Tātai Ako- Behavioural Indicators and my goals

It's a bit hard to read on here unfortunately so I will share Google Drive link.

I went through the Tātai Ako document and recorded all of the behavioural indicators that I should be meeting as a leader. Then I set goals for each one. I will reflect on these goals later in the year and record my progress.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iVjOtl0rCEGkh-gWSWGKXI_m-RbZXYLg5k6TdcVoXH8/edit?usp=sharing

Enhancing Our School Values

Last night at our staff meeting, we settled on our school values, so I am just going to record my thinking here.

I think we need to display what each value means with either bullet points or an explanation (or both), in order to help students to understand them better and connect them to their everyday experiences at school.

Current Values AreCare, Respect, Strive and Cooperate.

We have altered these slightly:

Care - manaaki Kaitiakitanga

Connected themes: Ako, Whanaungatanga, Kaitiakitanga

Cooperate - mahi tahi

Connected themes: Ako, Whanaungatanga

Strive - takakawe

Connected themes: Wairua,

Kindness - atawhai Aroha

Connected themes: Ako, Whanaungatanga, atawhai

Manaakitanga kind of means both care and respect together so we have added in Kaitiakitanga to represent care instead. Kaitiakitanga is guardianship. It involves taking care of both the people and environment. I feel this word better represents what we would like to achieve at our school. It links nicely to our environmental focus whilst also connecting strongly to Maori values, in particular the connection to whenua.

The word guardianship means protect, defend, watch over.

Links to Kaitiakitanga from https://teara.govt.nz/en/kaitiakitanga-guardianship-and-conservation

Mana means spiritual power. If a forest has mana, it will have plenty of flowers, fruit and birds.

Tapu can mean spiritual restriction. Sometimes rāhui (restrictions) are needed to help the mana of the forest. A rāhui might stop people taking birds, fish or fruit from a certain area, or at a certain time.

Mauri means life force. This must be protected in forests, rivers, gardens, lakes and the sea. Special mauri stones, which tohunga (priests) said prayers over, were used to preserve this force.

We have also added in aroha to introduce the kindness aspect. Aroha also involves the caring for each other aspect too.

I was inspired by this model at Ngaruawahia School to create something for our school.

http://www.ngaruawahia.school.nz/our-school-values/

I think each value needs a symbol to represent it. James says Russell Street has done that too. They got someone to draw the symbols for them.

https://www.russellst.school.nz/values/

Potentially I could come up with some designs for the symbols or ask someone. I have plenty of artist friends that might be able to help.

Also I would like to take into account our local area when creating these symbols/pictures and our school colours.

Here is a Google Slide to share my ideas so far on each value. This is just me organising my thoughts and thinking about what the values mean to me and what they might look like in action. If we were creating something for our school. Everyone would need to contribute to this, not just me.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VAHLu_mx_85FxveoRZRLu7n2bj2u86AjGK3IRfCSe00/edit?usp=sharing

Tu Rangatira

Resource- Tu Rangatira

http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Key-leadership-documents/Tu-rangatira-English

I have just taken pictures of key aspects from the document for myself to remind myself what is in this document!

Purpose

Guiding principles

Guidelines

Key roles of leadership

Key focus areas for leadership

Māori Leadership

On Wednesday 27th July, the Taki Rua performance group came to our school to present their production of Hine Kihāwai to the school. It is a performance delivered entirely in te reo Māori.
Since becoming the curriulum leader for Māori this term, this was my first real responsibility. I was the one who needed to ensure the smooth running of the Mihi Whakatau and to ensure staff and students were aware of the organisation. I read our school guidelines for Pōwhiri and Mihi Whakatau (written by James) and used these to type up a document to share with staff.

Everything ran smoothly and I absolutely LOVED the performance. I wrote a review of the show and they are going to put a quote from me on their Facebook page.

My next step will be to organise the mihi whakatau for our new teacher, new students and ERO next Monday. This mihi whakatau was a good practise run though for me for that.

I also completed a survey for someone doing some research on how effectively schools are implementing Ka Hikitia. As I went through the survey, I realised that I have a very solid understanding of the document and that our school has done a lot in the 5 years I have been there. We have set goals every year and continuously tried to improve and develop in the areas idenitified in Ka Hikitia. As the new Māori leader, it will be my job to develop a new strategy for our future direction. I am very excited to begin working on this!

Te Ara Reo Māori Level 4 Assessment Task- Script for a play

Here is the script I wrote for my latest Te Ara Reo assessment. This is my first draft and I have highlighted all the things I am unsure of in yellow for my tutor to check. Once she has checked it, I will present it to my wananga class. I am going to make a video with my class at Mount Biggs and get my students to act it out. We have masks from our performance at The Regent that we can use to conceal their identity. Then I will share the movie with my wananga class while I narrate the script (live in person) for them to tell the story.

Kōnae Ako: WTMPR 402 Whakarite

Renee Strawbridge

Script

Ranginui and Papatūānuku have many children.

He maha ngā tamariki a Ranginui rāua ko papa.

He aroha raua.

They are in love.

Here are some of their children.

Anei etahi rātou ngā tamariki

Ko Whiro, ko Tāne Mahuta, ko Tāwhirimātea, ko Tūmatauenga, ko Haumia-Tiketike, ko Ruaumoko rātou ko Tangaroa.

Ranginui and Papatūānuku were embracing.

I awhiawhi a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku.

Their children wanted to separate them.

I hiahia a rātou tamariki ki wehea ia.

Whiro is the son of Ranginui and Papatūānuku.

Ko Whiro te tama o Ranginui and Papatuanuku

He is very evil!

He tino kino a Whiro.

He wanted to separate his parents.

I hiahia ia ki wehea nga mātua.

Tāne Mahuta separated their parents.

I wehea a Tāne Mahuta rātou ngā matou.

He is very strong.

He tino kaha ia.

Tāwhirimātea is extremely angry.

He tino pukuriri rawa atu a Tawhirimatea.

He did not want to separate his parents.

Kaore ia i hiahia wehea ōna mātua.

Ranginui and Papatūānuku are very sad.

He pouri rawa a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku.

Their children were all fighting!

I whawhai rātou tamariki.

It’s very crazy!

He tino porangi!

Haumia-Tiketike is very disappointed/disturbed because he is the God of peace.

I  matangurunguru rawa a Haumia-Tiketike no te mea ko iea te Atua o Rangimarie.

Tangaroa is the God of the sea.

Ko Tangaroa te Atua o te Moana.

Tangaroa was attacked by Tāwhirimātea; therefore, he was forced to live in the sea.

I whakaeke a Tangaroa e Tāwhirimātea; no reira, i kaha ia ki te noho i te moana.

Tāwhirimātea has strong power over Tangaroa or Tāwhirimātea is more powerful than Tangaroa.

He kaha rawa atu a Tāwhirimātea ki a Tangaroa.

He tino utu a Tāwhirimātea.

Tāwhirimātea is very vengeful.

Tūmatauenga is stronger than Tāwhirimātea.

He marohi ake a Tūmatauenga i a Tāwhirimātea.

Ruaumoko is extremely angry.

He tino pukuriri rawa atu a Ruaumoko.

Tāwhirimātea is angrier than Ruaumoko, but Raumoko is very little. He’s the baby.

He pukuriri ake a Tāwhirimātea i a Ruaumoko, engari he iti rawa a Ruaumoko. Ko ia te pēpē.

In the end, the parents were separated. They remain separated.

I te mutunga, I wehea ngā mātua. E noho wehea ana rātou.

As a result or this,  the children became the Atua they are now known.

Ko te hua o tenei, kua riro ngā tamariki hei Atua e mohiotia ana inaianei.

Te Ara Re Maori Level 4 Assessment Task- Picture book in Te Reo Māori

Follow this link to read my picture book in te reo Māori. English translation is in the notes section of the slides. I had to read this aloud to my class as an assessment task on my course at Te Wananga.

Picture Book in te re Maori

This provides evidence of professional development I am seeking in my own time to develop my ability to speak Māori. As part of this course, I am also learning new waiata, karakia, tikanga etc and am in a classroom that teaches with Māori culture at the forefront. This is very helpful to me in my own teaching practice, as it helps me set up an environment where Māori can learn AS Māori. It also benefits my non Māori students too as they learn about our country's precious culture, heritage and language.

Weekly Writing Mysteries Term One

I cannot believe I forgot to post this at the end of Term One. I wrote a reflection for James about Writing in a Google form that I probably should've posted on here too. It's floating around somewhere...

The weekly writing mysteries were an initiative that I came up with to improve engagement and achievement in writing. I collaborated with staff to organise weekly mysteries in the school for the students to experience and write about it. Here is a summary of them!

DINOSAURS

Dinosaur activities....

-        Footprints on the tennis courts over a course of a few days. Add more each day.

-        Eggs in the sandpit

-        Use an app to take a photo of dinosaur in school grounds

-        Eggs hatch. Baby dinosaurs inside.

METEORS

Meteor activities...

-        Meteors land on school grounds somewhere for students to discover

-        Collect swabs/samples and put in test tubes to be sent away for testing.

-        Forge a letter from Massey University with test results. 

-        Fire Snake experiment. We pretended to test the ‘ash’ for this experiment. 

-        https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-fire-snake-from-sugar-baking-soda-0164401/

-        If you can get a real scientist/geologist in to talk to the kids that would be great. The guy we got was amazing.

ALIEN ABDUCTION

Alien abduction activities......

-        Teacher abducted with clues left to imply it was aliens. Clues might include slime or silly string trail, a ransom note, things the teacher left behind.

-        Police Interview- Get a police officer to interview students. I made contact through our Police Education officer who does the DARE and Kia Kaha programmes etc..

-        Get someone to dress up in an alien suit and take photos of the alien doing things all around the school. Eg. Eating toast in the staff room, playing on the playground, climbing trees, reading a book in the library etc. I would suggest using a polaroid camera and leaving the photos lying around for kids to find.

ALIEN SPACESHIP LANDING

Alien landing activities......

-        Use an app to take a photo of a flying saucer above the school.

-        Fake news article of UFO sightings. There was an online newspaper creation app that I used.

-        Crop circles- they are actually surprisingly easy to do if it’s not during a thunderstorm.

Reflection on Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership

Here is a reflection I did for James in a Google form reflecting on Term 2. I felt that I should share it here as it is a good representation of how I meet professional standard number 1. It also means that I can come back to it if I need to.

Reflect & Comment on professional standard 1: (Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership) Demonstrate commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Tiriti o Waitangi partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand. *

Reflection
Te Ao Maori is something that I am often thinking about in my day to day life as a Maori person and I often think of ways to reflect this in my classroom. I actually only have one Maori student in my class, but this makes no difference to me. Part of the treaty refers to protecting taonga such as te reo and tikanga etc. In order to preserve this precious taonga for future generations, this needs to be shared with our rangatahi so that they can continue to pass it on and share it.

I have been studying this year Te Ara Re Maori Level 4 and each week I share my learning with my class in the form of vocabulary, activities and games.
Te Reo Maori is something I am excited to be learning and it helps me when I share it with the class. Some of the ways I do this are...
I call the roll in Maori each day and my students respond in Maori.
I speak in Maori and then immediately translate what I just said in English.
I use Maori vocabulary when teaching new things.  We are going to use our ta porowhita (compass) to draw the circle.
I use Maori instructions and kupu to praise students e.g. tino pai etc.
Here is an example of an assessment task I completed during my course, that I shared with my class. It is a picture book I wrote in Maori and I read it to my students. I also read it to the staff at our staff meeting to help prepare me to read it to my Wananga class.

Te Roopu Takitaki- The Avengers (Picture Book)

I am responsible for teaching new waiata to the school. This year I taught Nga Tane, Tukua atu ra and I have more to teach. One of my goals is to write an original song for the school too.
I'd also like to teach them some new karakia to increase their bank of karakia to use.
Next term I will be leading kapahaka and I will be in charge of Maori as a curriculum area. I am looking forward to supporting the development of my colleagues in this area.

In class I have put a large focus on Maori stories and in particular the creation story and stories about the Maori Atua. We used this learning to create a performance for the Kainui Concert at the end of Term 2.

Another thing that is important to me and links to this professional standard, is my connection with my whanau. I am great at communicating regularly via email, text, phone and See Saw. They are well informed about everything that happens in the class and know they are welcome in the class any time.
I make a point of sharing positive things about children with home and don't just ring up to tell a parent about problems with their child. That's not how I work. I see it as a team effort when teaching children and the connections with home are extremely important to me. I have to admit that Seesaw has been a really great tool to share with parents.

RESPONSE TO PROFESSIONAL READING – pages 1-12 What is Collective Efficacy?

June 13th 2018

Below is a hyper link to share my response to some reflective questions on a reading I did as part of my aspiring leaders course.

Response to reading

Here is a hyper link to the reading.

Collective Teacher Efficacy Reading

Observation of my teaching by the principal

All teachers had observations completed on their teaching as part of the appraisal process.
I asked James to come and observe me teach maths. This is what I asked him to observe me on.

James came to observe me teaching a lesson to a group while my class worked on their create a city project in groups.

Here are his brief notes on what he saw.

I was teaching some students how to construct a net for a cylinder. The main thing was that in order to do this, you need to make the circumference of your circle the same length as the rectangle. Therefore, how do you find the circumference of the circle? I let kids come up with their own way to measure and then we got into pi and what pi is.

After the lesson, James gave me some questions to reflect on. Then we met together to discuss my reflection on his coaching questions and he recorded some brief notes on the side.

James observed my lesson and together we discussed it. In addition to that, he recorded some evidence against the professional standards based on what he observed in the brief time that he was in my room.

Overall I enjoyed the observation process. It was a great way to validate what I am doing in my class whilst still reflecting on what I can improve on.

The most beneficial part of my development actually came from the observation I did on my team member. I found it a great way to build my leadership and enhance my own learning. I observed her based on her area of focus. I gave her feedback based on what she was interested in and then we met to reflect on some coaching questions. Designing the questions was great learning for me as they were designed to encourage her to reflect on her own practice and identify her areas of development herself rather than me telling her. There was no competency issue so it was merely just an opportunity for her to continue to grow as a teacher. It was such a privilege to be a part of that process with her.

I enjoyed sharing some ideas with her on how I think she could develop further, based on these identified areas. I hope that she will take some of these on board and let me know how whether or not they were successful for her to achieve her desired outcomes.

Kainui Concert

In term 2 as part of my performing arts leadership, I was responsible for organising the Kainui Concert. This leadership was not just within my own school but across our entire cluster.
I put a significant amount of work into planning and organising the show which involved regular communication with the other schools.
I am including this post in my blog to provide evidence of my leadership experience which is relevant to the teaching criteria.


My role involved the following;

1. Creating a 10 minute performing arts piece for our school    
This included writing a script, choreographing dances and designing and making costumes and props. I worked with my students on this. They actually created the dances and I supported them. Everyone decided their own parts e.g. who wanted to speak, dance, blend in to the background etc. Because I wrote the script, I was able to tailor it to the talents and abilities of the students in my class. It was a really big job which invovled a significant amount of my own time to prepare. Students also spent a lot of class time planning for and rehearsing for the performance.

I decided to make the performance relevant to our learning. In Term 1 we had done some learning about the Maori Atua during reading time so acting out the story was directly linked to our topic.

2. Organising the event for the cluster- 

This included booking The Regent, organising tickets, sales, seating arrangements, logistics, programme order, advertising, lighting, sound etc.

I laiased with schools about their needs with regards to sound, lighting, music, digital files etc.

I was responsible for the rehearsal programme as well as the overall programme for the show.

I made the programmes for the evening and the posters for the other schools to advertise the event.

I created a Google Drive which I used to share a large amount of information and resources for  schools. This means that in future, if I am not the one to organise the event, everything is there and ready for the next person to pick it up and carry on.

3. Collaborative Song-

This year I added in an element. Last time, all the schools sang 3 collaborative songs together. This year I thought it would be cool to have solo singers to represent each school in the collaborative songs. This meant we sang choruses all together but the verses were sung by soloists.

This involved..

a) Auditioning solo singers from my school and ensuring other schools did the same.

b) Meeting with the solo singers to listen to them sing.

c) Allocate singers parts in our two collaborative songs based on their voices/singing style/vocal range etc. Record all parts for each child and send back to the schools so everyone knew who was doing what,

d) Getting students to practice the songs at their own schools both solo singers and the rest of the group.

e) Workshop held with me at Mt Biggs for solo singers so I could check their progress

f) A further rehearsal at The Regent + sound check.

g) Performance with 350 children including 14 solists.

Overall the event was very successful and the feedback was very positive with regards to the show itself and my organisation of it. The rehearsal day was well planned and ran smoothly. Hiccups were allowed for and were not a problem. This ensured a stress free evening show where everything ran like clockwork.

As part of this event, I continued to build on my kete of skills with regards to leadership and the performing arts. 

End of Term 2 Maths Reflection

Reflection: City Project (End of Term 2/Beginning of Term 3)

THIS WAS COPIED AND PASTED FROM MY TEACHER INQUIRY SLIDE SHOW.

Firstly I need to say that the project isn’t finished. This means that I will need to spend the first few weeks of term finishing the project. It has taken a lot of time to complete but also Term 2 was an EXTREMELY interrupted term. There was so much happening as outlined in my Term 2 Statement of Intent. To be honest, I think if I hadn’t been doing a project, I still wouldn’t have got through all my ordinary content. There was too much happening and it was literally each week that my programme was interrupted. It was interrupted with positive learning experiences though, so I am not too worried about it.

I think it is best to reflect on different aspects of my maths programme separately, so that’s what I intend to do over the next couple of slides.

Engagement/Enjoyment

This was a huge area of focus for me in this teacher inquiry, so I believe it is crucial to reflect on it. I will be surveying my whole class again at the end of the project to get more accurate data but I have made observations during the term. Students are highly motivated and engaged in the project and many of them have told me how much they enjoyed it. I am going to get some student voice from my target group so that I can ensure the overall feedback from my class reflects the children I am focusing on. Overall I believe that the task has been a lot of fun for everyone involved (myself included) and most would say it’s more fun that the maths they have done in the past.

Learning

Something that is very important to me is making sure that not only is the project fun, but also that the students are actually learning appropriate content that meets learning intentions in our school curriculum document. Going through the document in advance and planning it all out before designing the project ensured that I did this.

The learning I have observed includes the following;

• Measuring and drawing lines with accuracy in mm cm and m. This includes converting between units.
• Planning out the city using scale diagrams.
• Measuring a small scale plan and enlarging it by a scale factor of choice.
• Estimation.
• Creating a net for a cuboid with specific measurements (not an easy task)
• Some created nets for cylinders, pyramids and triangular prisms.
• Calculating perimeter, area and volume.
• Multiplication strategies- in order to calculate the volume and area, I had to teach multiplication strategies with decimals and whole numbers.

Teaching

The way I used to plan my maths programme went completely out the window. I was not able to plan and teach groups daily as I have done for the past many years. I found the best strategy was to be a constant roving teacher who visited each group every day. I didn’t record this but maybe I should have? I didn’t feel that I needed to because what would be the purpose?

The roving strategy worked better tha n structured groups because there was so much problem solving going on each day and every group was doing things differently. Groups were constantly faced with unique challenges and it was good for them to work out strategies to deal with these. I was there to prompt and question where necessary but my goal was mainly to support them to figure things out for themselves rather than just simply TELL them. I had to help a lot with relationships. One group had significant relationship problems mainly due to two students within that group. I had to mediate often and help them to solve their relationship problems.

Sometimes I offered a workshop if I felt many would benefit from it and some days I repeated the same workshop over several days so that students could attend when they were ready. Sometimes I taught the whole class but I adapted my teaching to meet the range of levels within the class. I will use the example of when I taught the place value strategy for multiplication. I taught this to the whole class but ensured multiple entry levels. E.g. 23 x 4 = ?         235 x 4 = ? 2.3 x 4 = ? Students had a chance to practise this strategy before applying it to the volume and area problems. I let them choose which level they wanted to practise and how many levels they wanted to practised. I was able to work with a small group who needed extra support to use this strategy but most were fine. The top kids were happy because they were able to choose to do the decimal work. No one was limited by their level and could choose which work they felt comfortable to complete. There was so much integration happening mainly between number, geometry and measurement and it was taught in a way that was personalised to groups and individuals. I feel there was a high level of student agency, which is something I was worried about losing with the group challenge. I worried that without meeting goals from a test, how would students own their learning, know what to learn and how to learn it but it happened regardless.

Assessment

Obviously a key aspect of teaching and learning is assessing progress and achievement. I was very nervous about this aspect after moving away from so much testing. Previously students assessed their progress in a unit in two ways. They analysed the change between their pre and post test results to show progress. They also used formative assessment to monitor their own progress as they went alone by signing off goals they had achieved. I did give students a pre-test to ascertain what they knew but I am unsure whether it would be purposeful or necessary to have a post test. I think the type of assessment I have in mind will be a better way to measure progress.

Project Assessment plan

Pre- Test- For baseline data to see what the students actually need to learn.

Self assessment- Students can assess themselves or their groups against the criteria they were given. They also have the learning intentions from the curriculum document so should be able to identify which goals they met and which they didn’t.

Formative assessment- Students are regularly assessing themselves as they go to ensure they are meeting the criteria for their city. They know what they need to accomplish e.g. designing nets, calculating volume etc and they are fully aware of when they achieve their goals. They seek the teacher when necessary and in most cases, the evidence of their success is in the form of something they have created.

Peer assessment- I really wanted groups to assess each other against the criteria in order to make them accountable for their actions and to ensure the learning was a priority and not just the task itself;

Teacher assessment- I think that instead of doing a post test I am instead going to use a Google form to ask students how they feel they went and use their self-assessment of the content to identify progress.

Authenticity/Relevance

One thing that was important to me in this inquiry was providing the students with authentic tasks that would help them with real world maths. I am very convinced that I have achieved this goal.

This maths was so real and it wasn’t the kind of maths with ticks and crosses and rights or wrongs. Problems and challenges that came up were very authentic and unique to each group depending on their choices. Numbers were not always easy to work with. Many times they were what I would call ‘ugly’ numbers and not the type you use typically when completing a worksheet or text book activity. They were real numbers that didn’t necessarily work out tidily without decimals or remainders and this was great. There was also no answer sheet to check if students were on the right track. If your net didn’t work, then it meant you had made a mistake and had to figure out why. If your buildings had unusual numbers, well you had to find strategies to work with them because you needed to find the volume.

There was so much measurement going on. There were often times where I saw a direct correlation between what a builder routinely does and what they were doing to plan, measure and build their cities. The maths was definitely authentic and relevant to each group and what they wanted to achieve. This meant that my actual teaching had to be flexible. I wasn’t always sure what my students would need to learn and so it meant that I had to be prepared for anything. Thankfully I have very sound curriculum knowledge at this level and am able to teach flexibly and go with what my students need. I think that the task was also suitable to a wide range of abilities and everyone could contribute regardless of their levels. They all had different strengths and had to work together as a team. I don’t think the lower achieving students would have felt like they couldn’t contribute and I don’t think my top students felt they weren’t being extended. There were multiple level entry points within the task.

Where to next?

Firstly I need to finish the project. I guess that will take about two weeks if we use our afternoons to work on the art aspect of the project and the maths slot to focus on the maths aspect of the project.

After the projects are finished, I feel that the students need to display them in the hall and we can invite parents to come and view them. Also I am going to invite the other classes to vote for their favourite city. We will have categories for this

It’s crucial that the students fill in their self-assessment sheets and make sure everything is recorded on them. Then they will be allocated another group to assess and they will complete a peer assessment on the city that group has made.

After all of this is done, the project will be finished and we will need to begin a new maths topic - statistics.

Student reflection

Once the project is completed, I need to survey my students using a Google Form. I am going to create more than one set of questions as outlined below.

1. Did you enjoy the project? Yes, no, sort of, neutral (This is to make my new graph for T.A.I)
2. Are you good at maths? Yes, no, sort of, neutral  (This is to make my new graph for T.A.I)
3. Target group only- student voice (To reflect on my success with this T.A.I)
4. Self- Assessment against criteria. What have we learned? (To assess learning- replaces post test).