Self Evaluation for Improvement - Using feedback & other evidence to improve performance

6th May 2020

What’s going on here? For which learners? Who are my priority learners this year? (Those in danger of not achieving)
I had a hunch at who my priority learners were prior to completing our first written internal assessment in Level 3 PED. I had used knowledge of learning difficulties, observations of students transferring into the subject and other observations such as students with low motivation levels. I had identified 5 students with learning difficulties, an additional 3 students who may struggle to settle into both a new subject and a new school and 2 students who were struggling with motivation levels in class. Throughout the process of completing our first written internal assessment a lot of these priority learners were confirmed.

What does achievement data tell me about my current cohort? Is this what I expected?
The achievement data from the first internal assessment told me that I have quite a large range of ability in my class this year. This had already been quite obvious through the different teaching and learning activities, having to differentiate lessons to ensure the top are being extended enough and that the bottom are getting enough support. The assessment results confirmed this. However, I believe it has shown me that the gap is bigger than I expected it to be. The results from the first internal (3.7) were as follows: 7 Achieved (3 Low, 2 High), 3 Merit (1 Low) & 7 Excellence (2 Low, 2 High).

What are my learner’s perspectives on the situation? What do my learners and I agree are my strengths and areas for development?After completing our first written internal I ensured to collect feedback from the students regarding the teaching and learning process and the assessment itself. In terms of strengths key themes included; help & explanations, support & feedback, range of resources provided, use of sentence starters and the use of class discussions to reinforce learning and share ideas and perspectives. In terms of areas for development key themes included; more personalised feedback, explanation of questions, aid with research, the assessment layout and one student wanted more encouragement.

What changes can I make to my practice? How long will it take for me to notice improvements in outcomes?
I ensured to take their feedback onboard when moving into our second written internal assessment (3.1). We managed to get one week of teaching and learning at school before lockdown started and continued online with distance learning. Before starting the assessment we did an activity that aided students with where and how to find relevant research for their upcoming assessment. I also made sure to review the assessment layout to make it more structured, including sentence starters to help guide student answers. As I was not there to explain the questions in person I decided to create videos breaking down the assessment questions. I choose to do this over a Webex call as students might struggle with different questions, therefore they could watch the video relating to the question they were struggling with. Students commented that they found this really helpful and it is something I will consider continuing to do even once we are back at school. As for feedback, I notice that when we are completing assessments in class it is always the same students who would ask for help or feedback. To try and avoid only helping these students I kept a tally of help/feedback given. This gave me a quick visual on who may have not received as much help or feedback and who I should turn my attention too. At the start of each day I also choose 7 students in which I was going to give feedback to before the end of the day. This helped me to balance out the amount of support and feedback I was giving. As for the encouragement, the one student who noted this is also one of the students who has been struggling with motivation levels. Because of his honest feedback I was able to ensure I was giving him more encouragement and 'warm fuzzies' rather than mainly constructive criticism.

How has this impacted on my learners? Which of my learners are/are not benefiting? How do you know?
The results from the latest written internal assessment (3.1) were as follows; 5 Achieved (1 Low, 1 High), 2 Merit (1 High) & 10 Excellence (3 Low & 3 High).I do acknowledge that the increase in results may also be due to the different content and 3.1 being rather personalised. However, I also believe that the improvement in grades for certain students were directly due to students being able to act on the feedback from their last assessment and due to the more equal spread of support and feedback throughout this assessment, as these students don't always ask for help or feedback. E.g. one student went from a High Achieved to a High Merit as he was able to include more detail in his analysis, another from an Achieved to a Low Excellence. However, what I found frustrating is that even giving the one particular student encouragement like he asked his motivation levels still appeared to remain low and he remained at a Low Achieved.

What further adjustments might be worth considering?
I do believe I need to focus more on giving all students more encouragement and 'warm fuzzies'. I realise when providing feedback particularly on assessments I mainly tend to provide feedback on how to improve rather than telling them what they have already done well.
I also want to focus on how I can extend and encourage those achieving to achieve higher. I know two are definitely capable of achieving at a higher level as they were achieving with Merit & Excellence last year in Level 2 PED - how can I motivate them?

Fostering Engagement & Wellbeing while Teaching Remotely

22nd April 2020

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Fostering Engagement & Wellbeing while Teaching Remotely

Provider/Presenter: Dale Sidebottom

If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?

The PEGG strategy helps to increase student engagement by allowing students to feel a sense of fun and to feel connected to others outside of their bubble. Just like our Hauora the different dimensions of PEGG (Play, Exercise, Gratitude & Giving) are all equally as important. The PEGG strategy can be treated like a challenge with each of the different areas needing to be ticked off and completed each and every day. Once students have been able to complete a task for each of these they are encouraged to reflect on these before being able to "peg" themselves - they can literally have a physical peg to help remind them. This is also a strategy that students can then share with their family to increase household engagement. Then as pictured in my notes above we were given multiple different ways that we can help foster and engage students in each of the different aspects of PEGG.

How has this professional development challenged my thinking?

With the lack of class discussions and group work in my distance learning classes at the moment, how can I help students to feel more connected to school and increase their engagement and sense of fun?

What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?

I would look at introducing a small task at the beginning of a lesson. This can help to differentiate lessons and make them a bit different. This could also be a task used at the start of the lesson which I have typically been using as the 'wait time' to ensure all members were there and that I could do the roll. These activities could be ideas from the different areas of PEGG i.e. an exercise challenge one day, a gratitude task the next.

'Where to next?' Leveraging your new found digital skills in a post pandemic world

16th April 2020

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Where to next? Leveraging your new found digital skills in a post pandemic world

Provider/Presenter: Carl Condliffe

If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?

Overall the PD was looking at the issues and challenges we may have faced going into the lockdown, opportunities that may have presented themselves to us and where to next after the lockdown. Below are some of the key points I took from this morning's presentation:

• We are fortunate that King's took the week to prepare us for distance learning as many schools and teachers felt underprepared
• A huge opportunity that is given to us is that we can create student agency and autonomy as they are accountable for their own work/effort - can we transfer and continue this when we return to the classroom?
• Ensure the focus is on identifying issues and creating solutions, encouraging students to think critically, rather than rely on content

How has this professional development challenged my thinking?

This lockdown has presented us with many opportunities to enhance our practice. How can we ensure to transfer these skills when we return back to the classroom?

What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?

This year I proceeded to push blended learning to help create a more authentic learning environment for my IG PE students. As the IG curriculum has so much content I found classes were heavily based on learning new content rather than allowing learners to apply this, reinforcing their knowledge. I feel like this is something that I haven't done as much for my senior NCEA classes as we have more time in class for each unit of work. However, I have found that creating videos for my senior students particularly around breaking down of achievement criteria and assessments has been useful and is something that I would look to continue in future.

Leadership Session #2 - Time Management

17th March 2020

Key Points:

• Steven Covey’s matrix of time management - looking at tasks and whether or not they are urgent, not urgent, important, not important as shown in the matrix pictured below:
  

• Try to drop tasks that are deemed not important off the list
• Try to avoid a list mentality - doing so can be overwhelming and it often does not show priorities
• Simon’s tips:
  • Daily planner matrix
    • Includes list, properties and times that you are free
  • Ensure all high priorities are completed by the end of the day
  • Ensure that there is time to work on components that are important but not urgent each day
  • Remember that sometimes may come across your desk because they are important/urgent to others but not yourself, just as things that are urgent to you may not be urgent to others

Q&A

• If something is urgent to you and you need cooperation from others however, it is not urgent to others how do you work around this?
  • Questioning about what has been done before handing up the line
• Leaders who micromanage - how do you address a manager who has a crisis and makes their crisis become your crisis
  • Courageous conversations
    • It is all about the delivery of the conversation
    • how can you support them in their role whether it is planning or taking some of the load off them

I feel that over time I have gotten better at prioritising my tasks and identifying tasks that are important and urgent and focusing on those first. The key tool I help with my time management is the apple app 'Reminders'. It allows you to create a list, prioritise your tasks and even set day and time reminders that will sit on your home screen until you have marked these as complete.

A key point I have taken away from this session is the idea that you need to ensure that everyday you are working towards a task that is important but not urgent. This can allow for greater thought and creativity. This could be by researching for 10 minutes or having a conversation about a future event etc.

Being an Effective HOD

20th February 2020

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Being an Effective HOD (18th & 19th Feb)

Provider/Presenter: Kay Hawk & Jan Hill from the Education Group

If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?

• The different leadership and managerial roles of an HOD and breaking down of the educational leadership capabilities
• What make an effective department and one that is 'moving' (teams where everyone is adding value, working together towards a common goal) or a performing
• Reinforcing the importance of a team knowing the 'Why' e.g. a team usually knows what their role is and how they complete it but they need to fully understand the why to get complete buy in
• Frameworks for leading professional learning discussions including opening discussions and fronting an issue

How has this professional development challenged my thinking?

• By placing emphasis on the need to develop group culture - what is our vision and what are our department goals for 2020?

What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?

Key points I have identified that could easily be implemented are:

• Creation of a Google Doc - emailed once a week to the department, includes department meeting agenda, important dates for the week, recognition, notices, etc.
  • Ensures meeting time is not used for admin and stops overuse of admin emails
  • Allows for all members to contribute to the doc
• Ensuring the whole department is aware of the vision and 2020 goals

*Have spoken to REY about both of these points. He thinks it would be a good idea for the first to be implemented. As for second he agrees this needs to happen and wants input from the whole team

Further notes that I took away from this PD can be found here.

16/09: Undergrad Presentation

Undergrad Presentation

16th September 2019

This afternoon Rob Paterson, Georgia Dougherty and I went and presented to a group of Undergraduates at the University of Auckland on 'Stepping into the Real World". This is a result of an Auckland PENZ initiative from the Graduate Mentor group.

Last year we recognised the need for a new section of the Auckland PENZ Graduate Mentor group. We have had great success with our workshops run for first and second year teachers on a variety of topics including; surviving your first six months & expanding your toolbox, culturally responsive & relational pedagogy, marking & moderation and gathering evidence for the 6 teaching standards. However, we noticed that feedback from these sessions and from our own personal experiences, there were no presentations or tips on how to actually get a job upon graduating university. This lead to the creation of the sub-group of Undergraduate Mentoring.

The purpose of today's presentation was to present to undergraduates on what to expect in your first year of teaching and how to navigate your way through the job application process. Topics in our presentation included; CV & cover letters, interview tips & possible questions, relief and legalities. The link to our presentation can be found here.

A group of about 20-30 students from the BPE and Grad Dip programmes attended from Auckland University and a couple from the AUT Sport & Rec programme. Overall today's presentation was a success with those attending engaged throughout - this was evident through the great questions that were asked throughout the session and feedback from the lecturer (pictured below).

This has already been in improvement on last year's presentation, particularly presenting this earlier in the year and the ability to catch students from multiple different courses in the same session. Hopefully the students found it useful and were able to take away some tips to help them with their job hunting.

26/05: Reflection of 2.2

Reflection of 2.2

26th May 2019

What went well:

• Most students smashed the anatomy - this came through in student feedback where students identified that this was the easiest section

What could have been better:

• Students found the interrelationship slide hard. This was voiced both in class while completing the assessment and in the student voice feedback. This was also evident as some students chose to leave this last slide blank
• Students commented that they would have liked more one-on-one time throughout the assessment. I agree with this and when reflecting on the assessment I spent more time with 'needy' students who had a lot of questions or by checking in on students who I had previously identified struggling with the content. This meant that I didn't push some of my more capable students as much. This resulted in some students needing to resubmit their work as they are boarder line High Merit/Low Excellence

Changes for next time:

• Emphasis on referring back to anatomy slides at the start - quite often students complete this and then don't refer back to their anatomy. Is there a way to combine the biophysical principles more rather than laying them out in three separate sections e.g. focus the assessment on the prep, action and follow through phases incorporating anatomy and biomechanics and then using motor skills as a section later on how to improve? Will this create a more natural interrelationship?

09/04: Inquiry Update for 2019

Inquiry Update for 2019

9th April 2019

What’s happening and why?

• As this has been my second year looking into independent (2017 - L2 PED) and self-directed learners (2018 - IG PE) have found that a lot of strategies that I was purposely putting in place now come naturally.
• I find it easy to note the difference in the need between independent and self-directed learners and what is needed for different students at varying levels levels of age, ability and curriculum. This makes it easy to identify the needs of the students and action points that can be put into place.
• I am involving whanau and other support networks more effectively and earlier on. An example of this is identifying students who were struggling in IG after the first 6 weeks and contacting Housemasters, Mentor teachers & the Y11 Academic Coordinator to flag these students. This also lead to contacting home for a couple of these students. This has largely had a postive impact and in most cases has increased the work ethic of students in the class. Another example of this is that by identifying that I have a lot of priority learners in my Level 2 class I emailed home before the start of the written assessment with due dates and where they can go for support. I also broke down these dates with students in the lead up to their assessment, 3 weeks prior to them starting the assessment, so they didn't feel it had been sprung on them. Majority of students felt that going into the assessment that there were no surprises. They knew what was expected of them to reach an Achieved, Merit or Excellence.
• A new initiative for 2019 to help IG students identify weaknesses is that I complete a 'End of Unit Test Teacher Reflection'. An example of one of these reflections has been attached to this post. By doing this I am able to analyse what went well, what didn't and what needs to change. By completing this before handing back student test papers with results it gives me an overview of what may need to be revisited. Following this students are given back their test papers and are encouraged to look through these. We then go through common mistakes or questions that were not answered well as a class before students being able to ask their own questions about the test. Students then write in the correct answers on their test papers to help them with future studies.

What’s not happening & why?

• Although student ownership and accountability has increased within these classes from the start of 2019 to the end of Term 1 not all students are on board. I believe this is largely contributed to in the range of abilities in both my L2 and IG classes. The top students tend to take all advice on board where as those towards the bottom need more help in finding their own way. As this gap is large I have been trying to incorporate strategies to ensure I am still pushing those at the top and helping those at the bottom reach their level of success.

What am I going to do to influence what is not happening?

• This is something that I am considering looking into further and is a potential inquiry for 2019. How can I focus on differentiation in my senior classes to help push students at the top while not leaving those at the bottom behind? It was interesting to listen to Bridget presenting on her inquiry from last year as I could take and adapt some of her strategies such as scaffolding, key word lists, focus on fun/hands on activities in Periods 5 & 6 to help lift and students creating quizzes and mark sheets. I'm sure that there are other strategies that I already have in place to help with this that I could make more deliberate.

28/02: Goals for 2019

Goals for 2019

28th February 2019

Before returning to school I took the time to sit down and think about what I want to get out of the year ahead.

Below are the goals I created for myself in 2019:

1. Work/Life Balance
   1. Use 3 tips on the way home
   2. Ensure work is completed prior to deadlines e.g. reports started and completed before deadline
2. Student Support & Contact with Home
1. Continue with termly emails home
2. Notify parents earlier if student is struggling – copy parents into email reminders to students, call home for help and support
3. Help parents to support students by sending out term planners with due dates and notify parents when internal assessments are starting
4. Continue to keep academic coordinators, teacher mentors and housemasters in loop
5. Also remember to write home if a student is doing well – email, postcards, EPAs
3. Leadership Development
   1. How can I support my HOD more?
   2. What new initiatives can I bring to the department? Or how can I help to strengthen existing initiatives?
4. Differentiation (possible inquiry topic)
   1. How can I personalize teaching and learning experiences for my learners?
   2. How can I support the needs of my priority learners more?
   3. How can I show students that I know what they do and don’t know?

With it only being Week 5 I find it interesting reflecting back on these goals. I believe I have been focussing and working towards student support & contact with home and differentiation of lessons:

• I have been in contact with all parents and guardians of my students to introduce myself and inform them about the course
• I have been wrapping support around students who are already struggling in certain courses
• I have been using different teaching styles to meet the needs of different students and to match what students identified as their preferred learning styles
• Students have had options in class to have more guided help and instruction vs more independence and extension

However, I feel like I have been neglecting my work/life balance and leadership development. Although my work/life balance isn't bad at the moment I have no set structure or rules in place which I will probably need later in the year as we start to reach crunch points. As for leadership development I have been asking my HOD if there is anything I can do to help but nothing more.


It will be interesting to reflect on these goals towards the end of Term 1 to see how they progress.

22/7: PENZ Conference 2018

PD: PENZ Conference 2018

22nd July 2018

July 9th to 11th 2018 marked the 60th National PENZ conference; Together, Towards Tomorrow. Across the three days I was able to grow my professional network and continue professionally developing myself. Below are some of my highlights and takeaways from the conference.


Session 1: Together, Towards Tomorrow Keynote - Wayne Smith, Margot Bowes & James McIntyre
I found this a refreshing keynote to start the conference. The key theme of the keynote was the development of the theory behind skill acquisition. Wayne Smith discussed the theory, Margot Bowes discussed how it can be implemented (where King's College was used as an example) and James McIntyre focussed on a primary lens. Overall the keynote challenged the old school technique approach found that can still be found within Physical Education. Two of my key points from this keynote session can be summarised in my two tweets pictured below:

Session 2: Presenting Our Scholarship Journey - Mallory Bish, Rob Paterson & Alex Smith
The first round of breakout sessions involved the three of us presenting about our Scholarship Programme and our journey over the past three years. The aim of the session was to share what had been working for us in the hopes that others may be able to takeaway aspects to trial with their own students. We shared info about our school, the outline of our programme, exemplars of student work, example of the process a student goes through, student feedback, criticality within our PE programme from Y9-13 before moving onto the Dragon's Den. The link to our presentation can be found here.

Feedback from teachers after the session was overwhelmingly positive. Some of this feedback came through the form of a Facebook post and tweet from Carl Condliffe (NZ PE Teacher). The feedback received allowed us to believe that we had met the aims of our session.

Session 9: ‘A Good Akina Man’ - Hastings Boys' High
Hastings Boys' High identified a need to help develop and change the character and feelings students related to school and their high school experience. They used to have an identity unit for four weeks in health at the start of Y9. This idea was also sparked from seeing the success of Gisborne Boys' High. The HODs and SLT came together to create a list of values that they wanted to instill in their Y9 students to create a year long integrated underlying theme.

Term One's unit was about respect; what is respect, why do students respect certain people, how do they show respect etc. They then instilled respect for the school through the idea that they are now apart of the school and the school is now apart of them. Students looked into history of all the houses, school song, school haka, colours etc. This linked nicely to the Health & PE curriculum by connecting to what was their old Hauora unit that got students to learn about their own personal identity.

I really liked this idea of an integrated identity unit and building respect for the school and its culture and traditions, while also acknowledging the individuality of each student. We could easily incorporate this into our Y9 program, especially with the linking of PE & Health for 2019. Students could look at why they are attending King's and the history of King's to develop a sense of identity and belonging.


Session 13: How do you know what learning is happening in HPE? - Chris Hurston
In this session Chris shared how he was using technology and apps such as Plickers, Google Forms & Seesaw to build reflective practise in his juniors. This reflective practise came in forms of students recapping their learning from prior lessons, getting students to assess their level of understanding against rubrics for self assessment and peer assessment. Chris also shared the importance of having a visible programme for parents and students alike to check in and see outlines of term topics, discussion points, assessment tasks, showcase routines/videos, short video clips of lessons, reflections and next steps. He used the app Seesaw to share this information with parents and students. This was the part of the session that stood out the most to me as I have been focussing on visible learning for both my students and parents/guardians. I wonder whether we could try incorporating this app or could use Schoolbox more affectively?

The takeaway key question form this session was 'what are you doing in your practice to enhance reflective practice?' When reflecting on this question myself I know that I have been focussing on challenging my juniors to reflect on what we are learning, why and how these skills can be transferable. I have also been focussing on creating more self directed learners in my IGCSE class.



Overall I think this is a range of takeaways from this years annual conference. It will be interesting to take these key ideas forward, particularly with the development of our new connected Health & PE programme for 2019 and how we can ensure this learning is visible to both students and parents/guardians alike.

3/5: 2018 Inquiry Plan - How can I create self-directed learners in my 11 IGCSE Physical Education class?

2018 Inquiry Plan: How can I create self-directed learners in my 11 IGCSE Physical Education class?

3rd May 2018

Why have I identified this as an important focus for me?
Cambridge is content heavy course. This requires students to work through content at a fast pace - content in which most students have not come across before. I have identified through student achievement data (end of unit tests throughout Term 1 & student voice) and Collegial Feedback (discussions with Alex) that students need to become more self-directed learners.


What initial steps forward am I going to commit to and why have I identified these as my first steps?
After having a hunch that this would be a good inquiry to further my own teaching practise, I collected student voice from my class around the three Teaching & Learning categories. These were relationships, motivation & communication. The results helped to solidify my thinking. Next week I am going to share these results with students and reinforce changes that will be occurring & why.
-After attending the Cambridge PD course at the end of last term and reflecting on my own practise I told students of changes that I am planning on implementing in Term 2. Students had an opportunity to share their thoughts about these changes - would they be positive & why/why not? Students were also able to add any extra changes they would like to see.

I have recognised that students need to be self directed in this course rather than independent (last years inquiry). I am going to compare and contrast independent learners vs self directed learners. By finding out the similarities I can refer back to strategies I used last year and see whether or not I will be able to implement them this year. By finding out the differences I will be able to focus on finding out new strategies I will be able to implement that will better suit the needs of self directed learners.
Once I have found new strategies I will be able to implement them, alongside the other changes I have already recognised. Then my aim is to collect student voice at the end of the term to see whether or not the data has changed.


How, by focusing on this, do I propose to contribute to and influence Student Achievement Outcomes?
By creating an environment that encourages self-directed learners I am expecting to see higher levels of motivation for learning. I am hoping that students will display qualities and behaviours such as; problem solving and seeking their own answers, seek feedback, knowing their strengths & weaknesses within the course and action a way to minimise their weaknesses, higher levels of collaboration - conversations where students are correcting each other and teaching each other etc.
I am hoping that these qualities will be visible. Also if students start to display these behaviours their test results should have a positive impact.


Who may I need support and assistance from and what might that look like as I look ahead to achieving success?
Alex - possibly professional readings, discussions, learning activities etc.
Melissa - possibly professional readings & pointing me in the direction of other colleagues that could help with strategies (ie observations)
Looking out for content on Twitter - posts, Twitter chats, English teachers in the IG curriculum etc.
Chris & other colleagues met at Cambridge PD course - help with IG curriculum?

16/3: Reflection - Inquiry Update for 2018

Reflection: Inquiry Update for 2018

16th March 2018

What’s happening and why?

At the end of last year I identified ways to carry on and continue my inquiry of creating independent learners. I knew that I would have the IGCSE PE class as my senior class for the year. I was able to reflect on what strategies were successful last year with my Level 2 students and apply some of these concepts from the start of the year. Some of the successful concepts from last year were:

• introducing concepts such as checklists, ask 3 before me etc. at the start of the year
• the release of learning
• ensuring students understand the why
• using student voice to interpret teaching style/activities

Setting up the year

I ensured to start my year off valuing the importance of building relationships and setting expectations and routines. This included spending longer on setting routines - what happens at the start of a lesson, how to find things on iTunes U & submit assignments, how to use PDF expert, using class Quizlet for revision etc. My thoughts on spending time ensuring I do this well was that I would be saving time later on in the course. Overall I feel like this has been relatively successful. Students understand basic processes and this has saved time. Also if students do get stuck other students have been proactive in assisting.

Relievers & Student Ownership

The start of the year often brings disruptions to classes. Whether it's swimming sports and athletics or PE department camps.  As a result of camps, professional development and other inevitable absences such as sickness I have missed a few classes with my IG class. During this time students were left work complete with instructions on their iTunes U course. I simplified their work as much a possible knowing that not all new content they would be covering could be found in their textbooks. For content that was not easily accessible I left them notes in which they had to fill in the blanks and then had to answer some questions to show their understanding.

Just before returning to school I received an email from one of my students. In summary this email said that they did not think it was fair that they were left to learn this new content on their own, especially with relievers that weren't able to help them. This email was a response to my email to the class about the lack of work that had been submitted while I was absent. When I returned to class we broke this down and discussed student ownership. They identified that I do not tell the the answers and they need to seek them themselves, so I challenged why should it be different if I was absent. This discussion resulted in referring back to the range of places where students can revert to for help while learning new content. These included; textbook, iTunes U, notes, Quizlet, Google, classmates or myself.

I have been absent since this conversation and it was great to see that students completed and submitted all work as expected. I also noticed when students were studying for a recent test that they were referring to the wide range of resources available.
I have been trialling different teaching styles and types of activities with this class to show them that I am interested in how they like to learn and how they learn most effectively. I have also received informal verbal feedback and actioned this.


What’s not happening & why?

• Although students most students are starting to become more independent and show more ownership of their learning not all are. Certain students can be quite needy. Whether it is handing in incomplete work as they 'don't know what they are doing' or where to find answers. These particular students are also the ones that ask questions expecting me to give them the answers when completing activities. 

What am I going to do to influence what is not happening?

• I can introduce the use of checklists before students hand in any completed work. This could ensure that students have completed all tasks by utilizing all resources when trying to complete activities, have included key points for each topic, have broken down the questions and used appropriate sentence structure when applicable
• I am going to ensure I do some formalized student feedback & learner voice before the end of term to help construct my 2018 inquiry and see whether or not I will continue pursuing this inquiry or something similar

21/2: Positive Education Faculty Meeting

Positive Education Faculty Meeting

21st Febrauary 2018

1. New PosEd Course outline – MB/GM
   1. New structure this year where 1 teacher now teaches all 4 courses (Y9 - thinking, philosophy, round square, character & values)
   2. Now include assessment tasks? Students complete reflective task for assessment, year 9 & 10 courses now linked via 5 questions, could work on and could into eportfolio - teachers, mentors would be able to look
   3. Curriculum doc draft - ties pastoral to curriculum
2. Health Update - CM
   1. Importance of Who Am I - Chris wants to push to whole school
      1. Other subjects are doing similar things - repetition not bad & teachers wouldn’t
         1. Contact Steph re what they do around reproduction and drugs in science
   2. Hauora
3. RE Update – OA
   1. Y10 running smoothly but Y9 haven’t started yet - will come into 5 lessons for a term
   2. What is happening in these lessons?
4. Mindfulness update – GM
   1. Need to try and complete all 8 sessions before the end of the term
5. Yoga – GM
   1. Now funded for staff
   2. Looking to organise for students
6. SAP – GM
   1. Sam Roberton & Emelia Leggit trying to start up for the year - will be talking at assembly next week about student lead groups
      1. Student Council - top 6 & HoH e.g. maintenance around school
      2. SAP - big issues, connections to other areas of school, inclusive and listening to others
      3. Student Health Council
      4. Cultural & Sporting Councils
   2. Student voice not just tokenism - needs to be worked with and equitable
7. Ethics Seminar at King’s, 21st May - GM
   1. Have been given hand out
8. AOB

Action Points:

1. Pull up students when being inappropriate
2. See if Chris needs a hand with Health outline
3. Discuss with other faculties (e.g. Science) about what double ups are occuring
4. Continue to work on Mindfulness sessions!