28/8: PD - Student Advisory Panel

PD: Student Advisory Panel

28th August 2017

As a part of today's Staff PD we had a group of students from various year levels who are members of our Student Advisory Panel present to us. After students from Kaipara College came and presented on what student led initiatives they were running throughout their school, staff and students alike were inspired to start here at King's College. As a result a Student Advisory Panel was created and approached one of our Senior Leadership staff to come and talk to staff about Student-Teacher Relationships. Throughout this presentation students covered the importance of; getting to know your students, feeling comfortable enough to ask questions,  getting to know your teacher on a more personal level, rapport in the classroom & staff participation in school or house activities.

Hotene started by giving us some background as to how the Student Advisory Panel was formed, who is represented and their inspiration. After the creation of the Panel they decided to discuss things that they all valued and what messages they wanted to portray. Key points that were highlighted were; students knowing that any mistake is fixable, feeling comfortable to ask for help and knowing teachers will approach you if you are stuck. He then introduced the students who would be speaking in today's session and what topics they will be addressing.


Importance of getting to know your students

• Students who learnt more felt more comfortable in their environment
• 4 main results due to having a student-teacher relationship:
• academic success
• less behaviour management by developing a relationship with disruptive students as no student wants to fail, instead you just need to find out what makes them click 
• development of self worth
• more productive environment
• How to develop:
• knowledge of names & pronunciation, ethnicity/cultural background, day student vs boarder
• Showing interest in students life outside of school - how was your day/weekend?
• Students felt that a stronger relationship with teacher resulted in better classroom environment, homework handed in on time and students felt they listened more in class

The importance of feeling comfortable to ask questions

• This particular Year 11 student felt like since she was new to the College that she wasn't up to speed. She included that she felt behind in regards to relationships with teachers and other students & teaching styles and platforms. This resulted in her feeling left behind and judged for having to ask questions
• She explained that since she was new people were more lenient in regards to certain aspects of school life such as handing in homework was late. This made her feel confused as she liked the extra help but also felt it was unfair that it was not being offered to the whole class and felt uncomfortable about her special treatment
• Another key message of hers was he importance of being open to allow all students to ask questions. E.g. don't single out new students, expect questions from everyone and specify when extra help is available outside of class (can students email, ask for help, have extra time, extra sessions etc.)

The importance of knowing your teacher on a more personal level

• This speaker addressed the importance of his teachers opening up about their personal life as he feels that he is able to develop more respect for his teachers and sees them as more of a mentor in their life
• Although stories may not be relevant to what they are learning they helped develop respect
• Sharing information about themselves on the first day helps to break the ice and show that we are all human
• Using personal experiences to help show practical examples
• Spending one on one time with students - sharing personal information/connection with students to help them through

The importance of rapport in the classroom

• Strengthen general collective respect for the teacher, individual rapport through conversations, have an environment in which
• Finding a common ground, maintaining eye contact throughout conversations

The importance of teacher participation in house/school activities

• Teacher involvement in school activities such as swimming sports & athletics
• Teachers showing interest in student lives outside of class

The idea is not to tell us what to teach, since we already know that but they are showing us how they like to learn

The aim of this session was for students to feel valued and get there points and feelings across on certain points. They stressed the importance that this session was not for them to tell us what to teach them as we know better. Rather, they were hoping to show us how they like to learn and feel in the classroom.

Some points really stood out from this session for me. An example is the idea that the more you give of yourself to your students, the more you are likely to receive back from them. I also liked the reminder that no student likes to be seen as disruptive or naughty and they don't purposely fail. Instead it is our job to try and connect with our students, to build a relationship and find the style of learning that works best for them.

Link to blog post regarding Student Agency from Kaipara College students found here.

6/6 - PD: Student Agency

Staff PD: Student Agency

6th June 2017

For our Staff PD session today we had two students and a teacher from Kaipara College talk to us about their recent journey to include student agency within their school. They started a student agency group for Maori students with the key idea of being culturally responsive. They started with a student agency day to discuss what this would look like. What is it? What do they want to achieve? When they will meet? Key themes of what student agency in action would look like are:

• building relationships
• group work
• controlled but fair environment
• humor
• positivity
• fair work pace - not too fast
• having activities that allow students to move

Students organized a Whanau evening. They sent letters to family so they could come in and learn about NCEA. What is it? What are credits? How do you pass level 1, 2 & 3? The evening was fully ran by students. They also included a session based off Kamar results. 

They then held a PD Day for staff. There were multiple sessions which included:

• deficit theorizing
• this was confronting & uncomfortable for some teachers as they gave examples such as  a teacher growling a student for not having a pen even though they had pens on there desk, a student was missing for 2 weeks - didn't ask where they were and they had been attending a funeral
• Amazing Race for staff where they were graded A, M & E
• Whanau evening #2 - rang parents rather than letters, greater success
• Awards evening/success assembly - PRIDE awards, Ruben Wiki also attended, students MCed the night

They continued their journey this year and just last week completed their first Whanau evening for 2017. They rang parents again as well as sending emails.  They found the phone calls were more effective & drew in more parents. This night included 5 Pods, ran by students, and made sure to include upcoming events at school.

So how has implementing a student agency program implemented staff & students? Some examples of how they have been going are below:

• students interviewed teachers from different facilities to provide a range of different voices. They were asked what effects and impacts have worked for them:
• increased relationships including greater respect & partnerships
• helped gain extra knowledge & Maori students were more engaged
• cultural language = more involvement
• impacts on students included:
• Maori are more engaged and participating in class
• students personal excellence was being acknowledged even if that was even just an Achieved or Merit
• Interview with the Principal
• Why did you let the group happen? - stepping back from leadership to allow students to have more of a voice, in turn parents became more involved after seeing the development
• Effects of staff - teachers were more open to change. They sometimes knew that change was needed but they were unsure of how this would happen

So a key question is where do you even start on a journey like this?

Kaipara College started by addressing the needs of the students. It is vital to make sure students have the biggest voice, because after all it is all about them. They then ensured they focussed on pedagogical development. This was mainly through co constructing holistic strategies with both students and staff. This included what does it look like and how is it visible? They did acknowledge that having a new principal and faculty leaders may have helped to have created more momentum for change.

This PD session left me feeling inspired. It reminded me that although I may not be able to change everything in the school, I can at least ensure ALL of my students feel included and valued within my classroom. 

22/5 - PD: Stress & Anxiety

PD - Stress & Anxiety

22nd May 2017

For Mentor Period today the girls had been asked to go to the Lecture Theatre for a talk on Stress & Anxiety. Staff had been asked to accompany the girls for help with crowd control. I was unsure of the buy in that this talk would get. I feel that when stress and anxiety is a key focus in Mentor Periods or Health classes some students find it hard to buy into conversations surrounding these topics.

It was our two school counsellors Karen & Paul that were running this session with the girls. Paul started the session by talking about what stress is and the difference between acute and chronic stress. I found this very interesting as no one had ever explained this to me before. Chronic stress is the type of stress that I feel the most. It is the build up of stress over a longer period of time. They then went through some of the impacts that stress may cause or ways that we might recognize that we are stressed.

After looking at what stress is and how it can impact you they went through the four preventative actions for stress. These included:

1. Good organization & planning - included planning your free time to ensure you get some time to relax
2. Analyze how you are using your time - this may show you that you aren't as busy as you think you are and you may find that you have more free time than you thought
3. Look at taking something out of your cluttered life
4. Practice self-care

I like that not only did they touch on the need to practice self-care but they also put a list of different ways this could look like. They also emphasized that self-care could look different for each individual. 

Other key points of the talk was how to deal with stress. They confined these to four ways:

1. Check the Balance in your life - the self-care vs stressors
2. Talk to someone
3. Keep the big picture in life - is it going to be important in a year?
4. Avoid over-thinking and negative self-talk 

To finish off today's session Paul took everyone through a simple guided breathing technique. He told us that if we focus on breathing in a stressful time it can help to trigger the nervous system and help create a calming feeling. The breathing exercise started with noticing the air going through nose and your hand moving up and down on your tummy. This was followed by seeing if you could hear the air going in and out your nose, allowing thoughts to enter your mind, acknowledging them and then return back to your breathing. Then you could start to notice your the emotions you feel and then return back to your breathing (can be done by counting 5 breaths). The idea is that your breath acts as a physiological barrier. When you notice what you are thinking or feeling and then return to your breathing it helps you to acknowledge these thoughts/feelings, while still feeling calm.

To also help encourage students to take control over their own stress levels school will be running a Mindfulness course. It will run over 4 weeks in an after school session. They encouraged students to try practicing mindfulness to them them to live in the present without having life being overrun by your thoughts and learning to control these thoughts rather than feeling trapped in your own mind. 

Personally I found this talk to be a great reminder that sometimes in life we do need to slow down and take some times for ourselves. I managed to take away tips to apply to my own life to try and minimize future stress levels. I also hope they open the Mindfulness course to staff!

Well heres to a less stressful future - hopefully!

A handout from today's session can be found here.

4/3: PD - University Entrance

PD: University Entrance

4th April 2017

Today's Staff Professional Development session was around University Entrance. The main aim of covering this in our PD session was to make teachers aware of the University Entracne requirements for both pathways and some of the complications or 'fish hooks' that can let students down. As a Teacher Mentor I also thought that it was important to up-skill myself to be able to help my Student Mentees, especially as last year I didn't have any Year 13 Mentees so I didn't really need to worry about it.

So here are some of the key points that I took form today's presentation:

Cambridge

Firstly I found the talk on Cambridge interesting. I still feel like I don't know too much about this pathway. Having only taught NCEA and having taken that pathway myself I feel quite familiar with the University qualifications so most of the information surrounding Cambridge was new to me today. Key points included: 

• UE generally available at the end of year 12
• Minimum of 120 points over 3 subjects with no D grades
• Numeracy = D or higher in IG Maths or Maths passed at AS
• Gained in Level 1 – if gained under IG and then swap to NCEA they loose this
• Literacy = E grade or better in AS English (D or higher for AU)
• Gained in Level 2 – if gained in AS and then swap to NCEA
• Tables for AU entry with CIE - one subject from each side of the table (tables are different for both NCEA & CIE)

NCEA
As mentioned above having gone through the NCEA pathway as a student myself and having to look into Universtiy Entracne this was much more familiar to me. However, there were still 'fish hooks' to look out for. Key points included:

• Numeracy = 10 credits at level 1 or higher
• Literacy = 10 credits (5=reading, 5=writing) through specific Level 2 standards
• AU = 17 English credits at L2/L3
• What standards in your subject can be counted?
• Subject requirements = 42 credits in L3 subjects & 14 in 3 approved
• Minimum of 60 L3 credits (+20 from L2 = 80 credits total)
• Rank score calculated – E = 4, M = 3 & A = 2
• Max of 24 credits per subject from a max of 5 different subjects

Upon the completion of this PD session I feel more comfortable in regards to helping to track my mentees. I feel as though I will be able to question some of their subject choices more in future one-on-one meetings. However I do still realize that I am not an expert in this area and will ensure that my Mentees know that to. I will still encourage them to seek support from our Careers Advisors.

A hand out from today's session can be found here.

17/2: Reflection - BLENNZ Meeting

Reflection: BLENNZ Meeting

17th February 2017

Today at lunch we were lucky enough to have a member of the Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ (BLENNZ) come in and talk to us. This year we have a student in Year 9 with Oculocutaneous Albinism. The school and BLENNZ meet his teachers to discuss what this meant, learning challenges and how we can help him to overcome them.

Oculocutaneous Albinism means that this student has a lack of pigmentation in his hair and skin and it effects his eyes. The fovea (pit at the back of the retina responsible for sharp vision) is affected and this particular student has a vision ranging from 6/36 - 6/60 (the "normal/average" vision is 6/6. We were told that he can fluctuate depending on the level of tiredness, stress of hunger he is experiencing.

As his vision is impaired it can challenge his learning. Examples could be; struggling to navigate school especially when busy, not being able to see written work well without the use of technology, could struggle in situations such as sports/ games when a ball could be moving fast.

So as his teachers what can we do to help?

• use digital format so he is able to enlarge the screen/text
• may need extra verbalization of tasks e.g. not practical/visual demonstrations of work
• be conscious of glare on whiteboards/desktops
• use blue or black markers on whiteboards rather than red or green
• use black and white or blue and yellow on data projection
• consider everyday language of over there etc and try and give directions in more detail
• if watching video clips in class send the link to him prior to the class or after so he can review it

Personally I think a meeting like this proved valuable. I can now actually understand his condition and what his vision is like. I can now take this information into consideration when planning lessons for the class. I can consider if I need to modify lessons to better suit his needs and ensure that he is still included in all activities. 

A handout from today's session with more information on Hugo's condition can be found here.

8/2: Reflection - 12 PE Progress

12 PE Progress

8th February 2017

This year is my first time teaching Level 2 Physical Education and I was excited to see a lot of familiar faces from Core PE last year. Going along to my first lesson I thought that this class would be the easiest to form relationships with, having taught most of them before. Although I have a good relationship with most of the students in the class I noticed in my first lesson that they were rather awkward with each other.

Our first lesson was only 20 minutes long due to a '6 period morning'. I decided to use this time to learn more about my students and for them to learn more about each other. I decided to start off with an activity called Connections that I learnt on a PD course last year. This activity starts with someone sharing information about themselves. They choose what they are willing to share. While sharing they aim to make a connection with someone else in the room. When a connection is made that person says "I can connect with that". They then explain the connection, introduce themselves and share something new about themselves.

I have used this connection activity a few times with different classes and it has always worked really well, but this time it was just plain awkward.  No matter what question I asked the 12 PE class, in or out of the connections activity they were very reluctant to share in front of each other. The time they seemed most comfortable was when they were talking in their small friend groups.

Since that lesson we have spent 4 lessons completing a variety of ABL activities. The purpose of these activities were aiming to loosen them up and get them communicating with each other. Pictures and examples of those ABL activities are below:

Leap Frog 

Hidden Pathway

River Crossing

The way they were awkward in class, with the boys and girls keeping to themselves, I was worried about our first assessment of the year, 2.4 (Ki-O-Rahi). Even throughout the first couple of lessons of ABL activities the girls would work with each other and so would the boys. I trying to help them grow their confidence levels and start working together in a range of contexts.

By the end of our 4th lesson I was really proud with the progress the class had made. They were more open to communicating with each other and were working together better as a class. Even the segregation between the boys and girls was slowly disappearing. Fingers crossed that this improvement continues and the class keeps blossoming!

19/01: Goals for 2017

Goals for 2017

19th January 2017

Hello 2017!

After such an exciting year in 2016 I seriously can't wait to see what 2017 holds. With the start of school just around the corner I thought I would take the time to write down some of my goals for the year.


Goal 1: Become more confident using my iPad

Considering I have been brought up with technology I almost want to cringe that this is one of my goals for the year, but hey at least I can identify my weaknesses. I was so excited on my first day of school last year when I was issued with my iPad and Laptop, but in all honesty I barely used my iPad. I have always felt more comfortable using my Laptop but King's is an Apple school with a 1:1 iPad to student ratio - so I need to change.

So what am I planning on doing about it?

• I have spent more of my own free time playing on my iPad and testing how I would use different apps
• I have looked into doing a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital and Collaborative Learning through  The Mind Lab
• I will ensure there is more planned activities allow students to use their iPad
• I will look more deeply into the SAMR model and try and move away from the Substitution stage
• Explore flipped classrooms

Goal 2: More parent contact

Towards the end of last year  I realized that I didn't have much contact with my parents. Apart from sending the occasional warm fuzzy email, most of my parent contact was negative. So what am I planning on doing about it?

To increase contact with my parents I am going to do the following:

• Start the year by emailing the parents of all my students, introducing myself and inviting them to contact me
• Be consistent with my warm fuzzy emails - 3-5 per week
• Try and call parents more in regards to issues rather than just email
• Send out acknowledgement emails in regards to standards - if a student has tried really hard and gained a good grade
• Send emails informing them that their child is not on track towards achieving a standard, rather than just notifying them of the failure
• After parent interviews email parents a couple of weeks after in regards to their child's progress

Goal 3: Relationships first

This year I am planning to continue building on last years inquiry of building classroom rapport. As you can see from different blog posts I trialled different teaching styles and techniques to see how they would effect the relationship I had with my classes. I also tended to put content before the relationships with my students and important skills they should be learning. Towards the end of the year I started to get it right. Now with a fresh start I am looking forward to continuing on with this goal.

To help with this goal I will:

• Spend more time at the beginning if the year getting to know my students and allowing them to get to know me
• Ensure I allow relationships to come before content - "Positive teacher-student relationships involve trust, fairness, open communication and maintenance to sustain and impact student learning. " (Practices that work to accelerate student learning) 
• Focus on teaching skills (e.g. 21st Century Skills) rather than focussing on content
• Be firm fair and consistent with my teaching approach - "Trust, competence, energy, enthusiasm, and consistency are among the top characteristics students consider when determining if their teacher is credible and if they are going to choose to learn from them." (Practices that work to accelerate student learning) 

Knowing myself I will probably end up working on more than three goals throughout the year but here's a good starting point. Wish me luck!

School Events

Throughout the year I was able to use my own personal time to attend school events. These events included productions, rugby games and fundraisers in the effort of supporting the school and my students. Below are some of the events I attended:

Glee Club Production featuring quite a few of my students

 Small House & Big House Music Events

Middlemore Pink Ribbon Breakfast Fundraiser hosted by some of my students and girls from the basketball team

XI Rugby Games in which one of my Year 11 Students is in the Squad

Taylor House Supper - celebrating the successful year of girls in the house

New Students Welcome Morning Tea to meet new girls entering Taylor House in 2017

School Prizegivings

So what is the importance of attending these events? Some of these events, such as the prizegivings are compulsory, but as for others I wanted to attend to see my students perform. I believe that going to events that involve your students outside of class time and even school time are important. I am able to show my support but it also allows me to have a conversation with them in class and get to know them more.  

1/12: Reflection - Planning for 2017

Reflection: Planning for 2017

1st December 2016

At the start of Term 4 and only having one junior class, I was wondering what I was going to do with all my spare time once my senior classes had left. Looking back now I'm laughing at how naive I was. Who was I kidding this is one of the busiest times of the year! PD, planning and meeting after meeting.

So over the past few weeks I feel like I have done so many different things and learnt so much. So what have I been up too?

• Language of Learning in Physical Education
• Co-constructing the Junior Programme
• Reviewing the Junior Health Programme
• Creating NCEA L2 Assessment Booklets & Resources
• Integrated Learning

Language of Learning

We all know the simple words of identify, describe, explain and evaluate but what do they actually mean? Different people and learning areas can hold different views on what they expect when using these words.

Alex, Dan & I worked on creating a Language of Learning for Physical Education. The purpose was to help both Teachers and Students alike by allowing consistency. Consistency of language in class discussions, questioning through to NCEA standards and Cambridge papers. Take a peak at what we created below:

We are associating key words and questions under each of the verbs and these are even broken down to potential sentence starters. To remain consistent we will ensure that these verbs, questions and sentence starters are used in the Junior Programme, including our Achievement Criteria and in our NCEA standards and booklets.

So we started with this and finished with our document below!

We are also looking at creating these into posters to be able to display in the gym and in our other teaching spaces!




Co-constructing the Junior Programme

As King's offers both Cambridge and NCEA we had to ensure that our Junior PE Programme will set students up for future success no matter which pathway they choose. We made sure to list the skills and subjects that students would need in future if they were to continue on in our subject area.

We then revisited the 8 units across Years 9 & 10 that were used this year. As this was the first year that this sort of structure had been put into place in Junior PE there would be a lot of repetitions for next years Year 10s if we were to keep the programme the same. We decided to make the call that the Junior PE Programme would be seen as a two year programme in which students could collect all the skills they would need in their future PE pathways by the end of the two years. We made sure to alter the units to suit this idea of the two year programme and then cross-checked them with the list of skills and subjects we believed the students needed to cover. After deciding the content we refined and recreated the Junior units to include our Language of Learning.


Reviewing the Junior Health Programme

As there will be 3 main Junior Health teachers in 2017 our Head of Health, Chris, set up a meeting. He asked us to bring along ideas and resources for us to review.

He started the meeting with what I thought was a strange question - "How do you like your eggs cooked?". We all answered with our personal preferences. He then went on to explain that when students enter the class they all bring different preferences and opinions but that the purpose of Health is for us to listen to others even though we may not agree.

From there we had a look through different resources that were available to us, some of the ideas, topics and curriculum areas he thought we should cover or focus on. We had a look at the possible lesson outlines to start off Term 1 and gave some suggestions and ideas on how we might tackle them. It was a great way to see how different teachers might handle similar content by putting their own spin on it.

Chris' plan is for us to continue having little meeting like this throughout 2017 so we are able to share activities and ideas that have worked well for us so that others may get to try.


Creating NCEA L2 Assessment Booklets & Resources
Next year I will be teaching Level 2 for the first time. To help myself become familiar with the standards Alex gave me the task of creating the Assessment Booklets & Resources. She would give me an assessment to be edited with a to do list on the front and notes and highlights right the way through the standard like below:

I found doing this for each of the tasks and creating the resources really allowed me to get my head around the standards I will be teaching next year. It was a great way to get a base understanding an insight.

Integrated Learning

After Twitter chats based around the topics of integrated learning I was interested to find out more. I had heard Alfriston College were doing some pretty cool things and managed to get in touch with a couple of PE teachers from Alfriston College. From there we organized the opportunity to go out and see it in action. *Please see post on Alfriston College Visit for more info

Since then the PE Department have actually been approached by the HOD of Maths to look at the possibility of integrating one of our internal assessment standards at Level 2 with theres. We have made a time to discuss this more next week so I will keep you posted.

So it's fair to say that I've been rather busy lately.

23/8: Reflection - Class Reset

Reflection: Class Reset

23rd August 2016

Last week Gina asked to see me regarding an incident involving a Taylor student. While having a chat we started to speak about classroom and behaviour management. I mentioned to her a chat that I had recently had with Alex. This was regarding the fact that a lot of my relationships I had built with students were based off a relationship base of liking each other. These relationships are starting to backfire and some students are trying to push their luck because not all cases had a form of respect. I made a comment to Gina that this was what I was worried about at the start of the year and wish I could redo it. She mentioned that in the past she has done what she calls a reset. When she is not happy with the way a class is going she tells them they are going to reset and lays down the rules.

After this chat I decided that is exactly the type of strategy I need to try with my boys health class, so before their next health class I decided to write down my key points and rules that I wanted to bring up with them. These included:
-I have not been happy with our health classes recently, mainly behaviour and work ethic
-even though I have trialled different activities to see if I would get a positive response they are still being disruptive and rude - I know they wouldn't behave like this in other classes
-moving forward; if this continues I will write a seating plan for each class and will assign groups instead of being able to work with friends, hands up - no calling out whether its a proper answer or not, verbal warning and then name written on the board - if name is still written on the board at the end of the lesson they will receive DT

After waiting for the class to arrive and settle I went through my points with the class. I was pretty impressed with the reaction I received as they were all dead silent and looked a bit stunned. Overall the reset worked really well and I wish that I would have thought to have done something like this earlier. They completed all tasks set and behaved much better. Although there are still some points to work on I believe that if I remain consistent with this new reset I will have much more productive lessons in the future.

8/3: Lesson Reflection on Class Feedback

Lesson Reflection on Class Feedback

8th March 2016

8/8: Mentor Report Comments

Mentor Report Comments

8th August 2016

When the time came to writing Mentor Comments King's provided plenty of help. Below are links to attached documents:

King's College Writing School Reports (2016) - Mentor Help Guide: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8SyJqn0M1mhYkpieWRYTjVuQkE

Gina's examples of past Mentor Comments: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8SyJqn0M1mheHk2b1FGbmhER00

After looking at the exemplars I decided to create a plan of attack, as to how I was going to structure each of my mentor comments.
My plan of attack:
-a comment about what they are like in mentor
-an overview of their subjects; what is going well, room for improvement, common themes
-comment about an interest
-a note about looking forward to setting goals in upcoming weeks through Mentor Period

To ensure I could follow this plan of attack I made sure to print off the girls reports so that I was able to look at their grades for both Term 1 & 2, teacher comments and any extra curricular involvement. When reading through their report comments I would then highlight common themes and check that grades were improving. Below are some photos as examples:

As mentioned by Gina in the email below, my mentor comments showed that I knew the girls well. I also believe that I have formed a good relationship with them as they feel able to come to me for advice for both learning needs and extra curricular activities. This helps to demonstrate the relationship we have built which focusses on both their learning and wellbeing (PTC1 & 2). By spending the time to thoroughly go through each of their reports and actively seeking help and feedback to help with my report writing I am able to relate to PTC4.

14/4: Cultural Awareness PD

Cultural Awareness PD 

14th April 2016

2x PD sessions on cultural awareness - held by Lincoln Savage

-focussed on Maori culture

Notes in links below:

Session #1:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8SyJqn0M1mhT2JHRUQ3bDRYdTg 

Session #2:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8SyJqn0M1mhRkFfWU1SYXM0ZWM

13/4: Reflection on 'Class Incident'

Reflection on 'Class Incident'

13th April 2016

13/4: Mentor Group

Mentor Group

13th April 2016

This is a class list of girls within my mentor group. As their mentor I am there to help support these girls. This can be both mentally & emotionally, through supporting their wellbeing while at school. This can include both academics and co-curricular activities. 

An example of support from their wellbeing in regards to academics is tracking student progress through Gina, Term Orders/Reports and one-on-one conversations. I help to guide the girls with setting goals for improvement.

After receiving feedback within the first half of Term 2 common key findings were:

• They felt I was supportive and non-judgemental when they asked for advice/help
• I was doing a great job
• One thing to think about is getting the girls to work with others that they usually don't choose to work with
• One comment came back saying Mentor time seemed pointless

Within Term 3 I will get the girls to provide more feedback with more specific questions and include positives, negatives and improvements. I will also encourage them to give constructive criticism as there feedback will be more valuable that way. 

Possible PTC Evidence

Mallory Bish Practicing Teacher Criteria: Possible Evidence

PTC	Evidence:
Criterion #1: establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga	-Leading rec swimming group -Attending all assemblies and meetings, keeping accurate attendance records and following up concerns with relevant people -Professional relationships with staff from different areas within the school e.g. Taylor Housemaster & Mentor teachers, Jim & Marcel for swimming, PE department, inquiry group, new staff catch ups, provisional staff meetings, attending staff events
Criterion #2: demonstrate commitment to promote the well-being of all ākonga	-Leading mentor group -Providing safe classroom environments
Criterion #3: demonstrate commitment to bicultural partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand	-Cultural sensitivity within classrooms -Help students to create cultural groups? -Incorporate te reo in class
Criterion #4: demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional practice	-Meetings with Alex, department -PD/ inquiry group -Reflections
Criterion #5: show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning
Criterion #6: conceptulise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme	-Unit plans/lesson outlines -Lesson plans -Working on questioning (questioning blog) -Learning intentions at the start of each lesson – what did they learn blog
Criterion #7: promote a collaborative inclusive and supportive learning environment	-Management strategies to engage and motivate students
Criterion #8: demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn	-Students can create links between prior and current learning
Criterion #9: respond effectively to the diverse language and cultural experiences, and the needs of individuals and groups of ākonga
Criterion #10: work effectively within the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand
Criterion #11: analyse and appropriately use information which has been gathered formally and informally	-Year 9 unit -Year 11 unit
Criterion #12: use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice	-Inquiry readings and reflections -Observations from Alex