Interactions with students

One of my favourite parts of my job is having interactions with students, either face-to-face or through other means. During the school holidays I received the following email and it made my smile. It also demonstrates that some of the children in my class feel safe enough to share details about their life with me, share problems and trust that I won't share it and will support her.

Chloe	20 Jul
to me

thank you so much for teaching me. All so sophie has been mean to me.but this term I will try to be nice to her and not be mean to.I hope she will be like that to.All so I like xavier and richie but just as friend.but not   . Ok 

Sharon Spragg <sharon.spragg@yaldhurst.school.nz>	24 Jul
to Chloe

Hi Chloe,

Thank you for lovely email. It sounds like you have done some good thinking around Sophie and I will try and help you and her become better friends. 

See you tomorrow,

Mrs Spragg

Chloe	15 Aug (2 days ago)
to me

thank you mrs spragg i feel 

Reflection & Next Steps: Some children feel comfortable sharing. Provide more opportunities for the students to engage with me in different ways and to work out how those that don't feel so connected are able to find ways of sharing with me. Remember to give those students 2 minutes of myself each day.

An example of an email to Parents 2016

Hi Parents,

We are half-way through the term already. Doesn’t time just fly?! A couple of updates for you all:

Progress Towards National Standards Reports - these will be coming out at the end of term. We are dedicating next week to our assessments so we do ask that students are at school each day so that we can assess them. Obviously if illness prevents then we understand. Both of us will be having time out of the class dedicated to assessment as well.

Student Conferences - because we are now following the Te Awahano model of in-depth interviews that will fall close to the 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120 weeks anniversary dates we aren’t having conferences on the days allocated at the end of the term. Instead we are catching up with you and your child before or after school.

Some families have already had these conferences and some of you are due. We will be making contact with those that are due and meeting with you individually. The times we would be looking at would be before school 8 - 8:30am or after school 3:15-3:45, 3:45 - 4:15 or 4:15 - 4:45. We can of course make a different time if you are unable to attend at any of these times.

Spelling - Until this week our wonderful teaching assistants have been doing the spelling testing. From tomorrow the students will be tested by a buddy or the teacher. We will then be marking these over the weekend and returning the Home Learning books to children Monday.

This change has meant a slight rejig of the timetable and so Beep Test will be a bit later on a Friday morning, closer to 9:30 than 9am. Hopefully the slightly extra time will mean the sun is coming out a bit more too.

Disco - the students are super excited about the disco and we are looking forward to seeing you all next Friday night. It is definitely the highlight of the winter for our students.

The next part of the term is going to be focussed on creating some Manu Tukutuku for art,  some science experiments for our writing and measurement for maths. Of course reading and handwriting will continue.

Thanks for all you great support in making sure your child does their reading, math whizz and spelling each night. Thanks for coming in and saying hi to us and communicating how things are going for your child. We really appreciate and are thankful for this open communication.

Nga mihi

Nicole and Sharon

Parent Meetings

Parent meetings are arranged to follow 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5 years. We (the junior syndicate team) decided that it made sense for the whole junior school to follow the process through. The hope is that we will have higher parent engagement with their students learning.

I have met with many parents. We cover the latest assessment and how they are going with reading, writing and maths. We set goals as a team and give them any support materials that will help.

It is always a really positive time and I love how we always leave feeling like a team. It is a great positive experience to work with parents and the child.

Reflection: Keep working on having these happen, even outside of the markers.

Seesaw PD

Allan kindly set me up with a contact at Swannanoa School. It turned out that a friend of a friend is heading Seesaw out there and so it was good going out to see what they were doing.

Bridie had a few other people there who were also learning about it. Two from the local preschool and another new entrant teacher. I had the most experience with Seesaw but there were things that I learnt.

Learning as follows:

• Voice recording speeds up time for teachers and for students
• Making time for the student to reflect with the teacher so that comments can be done with support and understanding.
• Teaching students to take their own photos / videos of learning takes the workload away from the teacher and gives ownership to the student.
• Set boundaries and guidelines for staff, especially around approving work put up by children.
• Sharing items (iPads/iPhones only) - you can share between classes, so if you are in the wrong class it's ok.
• Printing the QR codes for parents who haven't connected yet. 

It was also great to check out another MLE. While it was after school and there were no children, what we saw was great. It is always inspiring to see and hear about what others are doing.

Reflection: Get the students to start taking their own photos/videos and giving good reflections on their work. Think about how we can apply this to the junior school. Try voice recording with the students. Also try and get out to Swannanoa and see it during the day.

Next Step: Try all of the above.

Introducing Seesaw to the Children

Today I introduced Seesaw to the class in order for them to be able to take ownership of sharing their learning with their families.

I had spent some time thinking about what type of things students would need or want to share with their families. I created a poster of it and shared this with the other adults in the class, explaining what the parameters would be for children putting things on Seesaw. It is important that everyone is on the same page with this because children need work approved before it posts. We don't want work to be posted that isn't appropriate or could be silly.

I went through the following process with the class:

• Explained Seesaw and what it does / how it works
• Talked through each part of the poster and what it means. Gave examples of what they could be.
• Had a child help demonstrate the process, showing the class after each step.
• Gave the children iPads in groups so they could practise sharing something that fitted within the criteria given.
• Put the finished products up on the Active board and we went through a few examples of good ones, ones that needed a bit more info added and those that don't fit our criteria, approving those that fitted as I went. 

Reflection: The students were really engaged with the possibility of sharing work with parents and not having to ask me. The student who modelled it become the expert and he helped others. The quick learners also become experts, moving through the class helping those that got stuck. Each child was able to share one thing each. 

Next Steps: To support those that weren't there to learn how to do it. To support those that haven't quite got what to share with what they can share. To make sure all the teachers are clear on approving work. To teach this to Te Kākano so they can implement it too.

SENco PD

As part of our Senco role Ruth and I organised a Mental Health Nurse to come to school to speak to staff. Carmen is now going to be coming into class to help students learn how to use diaphragmatic breathing.

We also organised Greta from Dyspraxia Support Group of NZ to come and take the staff through some PD around Dyspraxia because we have 3 identified students with these specific needs.

Reflection: Having speakers to school to speak to staff is a great way to resource teachers without sending them off to courses. Everyone seemed engaged and discussions arose regarding how it applied to students and classes.

Next Steps: How do we keep it real for the teachers? How can we make more opportunities for teachers to reflect on this learning? I think we should also make opportunities to bring other experts in to talk about other areas that address our needs as a school.

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu

As part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme Iwi Two is involved in blogging to a wider community. Each week we go on the our classes blog and look at one of our partner schools. As a class we look at the blog post.

Because we are wanting to become responsible digital citizens we talk about the type of comments we want to write. It needs to follow what is outlined by Manaiakalani. As a class we agree on the comment and I write it for the students.

Example of our commenting:

Mrs Spragg22 May 2016 at 16:33

Well done everyone! Ka pai! Iwi 2 of Yaldhurst School thought you did an amazing job speaking Te Reo. We also thought your singing was wonderful. What was the song about? Did you enjoy learning it? Thank you for letting us watch. :) Iwi 2 - Te Pihinga Class.

Reflection: It is hard to remember to do this each week, especially if I am out of the classroom. I am trying to work it into each writing session so that they are getting it modelled to them. I would like to see the class, especially the Year 3's writing their own comments on different blogs across the school and on Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu. I need to be more deliberate about this process, to see it as a valid and valued part of writing rather than an extra.

Next steps: To change my thinking around the validity of this. To allow time to do this each day, so it becomes routine. 

Introducing Seesaw

As E-Leader I was asked to investigate a possible online programme called Seesaw that could be relevant to our school as our new e-portfolio. I had been involved in the process of setting up a possible site based e-portfolio but this was beginning to become a very time consuming project.

I spent a day release researching it online, attempting to contact other schools who use it and experimenting with the programme. I also used a student to see what it would be like from a student perspective to record their learning and assessment. The programme looked very promising, easy to use and navigate for students and teachers and so we jumped in with both feet.

I then spent time assisting the senior students in setting up their profiles and uploading their completed assessment. I ran a teacher's toolkit time one morning to help teachers get a handle of how to sign up and use it. I sent out help videos to teachers. I also established class profiles for the junior school. During a week I made myself and my classroom available to help and support teachers in using it to upload their students work.

For parents I have communicated via Care Monkey the link for connecting to their child's profile, I have answered emails and I made sure I was able to accept each parents request via the Seesaw app.

Following the system being released to the community I have continued to help teachers use this successfully. I have done an update at staff meeting and clarified with the staff and community how each part of the school will be using it.

So far we have seen a great engagement across the board. Parents are enjoying the ability to get up-to-date information regarding assessment and they seem to love the fact that they can comment on their child's work.

Our hope is that the use of Seesaw will help parents engage with their child's learning even more.

Reflection: This process has been very successful but we need to continue to grow engagement from parents. I think some more time spent exploring what other schools are doing would be helpful too, as I keep trying to push it forward as a tool to engage parents and children in the learning process. I think there are some particular development that could be done in the juniors and there needs to be a balance between Seesaw and Google. How can we make this work so they work together and compliment, rather than feeling like another thing? It needs to be sustainable for teachers.

Next Steps: Explore the above reflections more. Investigate other schools that are using Seesaw, maybe Templeton.

Communication with Parents

As part of the YMS commitment to make sure our parents are connected with what is going on we use a range of methods to communicate with parents.

Site - we use our class site to keep parents updated and informed with what is happening.

We have a parent whiteboard that is in view when you walk into the classroom that we use to communicate dates, needs and other relevant information.

Emails - we will send out emails directly to parents to let them know of changes, important information and news to do with Te Pihinga. We use a shared document to write these and will BCC to parents once we have both checked the email.

Long Term Planning

Te Pihinga's Long Term Plan responds to the developing needs and interests of the students and in response to the YMS Curriculum as set out by the Principal.

My partner teacher and I discuss the direction based on what we know about the students and their needs. Questions are asked at the end of term about what they enjoyed and what they would like to learn about. This is incorporated into our long term planning where possible. Student assessment is also analysed and direction set based on that assessment.

For our weekly planning we have a document where we plan our week, reading, writing and math groups. These groups are based on abilities and need. Each week a new document is created and adjusted. We record learning objectives, notes on groups, priority learners, support and targeted activities in this document.

We keep an active track of our readers through a tracking document. We have a similar tracking document for our math assessment.

We also have a class site which is currently used to help direct some higher readers to a rubric of their learning and to their learning document.

Senco Responsibilities

As part of the Senco Team I arranged IEP meetings with families of junior students who are receiving funding or are identified as needing Individual Education Plans.

A number of students are currently under Ministry of Education care and this meant liasoning with families, the caseworkers and SLT, teacher aides and other teachers.

I then ran the meetings and helped to facilitate the creation of goals for each individual student. These goals have now been created into goal books where all can note down any achievements made on these goals.

Facilitating a conversation

On Wednesday of Week 3 the E-Learning Toolkits were held at Yaldhurst Model School. As E-Leader I agreed to help host these at Yaldhurst. Allan kindly purchased some biscuits and juice so that we were welcoming and generous hosts.

As part of hosting at Yaldhurst I also was involved in facilitating a discussion for junior teachers.

My blurb was:
Junior School & Technology - If you would love to catch up with other junior teachers in the cluster to chat about how people are 'doing' technology in their classrooms then this is the place for you! You might want to get some ideas of what people are doing, what is working, what isn't working or maybe even how to start. No teaching here, just a place to listen and share. Chocolate will be provided.

There had been some discussion at the last E-Leaders day that the junior teachers in the cluster where finding it difficult to engage with technology as there wasn't the same support that the 1:1 Year 4+ teachers were being given. As a current junior teacher I felt that we could address this as a cluster by starting some conversations between schools and opening up the collaborative networks.

We started with a simple slide as a starter. Sharing who we were and what we are doing began a flow on effect where discussion was created around apps that we were using and success we heard. There was one other school attending, but with 5 teachers and things simply flowed as the teachers talked and showed different tools. Both schools were learning from each other and at the end email addresses were exchanged between a few teachers.

I felt that the hour had been successful as I saw YMS teachers learning from others and excited about the possibility to share and visit another school to see how they were making things work. For the BT at school there was learning about a programme we had introduced but she hadn't fully engaged with. She is now using it and excited about how versatile it is.

My own learning was developed as I heard others share what they are doing in class. Hearing the way Seesaw is being used has helped me to feel more confident in encouraging others to use it as a tool to communicate with parents.

My discussion starter slide: