Professional Learning, 6/6

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy                      3:30 – 4:10                      Cath Steeghs

What is the meaning of the artwork? The tiki is broken and lying on the ground; The mask of a white face is being held by a Maaori girl; whaanau is huddling in the background; Education is aimed at white people; She’s alone, whereas all the other people are supported in groups.

Cultural price for students at FFC? In comparison to other schools, I do not believe there is a lack of ‘culture’ at FFC. There are numerous opportunities for students to participate in cultural practices at FFC. The school culture is quite diverse, as well as the staff – How does FFC include culture in classes?

Where learning is interactive and dialogic (relating to or in the form of dialogue).

Te Kotahitanga (united with one purpose – enhancing student achievement)

New standards and enhancing student achievement.

What are the implications for my practice?

Student-Led Conferences                             4:20 – 5                           Richard Crawford

          What do effective learning conferences look like?

Why change the learning conference approach?

-          improving quality and quantity

-          strengthen relationships

-          moving towards student-led conferences

-          Moving towards Pouako centred conferences (?)

Staff Meeting

Staff Meeting – Professional Learning                                                 3:30 - 4:45

Increasing Student Achievement

Akotahi Pouako – coaching and mentoring our students by tracking student progress throughout the year and being able to inform them accurately.

Questions we ask ourselves: how can we coach our students through? How do we identify our students who are at risk?

SARONA - Students Are at Risk of Not Achieving

The data is collected from their level 1 and 2  - how many credits do they need to get across?

The Traffic Light 

Green - Passing

Orange - Requires a few more credits to pass

Red - Struggling to achieve any credits

These will be reassessed and updated every three weeks

Some students will gain credits through Wintec and Taratahi courses

The Power of Being Seen

"Students who don't form meaningful connections at school are less likely to succeed."

Research says they need to form a meaningful connection with one adult every day - SSU

Staff activity: moved about the room - four tables had sheets with the names of students from each Maunga - five columns, first one you ticked if you knew them; something personal; personal/whaanau story; academic standing; barriers to success.

There were definitely students from each Maunga that I do not know by name or at all. 

KMAR: students academic achievement tracking - estimating total credits at the end of the year. We had to give reasons for the estimates we gave, knowing that students would be able to view these - diplomacy but also transparency was required.

Whole School Staff Meeting

Staff Meeting 19/3                                              3:30 – 4:30

1)      Reviewing innovations – Waananga Akotahi - MCH

2)      Managing Assessment – GHA/AKU

3)      Strengthening Te Reo Maaori – TMA

4)      Planning for the year / PL and school committees- RCR

NCEA – Refresher – GHA

Consent given by NZQA or Industry Training Organisations to assess.

NCEA refresher

1. Consent : As a school, we must be granted consent to assess students against standards from NZQA. (Achievement standards, complete domains for unit standards)

2. Critiquing of assessment : your own or make changes an NZQA task, commercial ones need second pair of eyes checking the assessment task is suitable.

3. Internal Moderation Verification: no teacher works in isolation, credible grades, meeting the requirements of it consent:

·                     Student work selected purposefully (boundary grades), no set number of samples

·                     75% results goes to NZAQ

4. Authenticity: Publicly sourced assessment materials must be changed. No need to complete the same task or at the same time, Task can be broken into group components. Regular check points for students and teacher (monitoring, record keeping); submission of plans and drafts; oral questioning, requiring a repeat performance; use plagiarism software

5. Re-submission requirements: at grade boundaries, no further teaching and learning, soon after completion, 

6. Further assessment Opportunities: Only one further assessment in a year. Whole new procedure, Further teaching and learning, All students, Higher grade is reported. One more re-submission

7. Gathering evidence: assessed when students are ready, students can choose different standards, Different tasks or contexts can be used. Different ways of gathering (oral, digital, naturally occurring)

RCR – Read over and provide feedback to RCR about the possibility of joining a committee.

There is a possibility about Student-led conferences – however we need PD to manage that successfully. 

PPTA Meeting

13th March, 2018

Workshops you can be a part of - will see SSC

Meetings are only held when there is detrimental information that serves a specific purpose. SSC will decide if there are important things to discuss and will notify us.

Chair Person's report - 

Finance Report - No income for the year of 2017. No regional grant received. You have to apply - treasurers report. 

Autonomy in terms of controlling our own funds?? - Absolutely

Chairperson replacement - still SSC (love his swiftness with passing motions); Secretary the same; FO the same - LJA; H&SO the same - GSN; Maori Rep the same - KTU; Pasifika rep the same - MAN; NETS rep - ME!; Women's rep; Regional Rep remains the same; Men's rep - SSC.

NZEI have started negotiations for pay rises - fingers crossed. Negotiations are going on later in the year. Discuss with SSC if you have any ideas in regards to pay increases. 

3:30 this Thursday at WDSC the PPTA president and vice will be in attendance. 

5min bell warning - are we meant to let student's in? Discussing the communication between staff and colleagues. No we do not have to let them in, they can use this time to go to the toilet or get a drink. Discuss experiences across the school and hopefully come to a happy medium...

Meeting closed.

Textile's - Education Outside the Classroom

Have sent an email to the iconic Kiwi fashion label, Zambesi, in the hopes that they will sponsor the Year 13 Textile’s students to attend NZ Fashion Week 2018. This would be an amazing experience for them and of course for me!!! I was fortunate enough to complete two weeks work experience with them in 2002 and have remained in touch through a mutual relative. Looking forward to any kind of response.

Staff Meeting, February 19th

 

Staff Meeting 19/2

Agenda

1)    Charter Goals

-          Analysis of variance

-          NCEA discussion

2)   Appraisal Processes

3)   Reviewing start of the Year

-          Waananga Akotahi

-          Monitoring Attendance

-          Building Relationships

-          Contacting home

RCR – Air con issues; JCEA changes from five assessments to four; changes are being reviewed.

Charter goals: main points in the terms of learning and achievement.

-          Improving engagement and retention of Y11, 12, 13 – primary focus on Māori students.

Seniors:

-          Increase the number of Y11, 12, 13 students on the roll.

-          Raise school achievement

-          Strengthen tracking in Akotahi

-          Strengthen pathway development

-          Importance of developing culturally response pedagogy

Junior

-          Raise achievement in literacy & numeracy by two levels.

-          Continue the focus on literacy & numeracy

-          Culturally responsive pedagogy

-          Strengthen relationships with Whaanau

Raising the achievement of Level 2 Māori students, strategies.

MCH

Appraisal Document

Values – PP will be sent by MCH

The code applies to all teachers – Commitment to students/Whaanau/community

The sets out shared expectations and remind us of our obligations.

The standards apply to all teachers.

BMA

Lifting expectations because the ‘honeymoon’ period is over!

Akotahi – pros and cons in groups

-          Attendance (is the process clear and easy? What has been working well?

-          What is engaging your students in Akotahi time?

-          Have the mini chats and the calls home been received positively by the students and the Whaanau?

DSU

KMAR

When you are marking attendance, you can use the little circles on the right to add a note – e.g. late…

2^nd – note to another teacher

3^rd – pastoral notes

4^th – negative: wants this to change to a positive points system. Can also add a comment

Full Registration

Notice of full registration today, so stoked!!! 

Ngaruawahia Day, 2017

I'm really looking forward to this day next week. I've been talking to students about the activities they can participate in. Some are excited about a day to chill with friends before school ends and some are out right not coming to Ngaruawahia or school! It's a real shame. As a staff we are expected to sign up to help out at two activities. I've signed up to help out first at the Flying Fox and then the Kayaks/Paddle Boats. 

Update 10/12/2017
Ngaruawahia day was loads of fun. We had to be signed off by Camp Staff to be able to safely operate the Flying Fox. Students had to wear a harness and have a couple of carabiners attached. Once they'd swooped from one side of the lake to the other, we had to unhook the carabiners and lift the flying fox off the line. Students would then take this all back up and around to the start. A number of students enjoyed a brief dip in the water at the end of the flying fox! 
Kayaks/Paddle Boats were brilliant. I bet those kids had a great sleep that night!

Staff Meeting - 2018 Reviewing and Planning

AKU/RCR

Key dates for Term one, 2018 

What is Learning Advisory going to be called?

Themes will be chosen for each term.

Attendance is an issue - LA time is to build relationships and mentor students to encourage attendance.

Note:

1. Time has been extended to 30 mins

2. A curriculum will be developed as a guideline.

Connectiveness will more than likely be the Term one theme.

Curriculum innovations will be reviewed in Term two. What do we as a staff value?

SAT

Tool kits developed for all themes. These can be implemented in a range of different ways, depending on the teaching team and their strengths etc. 

Capabilities = key concepts

TED Talk: There's more to life than being happy:

- The idea that it's success, money, material things that make people happy.

- That chasing happiness can make people unhappy.

- More people feel helpless, depressed and alone in this day and age.

- A lack of having meaning in life.

- Is there more to life than being happy - (feeling good in the moment).

- Seeking meaning.

Four pillars of a meaningful life:

- Belonging - being in relationships where you are valued for who you are. Certain acts devalue others.

- Purpose - finding your purpose; using your strength to serve others; less about what you want and not what you give.

- Transcendence - connectedness to a higher being/experience.

- Storytelling - the story you tell yourself about yourself; we are the author's of our stories. Find the good that sustains you.

2018 Learning Advisory

- Should it be first thing in the morning rather than between first and second period?

- Having it first can help set the scene for the day.

- Are LA teacher's the first point of contact home, as opposed to Dean's, when following up pastoral needs?

- What will it be called?

- How will this affect attendance?

- Will the shift in content be applicable to students?

- Will the review need to take place earlier - in term one in order to address staff/student requirements?
-Timing of reviews - should be done at the end of each term.

Report Writing, Term 4

Report  writing for term four, has been exhausting! I had to complete report for four Junior classes: 9TET; 10TET; 9FOT; 9ENG - with a total of 72 students. I started on the Textile's reports, chipping away at them from about the second of November.

Textile's and Food Tech were completed and handed to AFI for editing on November, 24th. 

By Friday, I had four English reports to complete and they were done by the end of the school day on the following Monday. I found these ones the most challenging to write. There are a huge range of levels in this class and low attendance - which means tasks are often incomplete. Thank goodness KMAR is available through remote connection!

Co-construction Meeting - Term 4, November

This was our last co-construction meeting for the year. I was really impressed to see more of what the other Technology teachers at FFC teach/make in their classes. Sharing ideas, discussing learners, challenges, highlights and future ideas.

BCH – China trip was the highlight. Challenges were home sickness and tricky connections with home-stay families. The group were worried about the performances they had prepared because some students weren’t taking it seriously – this did resolve itself when they were in China and students were proud of themselves. BCH made a school banner to take with them to the various schools and places they visited. Students had the best opportunities to be immersed in the Chinese culture at the schools.
BCH uses songs to teach the junior students rather than having to repeat phrases over and over.

GSN – Year 9’s have been working on small cars, learning to use the lathe and other machinery. Year 10’s have been making metal garden tools and used torches to weld and anvils to flatten. In graphics they have been doing concept development of ways to present their names as a 3D model. These are then printed out by a 3D printer.

MSA – Basic electronic circuits etc. to be able to program a robot. The robot has a task it has to complete. They are given codes and sensors to modify. The students really like this task because they enjoy the final product.

SSC – Building websites using a range of apps. The difficult part is getting them to write in their blogs using complete sentences and detail. Some have created very basic blogs with images. Geoguessr – a great game to entertain students and educate them without them realising.

SKE – Year 10’s have finished composition – writing lyrics and composing the music themselves. Some will be performing at the junior prize giving. Lyrics are written first because that’s the hardest task. Some students collaborate. Two assessments are done, a song and a performance. Loads of challenges but the end result is always amazing.

JWA – Uses Code Combat to introduce students to coding – always looking for tools to teach coding. Gamification – adding elements of games into learning. Lots of choices to make in terms of characters and solving puzzles, codes are used to solve the puzzles. Differentiates with learning – students can go back and finish previous tasks or develop them. A graphics tablet has been brought to

KRO – Has previous students presenting at an exhibition for their art degrees. Students work through portfolios learning about colours and perspective. Juniors are scaffolded to be able to develop the knowledge and skills to do NCEA art.

RTE – Creating a large wooden box with a sliding lid. Carbon paper to decorate, etched designs and then sanded and varnished.

JWR – Food Tech has a healthy eating focus for Year 10’s – hauora and food groups. Students create posters to display their knowledge of the four food groups. Students move on to design a weekly eating plan that meets the needs of daily requirements. 

Staff Meeting - Professional Learning - Learning Advisory 2018

1:15 - 2:15

SAT began with an introduction about the group process we are about to engage in. 'Crafting the Paddles'.

We are going into groups to plan for Learning Advisories for 2018. Each group is focusing on a particular aspect of the school culture (swimming sports/athletics/sing off/mountains etc. Each one will have a theme and concepts that are important to the school.

Group: Visit our Mountain

Members: RCR, DSU, BTU, S

Brainstorm Activities (connectedness)

Visit the mountain - Year 9 (by the end of week 3/4)

Prep for mountain visit - link to other group tool kit

Outdoor experiences - 

Appreciation and connection with the Maunga

Links to literacy; science: biodiversity/sustainability; math. 

Kahoot quiz 

Whaanau banner comp incorporating what ākonga have learnt

Challenges

Cost of travel

Possibly incorporate into Stars instead of camp - camp objectives retained?

Leadership opportunities for the senior students who are not involved with Stars

Boundaries in Place

Boundaries are now in place for the remainder of the year. This is to minimise the space that the juniors are allowed to be in since the seniors are on study leave. The hall is a complete no go zone as this is where the majority of exams take place. We have been asked to go over these boundaries, and the fact that there will be no bells to signify the end of lunch 1 and 2, with our Whaanau groups.
We were told this morning to encourage/support students that are organising games on the field :-)

I have printed off copies of the boundary 'zones' and highlighted the area bordered by red. These are now taped to the windows on wither side of C4 with the message - If you are reading this during lunch 1 & 2 you are out of bounds. Hopefully these will help somewhat.

Staff Meeting Week 3

3:30 - 4:15

Lynn, Roger, and Vic (Chairperson) discussing the Fairfield Project.

Known as the Bankwood gully, this project started with the idea that the people of the community wanted to save/restore the area to use for environmental education and community. The trust have six guiding principles. Educational/contemplation spaces will be set up. Concepts of the educational center have been drawn. Significant funding has been given by the Bryant trust and the Hamilton City Council as well as the Waikato River Cleanup.

Community Garden Aims

- connections to the curriculum

- connections to the community

- community connections to the land

Gully restoration has begun with 1000 trees already planted by the year 9's; kumara, potato and other vegetables have been planted by the community; Waikato Dio have also started planting in their part. The Tongan community have planted kumara.

Kukutaruhe is the Gully guardian; giant Kukuhu live and breed down there. 

Benefits for the school include a significant point of difference to other schools; student learning opportunities; new pathways to tertiary education and employment; access to significant to new funding; community engagement; restore and preserve the College environment; provide a legacy for future generations.

Think-Pair-Share

Staff were asked to think/pair/share ideas about the use of the FFP for staff/students and the community.

In terms of Textiles - I would like to see flax and lavender planted to use for sustainability projects

4:15 - 4:30

Learning Advisory - SAT

PD3 will be aimed at informing staff of what LA 2018 will entail. 

Reading from The Little Prince - pp (the long winded approach!)

"It is my responsibility to fill my kete with things that will help me, and to share the things in my kete that  will help others. Together we can make the world a better place."

Virtues and what they may be in 2018 - Goodness; kindness; 

Designing booklets for senior and junior students to use. Will they be differentiated? projects: murals; paintings; sculptures; flags; books; fables; vamping up the library.

Reflection on learning and moral development.

Break into small groups to discuss and design the booklet to use as a resource for Learning Advisory. Trying to build relationships through responsibility and consideration to the individual.

Mountain spirit: Must used connectedness to maunga to make the advisory count.

Administrative 'things' need to be covered - could be in the booklet so it's like a manual.
Week 5 on Tuesday school will finish early for the next PD session.

4:30 - 4:45
Timetable - RCR
School will start at 9am for students - it is believed that this will be better for students.
Staff briefing will be 8:35-8:50 - 10 mins time will be given for lesson prep. 
Learning Advisory will be counted as contact. Because of the rotating assembly times we may be asked to step into other roles.

End of Term Preparation

Preparing our classrooms for the end of term - in  reference to Ross's specifications! There isn't much on the list that we don't already do in the Textiles room. The only difference is that I will need to organise students to help me with the rubbish bins.

I generally open C4 on Thursday/Friday lunch 1 & 2 for Textiles students to come and work on tasks or familiar/trustworthy students to come and hang out in a safe place. Lunch two on Friday will come with the condition that they help to tidy the room :-)

I'm sure this won't be a problem as the students that usually come in are reliable and cooperative.

Senior Report Comments

Senior report comments are due again this Wednesday. Thank goodness I only have one senior class!

We have a great collaborative system in our office. Julie printed off her completed report comments for me to look over/edit, as well as to inspire me to complete mine. This editing needs to be done before it gets sent to AFI for final submission.

Below are JWR's report comments that I had the pleasure of editing this afternoon (double-sided).

I've completed all of mine and will be printing these off tomorrow for JWR or SHA to edit.

Attendance

Attendance is recorded through KMAR, which is the app the school also uses for reporting, pastoral records, weekly events, student's birthdays and to book rooms.

At the end of term we are asked to check rolls that we may not have submitted - they show up pink.

I had to resubmit a couple of rolls for 9ENG from the end of August. This is an easy task if you have already filled in the roll and only need to click the finish tab. However, it isn't so easy if you haven't marked anyone present/away etc. I've had to go back through records from term 1 and two when this has happened. Thank goodness for Julie asking that I keep a record of 10FOT on paper for her. This was easy enough to resubmit correctly. 

Below are some examples from term 1, 2 and 3. The pink ones are rolls I have not submitted correctly - however, because I can no longer access these records to rectify. I have spoken to CBE about this.

Textile's at Lunch Time

Quite often I open the Textile's room at lunch one and two on Thursday's and Fridays for students to continue working on tasks. This week I have had both year 9 and 10 students working through their lunch times - screen printing and sewing.

I enjoy this time with students, as I can often have really great chats about their tasks and what they are finding challenging. I encourage a growth mindset in the Textiles room. Sometimes tasks are really challenging, but a positive attitude will see you through. I encourage students to learn from their mistakes and to persevere. The tua-kana-teina approach works really well in this class. I believe it is not only beneficial for the students to share their knowledge and skills with one another, but to also be able to rely on their peers/classmates to guide them - often I am busy helping out and can't get to everyone in a timely manner. 

I have found as each term progresses, the more positive relationships I have built with students, and the more I learn about myself as a teacher, I love this job even more!!