara Takitini Learning Site

Being part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme and the Uru Mānuka cluster, has allowed us to develop learning sites in order for children to access their learning at any time, be able to have rewindable learning tools and know what is expected.  

In Te Ara Takitini we have a hub wide site.  As each year goes by, we build on this and work to embed the use of this into our learning culture.  Earlier in the year, I was mainly using the site for general learning so in term three I was determined to have instructional group planning on the site.  I did this for Reading and Numeracy.  

I organised my areas of the site so groups could access their learning and we could also use it for whole class and other curriculum area learning.  

An example of one Reading groups page on our site.

One of my Numeracy groups page.

Link to Te Ara Takitini Site

• Select teaching approaches, resources, and learning and assessment activities based on a thorough knowledge of curriculum content, pedagogy, progressions in learning and the learners. 

Concept Based Curriculum

Community

In 2018, our inquiry topic is Community. We worked together as a staff with Kate, who guided us through our Concept Based Community journey.  Our overall concept is:

Thriving communities have active members, each with roles and responsibilities.

We worked together to ensure we created engaging experiences and learning tasks for students.  For Te Rōpū Whakamanawa, our focus was around learning what this statement actually meant and recognising the part we all play within our community and how this can be diverse.
Here are some of the online activities we did:

Students used a Google Drawing to create and share their understanding of each key word in our concept statement.




We wanted to identify our different cultures and where we are from.  These were able to be celebrated and embraced when we shared information with each other.  For students, this was a positive experience because the interest and accepting feeling and comments while in discussion were all of genuine interest.  Children were able to share parts of their cultural background and uniqueness.

• Harness the rich capital that learners bring by providing culturally responsive and engaging contexts for learners. 

Learning Environment

Our Learning Setting

In Te Ara Takitini, we have worked to develop a learning environment where children feel safe and included.  We have set up systems and expectations where children know that their emotional wellbeing, safety and happiness are paramount.  Children have often spoken with me and emailed me with concerns or to talk about things that might be going on.  

To support emotional and mental wellbeing we introduced Mindfulness and use the Smiling Mind programme and some others on a daily basis.  I model using mindfulness also to help it be an embedded part of our day.  Some children choose to just sit, others will lie down and some choose to read quietly.  All of this is fine with me because the general feeling is a calm one and all children will be hearing messages and strategies to help deal with different emotions, life, stress and overall wellbeing.

 

I purchased and started using essential oils in the learning space and choose blends that support anxiety, promote calmness and have a positive and uplifting effect on moods.  Earlier in the year a group of children wrote an order list for me to make them roller ball blends for emotional wellbeing.  

A blend made for our class to help relax.

Students have written a number of lists and requested certain blends for themselves and families.

Diffusing essential oils has a positive on children as well as me and the smell is so pleasing.

Sometimes when children are working, I play binaural beats or music to help with focus, positivity and concentration.  

Some Binaural Beats can target specific needs such as ADHD.

You Tube has a huge selection to choose from.

Emotional and mental wellbeing is such an issue in society and with children these days.  In order to manage and tend to some of this, using these natural and calming strategies has had a positive effect on our class culture and could possibly benefit children as they go through life.  

Not only do these things have a positive impact on the children, but they also benefit me and help me to stay grounded, calm and positive.

• Manage the learning setting to ensure access to learning for all and to maximise learners’ physical, social, cultural and emotional safety. 

Communicating as SENCO

Responsibility of SENCO for 2018

One of my goals throughout 2018 in the role of SENCO, was to set up systems that were sustainable and transparent and also ensure that communication between support services, myself, staff and whānau was evident.  I feel like this has been achieved and has been effective.  

I have initiated and had regular communication with staff, parents and different people from support agencies.  I have asked teachers to identify students with needs and worked to help get these set up.  When something is put in place or actioned, I send emails to let people know. I also add dates for referrals on to the staff calendar and make sure I send reminders when these dates are coming up.

I have made numerous calls and have conversations with parents from across the school to help support their needs.  I also make time to follow up and catch up on things, making sure I inform parents about progress and traction.  I also make sure parents know that they can contact me at any time to discuss any needs.

I created a sheet which shows the children who are on our special needs radar and have shared this with staff:

SENCO has been the area of responsibility that has needed a lot of my time, energy and focus.  I have worked hard to ensure that I have done my best in this role and worked independently and alongside others to ensure our children who need extra support, are able to access this.

• Actively contribute, and work collegially, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility. 

Gathering Prior Knowledge

Gathering Prior Knowledge

• Provide opportunities and support for learners to engage with, practise and apply learning to different contexts and make connections with prior learning. 

When beginning a new topic, one of the ways I determine what children know and what prior knowledge we have as a collective, is through using Padlet.  This gives children a space for organising ideas, sharing what they know and also sparking memory of previously learned information.  It is a safe format for them to use as they can have ideas with or without their name.

Here is an example of a Padlet we used for Matariki: