Zoe's Teaching Standards Site

 On Tuesday morning we had an online meeting via Zoom with our Kahui Ako and Core providers - Anne and Gemma. This meeting was all about engagement and how we can better engage our students into tasks. The main idea I got from the meeting was about Roger Hart's Ladder - each rung on the ladder invovled student voice more from the bottom of the ladder, where students are told exactly what to do and how to do it., working to the top of the ladder where students and teachers work together to to lead activities with teachers working as equal partners. 

 Recently I have completed t2 webinars on Structured Literacy. These were very beneficial to understand the overall ideas about SL and how the brain works. It gave a good insight into what we are doing and how this programme with benefit many of our students. 

Yesterday we had a TOD which was going to be in Cromwell with all the other Area Schools in our Kahui Ako, however, for obvious reasons this was not going to happen. The day was based around Deep Learning and we had a keynote speaker - Joanne Quinn - who showed some deep learning examples from around the world. She focused on the four quadrants of Deep Learning and showed how this was done within the examples she showed.  Throughout the day we also had cohort group meetings and a school meeting with Joanne Barr who is our Core Facilitator this year. 

 Yesterday the Junior School teachers and Jennie travelled to Wanaka to visit Holy Family School. There were many different schools visiting along with us. This school was demonstrating the Structured Literacy model and showing how it worked across their school. I found it very worthwhile going to visit and learned a lot about how the programme works. As a school we liked the spelling programme and could see this being beneficial to our students. 

 In term three, and also in term 4, we put together our biannual drama production - Let Loose. Students auditioned for a role that they wanted and then, if successful, had to learn their lines and become the character they were portraying. Practices were held most weeks and leading up to the final performance, several times a week.  It was great to be able to still put our performance on to an audience, even if Covid times, and I hope that the parents enjoyed the production.

 In term 2 I started an ALiM group with 4 students, 3 year 6 and 1 year 5 student. There was a major focus on Multiplicative Thinking for my group because that was the whole class focus for most of term 2.  I used the Learning Progressions Framework to gauge some ideas of activities and where to base the learning at. I also took their 2020 GloSS data, as well as my overall teacher judgement on where they were at.  Once we had finished the Mult/Div unit in class we moved on to algebra which I also focused on in the ALiM group.  There was some great progress within the mult/div aspect of mathematics which was very pleasing. 3 of the 4 students made acceleration in the 10 weeks.  In term 3 I have started the second ALiM group which is a group of 5 year 5 students. This group is focusing on fractions.

This year we have had two teacher only days both with a focus on Local Curriculum. The first day was 11/5/21. We planned 2 inquiry units - the first was a Gold Rush, Lawrence History plan and the second was a Matariki inquiry/art unit.   The second day was the 16/8/21. We had another focus on the local curriculum and how we can include this on our unit planning. We also spent time on whanaungatanga. 

This week on Monday and Tuesday we had our mid-year parent teacher interviews. I had 18 of my 23 students represented in theses interviews which was fantastic. I also have 2 more that I need to have, 1 an IEP and one an interview that probably will take a bit longer. It is a great opportunity to talk to parents face-to-face and see if they have any questions about the mid-year report. 

 As a Junior School we had 5 sessions which focused on Matariki art activities which were in the lead up to the Matariki Community Celebration in Lawrence. These sessions were a great chance to work with students of all ages from year 0-8 and see the tuakana-teina relationships that were happening. 

This was the second of these days and it was really nice to be able to go with Gillian this time so both of us could take on more learning about Deep Learning.  Similar to the last day in Twizel, extending on a bit from Local Curriculum and Deep Learning. I think between Gillian and I we will be able to introduce the Deep Learning ideas to the school in a staff meeting.

 This term we had the rippa rugby and hockey sports tournaments. We had to organise these tournaments ourselves. For the rippa tournament we took the whole class. For the hockey tournament it was an optional event. 

 As a school we attended the annual Jumbo Day in Cromwell. There were only staff from Maniototo and Roxburgh because of the weather. It was still a very worthwhile day. Watching others share what they have been doing with Local Curriculum was very beneficial for all staff to see, as well as being able to share our own Matariki activities we had made as a Junior School.

This year Carla and I wrote the PE/Health report for the board. This involved gathering data and commenting on the athletics and swimming events. Setting goals and recommendations about the PE/Health curriculum alongside Carla too. 

This term I have attended and helped out at a few sporting events involving LAS students. Apart from our own athletics and swimming events, I have gone to the South Otago Athletics and South Otago Swimming Championships.  This is a great chance to watch and help our LAS students compete against students from other schools. 

 Last night we held our School Expo evening. This was an awesome opportunity to showcase what we are doing at LAS and get feedback from parents on strategic planning. I held a Digi Tech session in my class and was great to have some students to help out. I had 13/23 students present at the evening.  I had some great conversations with parents and it was awesome for them to see what equipment we have at school and how we are using DT.  The night also started with a hangi and welcome by the kapahaka. 

 Taking my class on camp is always the big highlight of the year. It is a great chance to see children in a different environment and see how they cope with new experiences and being challenges.  This year's camp was to Berwick Camp last week. It was a fantastic week, with great weather. Camp is always a great chance to interact with parents on a different scale too.  I had a great group of parents who were all very helpful. The kids were fantastic and all came out of their comfort zones and tried something new. 

 Yesterday we held our annual classroom information evenings. This was a great opportunity to discuss some housekeeping for the year and get everybody on the same page. I also held my camp meeting at this time too which was a good draw card for my parents. I ended up getting 11 parents that came along.

 On Monday 10th August I travelled to Alex for a Digital Technologies meeting with the other lead teachers of DT from Maniototo and Roxburgh Area Schools. Anne Keneally was facilitating the meeting from CORE Education.  The day was a great chance to get together with Anne, Katrina and Adelle in person after having our weekly Zoom meetings. Throughout the day we went over the Progress Outcomes for Computational Thinking (CT) and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes (DDDO). This was useful to give me some ideas about where to start with the LAS staff. It was also good for us to break down the language in the progress outcomes too.  After this we had a lot of playing time with different devices to see how we could use these in our classrooms in an authentic context. I really enjoyed the Bee-Bots and found that using the maps gave a more authentic context for the classroom. 

On the 5th August my class had the annual netball tournament in Balclutha against schools from South Otago. The whole class attended and we had 3 teams playing. I managed a team which was great. The team I took got better as the day went on and they played with great sportsmanship. 

                                On the 5th March Pauline and I travelled to Dunedin to attend the first ALL Workshop for the year. This was a great chance to refresh our minds about the ALL programme and also meet with other teachers and schools near us that are also running ALL.  Since then I have attended several Zoom meetings with Lauren Latimer who is our mentor teacher for ALL. The first one was with Pauline and Gillian as well and just a catch up really about what ALL was going to look like now after Covid.  I have also attended three online workshops that were also run by Lauren. The first one was about motivation and engagement, the second was an online forum to catch up and the third one was about learner pathways. All of these workshops were beneficial and I will be able to use some of the new learning in my ALL sessions next term.