So much to reflect on! What a busy place our great school is. I really struggle to find time to get all the great things written down, due to all the amazing things we are doing.
I know our most important reflections are undertaken around our Inquiry, which this year is focused on improving student achievement in literacy and numeracy through improving teacher knowledge and application of assessment processes.
To be honest, it's been a constant struggle to be making big gains in target groups in three different areas of the curriculum, particularly with taking on the Accelerated Literacy Learning programme later in the year. This feels like added pressure I didn't need. My primary concern are my learners.... all of my learners and although I'm learning lots, it feels like a battle to be working so hard on a few learners and maintaining focus on the rest as well. Hopefully in the long term it will pay off.
I feel like I've had greater success in getting my numeracy programme working well earlier in the year and some of the things I think have made a difference include:
Making an effort to continually upskill myself by using some of the NZ maths modules, the Pearson teacher books around Fractions and Decimals, always looking for new games to support the kids and undertaking more analysis into our different assessments. I've gone back to using e-asttle now that our infrastructure is better supporting of this (internet is now amazing!) and it's been great to look at that data mid-year and use it to enhance planning. I've also been using the e-asttle 'What Next' and ARB as additional forms of assessment. What I'd like to do next for these learning areas is to have a goal set for the kids every week, which they know will be assessed at the week end in a snapshot, so they have a better idea of how they're tracking in achieving their goals. I'm also working on student toolkits to help them to understand concepts, videos that they can return to, watching repeatedly until their understanding is consolidated.
In literacy, I must admit I struggle to get consistent time with my reading target group kids as two of them are absent more often than I had realised originally. I have enjoyed using our silent reading time to work with the kids on quick reading workshops and hope to do this more consistently. The start to the term has been quite busy with build-up for our school Olympic Day, which has taken more time than I'd like to admit. This has certainly eaten into our literacy and numeracy time and I need to be more mindful of not allowing this to happen (though with Olympic speakers, Attitude speakers and Life Education I'm not sure how to go about this). It's a busy place with loads of great opportunities for our kids.
Meetings for ALL have helped to clarify what we are expected to do for this professional learning and I find myself seeking out lots of learning around the teaching of reading in order to continually upskill. For example, in the past two weeks I have found myself reading The Book Whisperer, Learning in the Fast Lane, Essential Literacy Practice and Sheena Cameron's Reading Handbook. If only there was more time for learning!
Two points of interest that I've come across include:
Ignition is important - how we start the reading session matters in terms of how engaged we will get our students (Learning in the Fast Lane)
Much of the comprehension follow-up work we do with our kids in reading actually turns them off reading... many kids just want to silent read and enjoy the simple joy of reading (The Book Whisperer). This one really spoke to me - as a reader! How can we help our kids to love reading? I wish I could sit down and read this book until I was done as I feel like I am failing the kids in not knowing where to start!
I'm so excited by much of the learning we're doing.... time is the challenge, as always.
