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?

29/04: T2 Staff PD Day

T2 Staff PD Day 

29th April 2019

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Term 2 Staff PD Day

Collaborative notes from today's PD session can be found here

Today's PD session started with Melissa running through King's Leadership journey to date.

We then moved into a group activity where we looked at different leadership statements and identified different behaviours that we currently see and what we want to see. I found this task useful and the group that I was working with had great engaging conversations of each of our given statements. It was interesting to hear the reoccurring theme for the want for more inter-departmental work across the school for us to share our best practice.

My highlight of the day was listening to Jo Martin speak about personal branding. I found the five theories of self and the different ways of catching people's attention particularly interesting. More detailed notes can be found here.

My key takeaway from today would be to use “yes and” instead of “yes, but” and ensuring that I lead with my best values.

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.

18/10 - PD: The Future of Education + Mind Lab Pop-up

PD: The Future of Education + Mind Lab Pop-up

18th October 2018

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Future of Education

Provider/Presenter: Frances Valintine

Last night I attended a talk about the future of education by Frances Valintine followed by a Mind Lab pop-up. Frances is the Founder and Chair of Mind Lab. I first heard about Frances through her TED talk about the courage to connect and the challenge she was laying down to educators.

A lot of her ideas come from 'The Policy of our Nation'. Key points include:

• We don't want to be just a consumer of new technology (social media etc), we need to utilize it
• NZ is experiencing a growing demand for digital citizens - this can easily be seen in the work force and job advertisements
• We currently have a lot of obstacles - is the traditional view on education one of them?
• This is about understanding the power of the tools we have available

Her push is to empower educators to take the leap and embrace change, to push the boundaries and challenge the traditional stereotypes e.g. do we need a classroom or do we need somewhere to learn? We don't need to get rid of classrooms but need to expand and allow students to realize they can learn everywhere. However, when change is involved people can panic as they lose their comfort zone. She expresses that what you know and the experiences you have had are really important as these help us build in the future ahead.

Frances also pushes the importance of the change in skills needed. Most schools focus on getting students through with a school qualification to move onto higher education. Unfortunately just getting a degree isn't enough anymore. 70% of employers in NZ are recognising that soft skills are more valued and highly sought after. An example of this that the ability to retain knowledge matters less but the ability to go and find knowledge is more powerful.

So what is your burning platform to embrace change?

*The book 'The 100 Year Life' was brought up in conversation and could be a good read

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

It helps to reinforce that we need to move away from what is seen as traditional teaching and teaching of and for assessments as this is creating a disservice for our students. This PD of both the talk and the Pop-up Mind Lab session have really encouraged and inspired me to take the Mind Lab Postgraduate Certificate in Digital & Collaborative Learning.

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

I feel like this time of the year was a great time to hear a strong message like this. As senior classes are coming to an end I am already picking apart my courses as to how I can improve on them and make them more interactive and interesting for the following year. This has inspired me to continue reflecting on my IG course in particular to see how I can make the course more interactive and memorable for students. I want to make learning more hands on through practicals, online games, learning activities etc. As I have now taught the course for a year, got my head around it and learnt through trial and error I feel like I will easily be able to reflect and adapt the course for 2019.

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.