Writing Inquiry (T4 2017)

This slide deck is my writing inquiry for Term 4 2017. Although I had previously been compiling reflections and evidence through my blog, I had to change as our school had to send our inquiries to ERO and they wanted everyone to do it the same way.

Each week we documented, reflected upon and had evidence for what we did.

	BOY 2016	MOY 2016	EOY/BOY 2016/2017	MOY 2017	EOY 2017	Comment on success
Joshua		AT L1	AT L2	BL2 Below	BL3 At	Joshua needs support to stay on topic and task, but when focused, can write an story appropriate to the task.
Stanley		BL2	AT L2	AT L2 At	BL2 Well below	No shift. Stanley is at school maybe 1-2 days a week. When he is here, because he wasn't here the day before, he doesn't know what is going on. He struggles to do work independently because he doesn't have solid routines of being in the classroom.
Reign	No data	No data	No data	No data	BL2 Well Below	When he is focused, Reign can write a 1 page story that makes sense. He has a lot of techniques built into him from previous schools that are weird and hinder him from focusing on his writing. I think he would benefit next year from having visual aids/checklists to help him remember what he needs to put into each story.
Ariki	New stu	BL1	BL2	AT L2 At	BL3 At	Ariki can write confidently independently. He has only been at school for about 4 days in the whole of term 4, so BL3 is an OTJ. He takes on board feedback and can reread his work to check it makes sense and knows how he can improve it.
Paula	No data	No data	No data	No data	L1 Well Below (ESOL)	Paula came to school and couldn't speak, write or read in English. For him to achieve L1 is a huge deal. He can now write independently.
Lopiseni		AT L1	BL2	AT L2 At	BL2 Well Below	Lopiseni hates writing. Maybe one out of every 5 writing sessions he will actually do any work. For him, I think he needs to work on confidence more than actual skill. He has skills, just refuses to use them.
Sosaia		AT L1	AT L2	AT L2 At	BL3 At	Saia has made the biggest confidence shift out of all these kids. He can write 2-3 pages independently, brainstorm his ideas, reread his own work and check it. He has learnt new literacy skills and I can see he is trying to use them in his writing.

Although only 3 students are 'at' for National Standards, I think they have all made progress towards achieving their goals, which were;

Goals

Write more than 5 sentences independently.

Use full stops, capital letters correctly without reminders.

Use speech marks and paragraphs correctly with limited support.

Remember to elaborate and give detail without T reminder.

Gain confidence - be able to write without 1:1 T support.

Things I think made the most difference to students

- Teaching them how to edit and make changes to their writing
- Getting them to talk about their ideas first, then write independently, then check with a buddy.

Things students think made the most difference to their learning

- specifically showing how to use dialogue (Stanley)
- writing the words for me to copy and telling me the spelling (Paula - ESOL)
- teaching us new words in reading, then we can use them in writing (Ariki)
- buddy marking to make a story better - teaches us to look for mistakes in our own writing so we can fix our mistakes in our own writing (all)
- kids WANT to try little groups where they have different skills to focus on instead of whole class writing (all)
- kids WANT to do spelling next year to learn new words and how to spell them (all)

Things I think I could do better next time

- using visual aids for checklists or brainstorms

- having writing groups every week. A lot of the time we did whole class stuff, and I would pull these students down as a group. Maybe having set groups would have made more of a difference.

Maths Inquiry (T4 2017)

This slide deck is my maths inquiry for Term 4 2017. Although I had previously been compiling reflections and evidence through my blog, I had to change as our school had to send our inquiries to ERO and they wanted everyone to do it the same way.

Each week we documented, reflected upon and had evidence for what we did.

	BOY 2016	MOY 2016	EOY 2016	BOY 2017	EOY 2017	Comments
Syraiah-Lee	S4	S3	ES5	ES5	SE6 At	Huge progress. She has achieved all the goals set in this inquiry and more. Her confidence has grown hugely and she is more aware of what she can and can't do.
Stanley	S4	S4	S5	ES5	SE5 Below	Again, Stanley has not made progress this year because he is never at school. The one or two days he does attend school, he doesn't know what is happening because he hasn't been here in so long. The learning he misses in week 1 is built upon in week 2 (and so on), so he is always behind.
Lopiseni	S2	S3	S4	S4	SE5 Below	Lopiseni has made progress. He has learnt to use place value partioning to solve add/sub problems. He can skip count. He has memorised some 2 and 5 times tables. He has low confidence and often refuses to participate in learning.
Sosaia	S3	ES5	ES5	ES5	S6 Above	Same as Syraiah-Lee - huge progress! Saia's confidence and willingness to participate in maths is completely different. He has felt success, and he likes it. He has achieved all the goals set for him.
Villiami	S4	S4	S4	S4	SE5 Well-Below	Viliami's confidence has grown in Maths. He can use place value partitioning (most of the time) to solve add/sub problems. Although he is still well-below, he has made shifts this year whereas last year he didn't. A win is a win.

I believe all the students have made progress towards, or have achieved their goals, which were;

Goals
- Transfer skip counting knowledge to be able to use times tables.

- Memorise 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

- Learn to skip count in 3s, 4s and 6.s

- Use PV knowledge to solve problems. (PV partitioning)

- Be able to identify how many 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s in a number.

Things I think made the most difference to students

- Maths clinics. Ottilie and I did clinics where students could sign up to attend the one they wanted. It helped us both to cater more to the needs of the students. Instead of both classes having a range of stages 4-7, we could have one class of stages 4-5 and the other of 6-7. We could do more targeted teaching at their level. This also helped them feel successful as they weren't always being outdone by the stage 6-7 kids.
- Having a focus on learning and memorising times tables.

Things students think made the most difference to their learning

- Learning times tables - buddies, bracelets, having it on the wall, practicing skip counting together, I tested them on times tables etc. In small group as well, where they were all at the same level.
- Kids liked being able to choose their own learning (cross-grouping).
- Saia knew that his next step was to learn division facts.

Things I think I could do better next time

- Maths groups instead of whole class. I definitely want to do cross-grouping again, it makes things a million times easier.