Term 1 & 2 target group/shift

For Term 1 and 2, our school inquiry focus was on Maori students maths.

As it is the end of term, and we have submitted our OTJs for June, we have to do our data discussions about the mid-year data.

A huge achievement has been the shift my target and priority students have been able to make in 2 terms. 

How to read the graph below: E5/E6 in the first box shows she was E5 in Term 1 and E6 in Term 2. If there is only one number, there was no change.

	GLOSS overall	Add/sub	Mult/Div	Prop/Ratio	Comment
Syraiah-Lee	E5/E6	E5/E6	5	E5/E6	Shift.
Kordell	3/4	3/4	3/4	3/4	Shift.
Ariki	5/E6	E6	5	5/E6	Shift.
Suave	E5/5	E5/E6	E5/5	E5	Shift.
Lopiseni	4	4	4	4	No shift.
Viliami	4	4	3/4	4	Small shift.
Sosaia	E5	E5	E5	4/E5	Small shift.

My June data was also awesome. 

Year 5's

LEVELS

READING

WRITING

MATHS

ATL3
BL3	Auckland, Merielle, Joshua, Hiria, Syraiah-Lee, Falakika,	6	54.55%	Auckland, Merielle, Hiria, Syraiah-Lee, Falakika, Ariki	6	54.55%	Auckland, Merielle, Joshua, Falakika, Ariki	5	45.45%
ATL2	Lopiseni, Stanley, Sosaia, Ariki	4	36.36%	Lopiseni, Stanley, Sosaia,	3	27.27%	Hiria	1	9.09%
BL2				Joshua	1	9.09%	Syraiah-Lee, Stanley, Sosaia	3	27.27%
ATL1	Kordell 1		9.09%	Kordell	1	9.09%	Kordell, Lopiseni	2	18.18%

Year 6's

LEVELS

READING

WRITING

MATHS

BL4	Lydia	1	12.50%	Lydia, Hevani, Edith, Grace	4	50.00%	Lydia	1	12.50%
ATL3	Hevani, Coralee, Edith, Amon, Grace	5	62.50%	Coralee	1	12.50%	Edith, Grace	2	25.00%
BL3	Viliami	1	12.50%	Amon	1	12.50%	Hevani, Coralee, Amon	3	37.50%
ATL2				Viliami	1	12.50%	Suave	1	12.50%
BL2	Suave	1	12.50%	Suave	1	12.50%
ATL1							Viliami	1	12.50%

Looking forward...

E-tap PD

After school today we had a PD session about E-tap. 

Thank you so much JJ who prepared this slide deck and presented it in a fast-paced, practice as you go way that was helpful and interesting.

There was a lot I didn't know about E-tap, and now I will be able to use it more effectively. 

Aireen also presented the new way we are going to log jobs for Fusion to fix, through the Fusion Dashboard. She took us through its different features and gave us a document that had everything we need to know on it.

Very informative afternoon!

2017 - half way check

It is almost the end of term 2 2017, which means I have been a sole-charge teacher my almost half a year. So what have I achieved?

END OF YEAR 4

LEVEL	NAME OF STUDENTS			NAME OF STUDENTS			NAME OF STUDENTS
BL3	Auckland, Falakika, Ariki, Hiria, Syraiah-Lee			Auckland, Falakika			Auckland, Falakika,
ATL2	Lopiseni, Joshua, Stanley,  Sosaia,			Joshua,  Hiria, Syraiah-Lee,  Stanley,			Hiria, Stanley,Sosaia, Ariki,Joshua
BL2				Lopiseni, Ariki			Lopiseni, Syraiah-Lee
ATL1	Kordell			Kordell			Kordell

MIDDLE OF YEAR 5

ATL3
BL3	Auckland, Merielle, Joshua, Hiria, Syraiah-Lee, Falakika,			Auckland, Merielle, Hiria, Syraiah-Lee, Falakika, Ariki			Auckland, Merielle, Joshua, Falakika, Ariki
ATL2	Lopiseni, Stanley, Sosaia, Ariki			Lopiseni, Stanley, Sosaia,			Hiria
BL2				Joshua			Syraiah-Lee, Stanley, Sosaia
ATL1	Kordell			Kordell			Kordell, Lopiseni

Reading (left hand column)

• Ariki went down
• Joshua went up

Writing (middle column)

• Hiria, Syraiah-Lee and Ariki moved up

• Joshua moved down a lot

Maths (right hand column)

• Lopiseni went down

• Joshua and Ariki went up

• Stanley and Sosaia didn't move

END OF YEAR 5

LEVEL	NAME OF STUDENTS			NAME OF STUDENTS			NAME OF STUDENTS	NO
L3	Edith, Grace, Lydia,		35.71%	Lydia, Edith		14.29%	Lydia, Edith
BL3	Hevani,  Amon, Suave, Coralee		35.71%	Hevani, Amon, Grace, Coralee			Hevani, Amon, Grace, Coralee
L2			1	Suave			Suave
BL2	Viliami			Viliami			Viliami

MIDDLE OF YEAR 6

BL4	Lydia			Lydia, Hevani, Edith, Grace			Lydia
L3	Hevani, Coralee, Edith, Amon, Grace			Coralee			Edith, Grace
BL3	Viliami			Amon			Hevani, Coralee, Amon
ATL2				Viliami			Suave
BL2	Suave			Suave
ATL1							Viliami

Reading (left hand column)

• Amon, Coralee, Viliami, Lydia moved up

• Suave moved down

Writing (middle column)

• Hevani, Coralee and Grace moved up

• Viliami and Suave moved down

Maths (right hand column)

• Lydia moved up

• Rest stayed the same.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I found it really difficult to process that some kids have gone down or backwards. However, they might not have in reality. The summer slide leaves students who have forgotten heaps of the things they learnt, and I spent a whole term at least getting them back to where they should have been at the end of last year. On top of this, students act differently when they have a new teacher and it is a possibility that they have not done so well this year because they don't respond to me the same, or possibly that student is in a very different (emotional) place than they were last year. Some students also only come to school once a week. There are a million reasons why that could have happened.

However, instead of beating myself up about it, I am going to focus on the positives. Heaps of kids have already moved up. They have relearnt everything they forgot over summer and have kept moving. Awesome. We have built momentum and they will continue to progress as the year continues.

Bob update

In order to help 'Bob' more effectively, I have asked for some help/training as I have no experience with learning at this age (reading at 5 years old).

He is on the STEPS programme, which is run by our teacher aides. As part of the RTLB meeting, we decided to check in that our teacher aide knew how to use the programme correctly. I asked to get some training myself as I had no idea how to use it, let alone how to support the teacher aide in her use of it.

One of the RTLBs came into school today to give us this training. It was designed to use the new data we collected about Bob to make STEPS work for him (i.e. using information about how he processed information, his memory skills etc).

Things I didn't know about STEPS.

• The average child needs to see a word 10-12 times to know it.. Students who typically end up using STEPS need to see a word 700+ times.
• Use wordlists (and create your own) to focus on particular sets of words at a time - these feed into the games as well. 
• Activities need to be done in order as they link on from each other ( in sets)

Finding out that children with these kinds of learning needs need to see a word 700+ times to truly know it and remember it shocked me. Really?!?! But at the same time, it makes sense. Bob knows words and one day will instantly recall them, and the next day won't. It's as if he 'forgets'.. but really, did he ever really know it in the first place?

We had another meeting with the teacher aid, the DP, myself, the two RTLBs and Bobs dad. It was a really good meeting where his next set of goals was set and responsibilities for each person involved was agreed upon. I was happy to see that all the tasks I was required to do as his teacher, such as having his own box of books he can free read from (at his level), having him learn red level high frequency words, having flip cards with these words (etc), I was already doing. I felt proud that I was supporting Bob in the ways he needed before being explicitly told 'do this, do that'. 

I definitely think that Bob will make progress this year with so much support behind him. 

Anne's observation (Term 2, 2017)

I had my observation with Anne (MDTA Supervisor) yesterday. I no longer stress about observations (after having so many last year lol), so was very happy to see Anne and have her hang out in my class for a couple hours.

You can read her full feedback here.

I felt it was a successful lesson and I was proud to show Anne that my kids knew how to debate (following protocol), but also that they could work together without much T direction. They ran their own discussions with me just suggesting things, rather than 100% directing them. 

Here are some snippets from Anne's feedback that I will take with me into the day ahead.

I came into classroom to see the roll running itself, being managed by the class, in Samoan. This was followed by their karakia and then they were ready for the day.

You scaffolded them with the kind of words, which would draw the reader into their argument and believe the strength of the argument.

Collecting their netbooks from the cupboard was quickly and efficiently done by the learners. You put a lot of the responsibility back on the learners encouraging them to be more self managing.

Providing the template for the learners to follow was a good scaffold and helped them to organise their thinking and ideas. You sat with the less capable group and helped to clarify their thinking and gave them immediate feedback from their writing.

The class work really well in a very relaxed manner and there is a sense of enjoyment in the class. You have a very malleable class, with only a couple to challenges, so you can get a lot of work accomplished. There were really thoughtful ideas being promulgated amongst the groups and they helped each other by sharing their work.

A very productive morning Ashley and you worked so hard to be inclusive for all the levels in the class. You have given such a commitment to those who are struggling and it is taking up a lot of your time so hope the IEP and RTLB can help you with those children. Thank you for sharing your class with me and allowing me to contribute ideas. They are a great bunch of students and obviously love you to bits. Relationships, more interest and enjoyment of learning and confidence to help with achievement success was Graeme Aitken’s recipe, and you are following this, so good luck! Your Blog posts are a joy to read and show a teacher who is excited with what she is doing, happy to share her ideas and working well to meet the requirements for registration. The toolkits and professional development you are doing for others, is greatly appreciated, as your skills increase weekly. Well done Ashley - love your work!