Manaiakalani Magic

 Secrets To Success

Today we had a session as a staff with Kelsey.  This was about reflecting on how far we have come and in the six years of being part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme.  

One of the tasks we did was to work in groups and create a digital learning tool under a set criterion.  Our audience was a new teacher and we needed to share one of the gems we have found and used throughout our Learn Create Share work.

My group, Kathleen, Brooke and Rose who are first-year students from the University of Canterbury, opted to create characters using Voki and to have them speak out our information.  For most people in the group, this was a new tool so it was great to be able to share that.  We then used Screencastify to record the Voki and inserted them into a Google Slide.  We chose slides so we could add more information later. 

Our 'gem' that we shared was individual student blogs.  Check out our creation:

I really enjoyed this activity and loved that it was a learning experience for our group. It was also really cool that our group members all had roles that we slipped into very easily.  It was a good opportunity to share tools that I have found beneficial and to also share why individual blogs are a great tool.

Harakeke

 Harakeke Staff Development

• Practise and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori. 

We are very lucky to have harakeke growing in our grounds and unfortunately they have been neglected through the years.  Rather than let them continue to be left and overgrown and to be able utilise this resource, I approached our Resource Teacher For Māori, Christine Brown for help.  

She came to school and took a staff session which was open to all staff.  She took us through the tikanga and explained why harakeke is such a precious part of our heritage and culture.  We spent some time with our plants and had the opportunity to cut it, making sure we followed the correct protocol.  We then went back indoors and worked in pairs to create a taka.

This session was so valuable for all of us individually and as a school.  Our next step is to cut off dead parts and tidy the area around where our harakeke grow.  Some classes have already used harakeke with children and our senior part of the school plan to use harakeke as the base for our technology unit in term four.

Teaching as Inquiry 2020

Extended Learning Conversations With Students and Whānau 

• Specifically support the educational aspirations for Māori learners, taking shared responsibility for these learners to achieve educational success as Māori. 

For my Teaching as Inquiry in 2020, I chose to look specifically at the Māori students within our senior learning space and see if having extended learning conversations with students and whānau, showed some positive progress in Reading.

Although Covid 19 threw some challenges, I was still able to engage in learning conversations with students and some whānau, particularly those in my Literacy class.

The slide below shows this journey:

My next step is to share more Reading work through Hero regularly and not just at the end of the term.

Standout Assessment 2020

Standout Assessment

In 2019, I attended a workshop for middle leaders and we looked at our leadership styles and the ways we could work to our strengths.  Part of this was doing the Standout Assessment which I have just recently read again with the intention of using the information to help me develop as a middle leader.  

I think it important for me to first be better at identifying and acknowledging my strengths while also using what I know about myself to be more effective in my role.

Here is a brief overview of the assessment information.

My next step with this is to make sure I read through the things I can do to take my performance to the next level.

Sharing Progress

Combined Basic Facts Assessment

• Communicate clear and accurate assessment for learning and achievement information.

As part of my Numeracy programme and in order to share with students about their progress as a group, we did a Combined Basic Facts Assessment for addition and subtraction.  

I created a slide showing the amount of progress we had made in our number knowledge from the beginning of the year to partway through term two.

I removed names for this exercise as I wanted to highlight the fact that as a group, we had made some great progress.

Students loved seeing this slide and were proud of the improvements we had made as a class.

Self Love

Kerwin Rae Tells It

I came across this clip as I have with many others that I think are worthy of sharing and resonate with me.  More often than not, I don't take the time to post these clips to my blog.  

This clip has links to things we spoke about and looked into during our Springboard Trust Highly Effective Leadership Teams sessions.  

The main points:

• Sometimes we act in the way we think others think we should be.
• If we are smart, we want to continually improve.
• How do I contribute and help others while I am being the best that I can?
• Be a winning woman by being yourself.
• Self-love is knowing our strengths and weaknesses, delegate the weaknesses.  Accepting yourself the way you are.  You don't need other people's approval.

Language warning here...

Sharing Learning Progress

Number Knowledge 

• Communicate clear and accurate assessment for learning and achievement information.

I always find the middle of the year and end of term two and exciting one as far as student progress and next steps go.  Students will have had half a year to get settled and into the swing of things in different areas of learning.  

Often I wonder as we are going along about how much they have actually achieved and how they are doing in their learning.  With Covid-19 having a part to play in the disruption of our first half of the year, I was worried about what had been maintained and if students had lost or forgotten some of what we had started.

Combined Basic Facts Assessment

One area of concern was Numeracy.  My Numeracy group had just started and I saw significant gaps in number knowledge that I felt needed to be tackled.  

In term one, we did a combined basic facts assessment.  I shared the specific areas that students needed to work on and in class as well as using this as a sample for sharing to whānau through Hero. 

I provided learning opportunities for students to work on then in term two, we completed the assessment again.  Upon marking these, students were keen to see their scores and to see which areas they had improved on and still need to focus on. 

This provided students with clear and specific skills that they could work on and monitor progress.  

iKan Number Knowledge Assessment

Another form of assessment we use is iKan to determine number knowledge learning.  In the senior school, we do this each term.  Often, this is not a well-favoured assessment as many children struggle with the speed and the level of difficulty once the assessment reaches Stage 6.  

In term one, my Numeracy group assessment showed significant areas of need.  Once these were marked, I shared the scores with students by giving them their tests back.  We then spent some time looking at the questions they got wrong so they could determine where they went wrong.  

Fractions was an obvious area of weakness so we worked on this in the first half of the year and had a focus on basic facts and times tables.  

In term two when we returned after the lockdown, we completed the iKan assessment again, marked it and students compared their tests to term one.  It was great to see that students were looking closely at their results and comparing to term one.  

Our next step is to continue to develop specific knowledge areas and complete the iKan assessment each term.  I aim to have a clear picture for parents that students can share and hope to engage more learning from home.

Virtual Comments

Keeping up the Positives

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

During the time in lockdown and distance learning, I tried to think of ways that I could keep some of our school initiatives to support wellbeing and connectedness being maintained.  

To support our learners, give specific feedback and positive reinforcement, I created Virtual Fish Tickets.  These were used in a similar way that we do at school but looked way better because I could use a gif to make them more appealing to students.  I shared the template with staff and it was great to see that these were also being used and celebrated by most teachers.
The thing I liked about these was that you could personalise the Bitmoji and be specific about what students were getting them for.  You could also highlight the value they had shown.  
During the lockdown, I wrote and gave out about 250 of these virtual fish tickets.  
Feedback from students was positive and on our return to school, some could be heard in conversations about how many they had received.

For Staff

As a staff, we have a wall in the staffroom with named kete that we use to keep up the positives, give compliments, show thanks and aim to make someone's day.  During the lockdown, I created Google Drawings for different staff members and shared them with them.  

Literacy Learning

New Levels in Literacy

At the beginning of the year, the team in Takitini reflected on how we have organised and implemented out Literacy programme in the past and discussed options for teaching and learning for 2020.  

We thought it would be better to have each teacher responsible for certain levels.  Last year we each had a range of levels but it was sometimes a struggle trying to teach in a short amount of time and cater to all needs, especially with those that were quite needy.

We decided that I would take the lower end groups.  That felt extremely daunting to me.

In the past, I have usually taken the groups who were the more capable readers.  The groups I have this year range from Magenta to Turquoise.  

I felt inexperienced with taking so many students who were all at these levels.  I felt like I needed to do a bit of upskilling and have a very clear idea of what I would do in Literacy classes and what we would cover.

I spent some time talking with junior school staff and did some online research in regards to teaching reading and writing in the junior levels of school.  I spent the first couple of sessions trying to get an idea of where each child was at and getting to know them as the majority are new to our hub.

After trying to become better informed and working with teacher aides to develop learning support needs, I quickly started to feel more confident and capable of teaching at this level.  

I can see progress in all of the students and have managed to include a range of learning areas within the programme.  The preparation time quite a lot but the benefits of having their resources and activities ready and consistent makes a huge difference for the children.  

Here are a few photos from some of our Literacy activities in term one:

Connor does some matching activities.

Students work near a word bank we co-created to support writing from picture prompts.

Developing work habits and focus has been a priority for many students.

Working on letter formation.

Sharing our learning...and happy about it.

Developing fine motor skills and letter formation.

Writing from picture prompts that we have a group discussion about prior to writing.

Buddy reading with students from another Literacy group.

Buddy reading to increase reading mileage.

Quite high engagement during buddy reading.

Support from other learners.

I created a Wall of Words to support students with recognising high-frequency words.  Essential word cards and visual writing prompts that the junior school use.  This was started during our professional learning with Murray Gadd. 

Our Literacy corner.  Includes:  Reading activities, fine motor skills, handwriting, writing word bank, writing sheets, visual prompt strips, word families, phonics cards, reading book boxes and sight words sheets.

My next step is to continue to refine my programme and give it some time to develop.  I also want to observe in the junior school, Reading Recovery and teacher aides taking precision teaching.

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

Learning About Cultures

Our Cultures

In Whakamanawa, we have a great selection of books that teach us about different cultures from around the world.  Many of these are about children and tell stories of what life is like for them.  

In our Reading Alone time, we had a selection of books laid out for sharing and children could choose to read them.

Here are a few of our students engaged with the books they have chosen.  

Our aim is to grow our collection and have regular cultural reading as part of our classroom programme.

Social Time

Being Engaged

Relationships and interacting in a positive way is important for us not just in school but for life in general.  We decided to create a time where we could all socialise and interact with each other.  Students selected activities to do and spent time socialising with different people.  We found that this was a great way to connect and get to know each other more.

Our next step is to make this a more regular activity and continue to make and maintain relationships and communication skills.

Cultural Responsive Learning

Supporting Staff Cultural Responsive Capability and Confidence

At the beginning of the year, we had a full staff meeting.  One part that I took was looking at our cultural responsiveness.  Within this, we looked at ways that staff can develop in capability and confidence.  Each staff member wrote a goal for the first half of the year.  

A common goal was to learn the new karakia that we are adding to our repertoire this year, Whakataka te Hau.  In response to this, I created a slide to share with staff that breaks down the karakia line by line.  I included a spoken version and a waiata version so we can also learn how to sing it so we are able to use this in different situations we may be in.



My next step is to learn this myself, create opportunities for us staff to sing and use it to support learning for students.  I also need to look at individual teacher goals to see who wants to learn their mini and create ways to learn these.

• Practise and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori. 
• Actively contribute, and work collegially, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility. 

Teaching As Inquiry 2020

Teaching as Inquiry Focus for 2020

This year, my teaching as inquiry focus question is: 

What impact can extended learning conversations between home and school, whānau engagement and relationships have on progress in Reading?

I am going to use our target group in Takitini and focus in on the learners I have in my Literacy group. The other teachers in Takitini will also focus on these students which are our Māori readers.

Appraisal 2020

My Appraisal Document For 2020

Toolkits 2020

Amplify Math Through Talk Moves

I love it when I don't really know what I am getting in to and then I find some inspiration and interest.

I signed up for a Manaiakalani Toolkit called Amplify Math through Talk Moves.  I didn't actually have much of an idea of what this was going to be about.  Basically, it was about using Talk Moves in order to develop learning discussions.
One of the tools we had a go at using was Flipgrid.  This was a great tool to be able to explain our learning.  We used an activity called Grandpa's Pockets and used whatever we wanted to solve the problem.  We then explained our working out and then used FlipGrid to make a video of ourselves explaining it.  Because this is a collaborative tool, the sharing was instant.
Here is the slide Donna Yates, who hosted the toolkit, took us through.

How I worked out Grandpa's pocket problem.

Five of us managed to get our clips on to Flip Grid
Click here to see what Flipgrid can do

My next step is to use this with my Numeracy group.

• Engage in professional learning and adaptively apply this learning in practice.