The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

This year, 2020, started differently for me. I didn’t have a class to prepare for. I didn’t have staff days to attend. I didn’t have the noise in my head as my holiday began to creep towards its natural end. Sure, I still had the excitement of what was to come. The nerves of starting. But I had the added nerves of starting something new. A new journey, a new job.

Almost three months later I feel I am finding my feet. As Term 1 drew to an end I was feeling more comfortable in this new skin as an Education Programme Leader. I had spent time getting to know the people I am working with, getting to know their context and their students. Getting to understand how each school functions and how they relate to each other. I’ve watched for the unspoken culture and felt my way with different parts of the job.

This job is kind of like walking into a room blindfolded. You know there are walls and doors even though you can’t see them initially and while you trust that the people around you aren’t there to trip you up or push you over, you still feel very much in the dark.

I’ve been lucky though. I’ve had Mark with me, holding my hand as I feel my way forward. Guiding and supporting me, cheering me on and gently reminding me not to try and run just yet. I’ve also had Kesley to my side. I’ve watched her navigate this role for a few years now, so she has given me a blueprint with which I can follow. What an imprint too! Again, I feel so blessed.  To have an amazing whāhine around me, showing me what great humble leadership looks like.

I have been struck by what I’ve missed though. And what I haven’t missed.

I knew that I would miss my work-wife Angela. And I have. Badly. It is hard to know how much you become in tune with each other when working in a close environment. It is a pretty powerful thing, a good partnership in a classroom. We have weathered many a storm together, professionally and personally. I know that I am a better teacher because of this relationship. And a better person. Thankfully, we can still catch up, even in this weird bubble time, we meet and laugh and groan together.

I knew I’d miss my classroom and in particular, the students. There have been a few tears shed over what I haven’t been able to do with them. Over the end of the journey, especially for the Year 8’s. 3+ years is a long time to journey with students, you really get to know them well.

I know I’ve also grieved what we (Angela and I) could have done with them this year. We had that class humming by the end of 2019 and this year would have been a gift of exploring and extending with those amazing learners into things we hadn’t been able to do before.

I’ve missed the staff team too. There are great, passionate people that work at my former school. They love every kid that walks through the gate each morning, even when it is hard and challenging and they aren’t so lovable. It’s weird not walking through the same gate every day. (It’s also strange knowing that if I do get to walk through that gate again this year that I will be met with change and with people who won’t know me or care why I’m there.)

I haven’t missed the stress though. The drama. The frustrations. The difficult bits. The unending lists of stuff that you have to do but have no time for. And let’s not forget the behaviour management. I really don’t miss that. Mostly I don’t miss the feeling that it doesn’t matter what you do because it won’t make a bit of difference fo that kid or their situation because what it really needs is money and 1:1 support and … (insert list here), sigh.

I see that struggle though, in every school and class, I enter now. I see the strength, the determination, the tenacity and the beauty that exists in every teacher as they fight daily for the best space for each student to learn. Sure, it isn’t perfect all the time. It is messy and sometimes things go wrong, failure happens. But, it is as real as it gets.

So I feel glad and blessed, afraid and happy, excited and nervous. But I know that this new journey I’m on is the right one. I have a new team, a new set of people who I can engage in this journey of educating and the chance to grow in new ways. What a gift.

I started this blog thinking I would share some learnings but as I’ve written I realise that in this weird, bubble space we currently exist opens itself for reflection. So this is a reflection blog on what was. Tomorrow I might write about the learnings and the current things. But today I reflect and I remember. I wonder if you are taking some time for reflecting too?

Does motivation make a difference to students engagement in reading?

During the holidays I met with Kelsey to hear about some learning she had experienced a few weeks back. She shared her and Mark's notes with me, as well as explaining an overview of what they had covered. The discussion was around how we engage students in reading.

In writing we take time to hook the students in with something, we try and get them excited and interested in what they are going to write about. But we don't do it with reading. Usually, we give them a book or journal and tell them what to read. There is no choice left with them. But we expect that they will be excited and engaged with reading because it's reading.

The speaker Dr Rebecca Jessen said "Motivation does not predict reading achievement however engagement does. The hook gets engagement and leads to increased motivation and reading achievement. Relevance especially culturally is critical for engagement."

Kelsey shared about what Wigram Kereru community are going to be doing to engage their readers and it made me think about what we need to do. While we have given a little bit of choice around one or two things (the novel study group got to choose their book, they have a choice in the way they present activities) we don't really give them any choice about all of it.

Because of the timing, I didn't feel that we would be able to change everything for the term, plus our class runs a bit more traditionally than Kereru, however, I do want to see if creating excitement and interest before beginning makes a big difference in their achievement.

I decided to start with two areas that I could, without changing everything.

Shared Story: While we have decided to follow the Chapter Chat choice and read the book Holes to the class I wondered if I could help create excitement around this book by the way we introduce it to the class and the way in which they first engage with the follow-up work.

Novel Study Group: There are two books for the students to choose from, one we chose and one the students chose. I wondered if there was some way I could hook the students in, get them to choose the first book they read and get them excited about the reading for the term.

With these wondering questions in mind, I decided to try a few things.

Shared Story:

• I created the Slide to help engage interest and prior knowledge in the story.

• I decided to create excitement around the story by putting the book into a box and creating 'clues' that needed to be opened on the first day. 

The students were very intrigued by the box and curious to know what was in it. Lots of discussion and noise was created as we opened and talked about what the clues could mean. Watch the video below. 

The clues gave way to some discussion around what it all could mean. My class blog entry shared some of the ideas that they came up with.

It was great to hear everyone being creative, despite a few students knowing things about the book. I was open to having a student say they thought it would be a book called Holes but because it was amongst other suggestions we didn't dwell on that. It was helpful having Angela saying she thought it was going to be a puppy, the children got into this idea.

We read the first couple of chapters because they wanted it and so far they seem to be enjoying it. Tracking of the work they complete and the responses during discussions should give us some indication of how engaged they are with the book. I would hope to see an increase in the depth of answers and creativity in the creative DLO's. 

Novel Study: 

In light of the idea that we need to give ownership and choice to the students, I created this slide for students to choose to know about the books and knowing what work they would need to do. 

I also thought through how I could enhance the activities that the students need to do so that they don't just answer a bunch of comprehension and vocab questions. I want them to deepen their understanding of the book and to extend their creativity in the way they answer so that it shows their depth of understanding. 

Kelsey also shared that Dorothy Burt felt that teachers do far too much of the work and that we aren't allowing students to do some of this checking. After a term of struggling to keep on top of the marking, I would have to agree so I wanted to include this in the work. 

So my follow-up activities include peer checking, peer work and creativity with choice. There are still comprehension questions and vocab questions but I have encouraged pair conversation and will aim to use some of the critical literacy lessons with this group to develop more of these skills. I am thinking about testing them again at the end of the term to see if this makes a difference to their results, though we will test early Term 4 so I may wait till then. 

What about the rest of the class?

This is an area that currently I have left as is. I do need to develop this but currently, time and a question around how to do this well, while still developing the reading skills using Sharp Reading is stopping me from moving forward at this stage. I would like to explore how Wigram manage their programme further as I feel that will help me with some of my thinking. 

What questions do you think I should be asking? What ideas do you have around Critical Literacy and engaging readers? I would appreciate peoples thoughts on what I have written. 

Leadership - some initial thoughts

This year my inquiry is around leadership due to my role as a School Leader in the cluster.

I love my role as School Leader. I get to work with brilliant, thoughtful teachers from around the cluster who challenge my thinking. We are led by the amazing Kelsey, who doesn't just let us sit around and have a chat but challenges us, supports us and helps us to be the best we can be. What more can you ask from a leader?

Which brings me to my inquiry ... or in fact, some pre-questions around leadership because after our first meeting where we went over the things we were to present at our PLG's I left feeling overwhelmed, unsure and a bit lost. Admittedly the information did go at breakneck speed and there were many voices in the room ... but it was more than that. I felt unsure as to whether I could actually lead a group of adults who know as much as I do, if not more. And that's a challenge and a question. Or two.

How do we lead if we feel insecure about our own leadership abilities?

How do we lead if we know the same as the people in the group?

As I've approached today (our PLG day, where I would have to lead) I have continued to feel unsure, but it seems that others do too. And that is reassuring. I think.

The PLG's went well. My group seem nice and listened to me. I think they are as unsure about what we are doing as possibly I felt last week. We worked through the slides and everyone was on the things they needed to be and people shared well. Which brings me to the next group of questions.

How do we know if we are doing a good job as leaders?

How do we measure our ability to lead?

I know what it feels like to be lead well and to be lead poorly. Maybe my next step is to write these things down and process what these things look like. Once I know these things, perhaps I can make sure I do/avoid these things when I'm leading. Maybe I should read some things around leadership. Might be time to raid my husband's leadership books.