Physical Restraint in Schools

We read the key points as a jigsaw activity then fed back to the rest of the group. 

https://www.education.govt.nz/news/new-rules-for-using-physical-restraint-in-schools/

PLD about PLD

Jude's Inquiry this year was around effective PLD. She investigated the different levels of PLD and how they are all connected. 

As a result of Jude's Inquiry, we have begun to track our learning on this blog. We have also identified that we need to connect beyond our place.

This is a draft copy of a visual. The intention is that staff will use this when planning their PLD. 

The 7 principles of effective PLD will also run through this.

Principles of Effective PLD:

●      Links to identified student needs and learning outcomes

●      Integrates knowledge and skills

●      Operates within a learning community and culture of trust

●      Offers sustained, multiple opportunities to learn (= TIME)

●      Is collaborative, shared, collegial

●      Active role taken by leaders

●      Is inquiry-based( some not all is at present)

(Readings: Professional Learning in Effective Schools, BES: Teacher Professional Learning and Development)

Maths PLD, Feedback 2017 (this will inform our next steps for Maths PLD)

All teachers have made changes to their programmes based on their goals and learnings. Many staff members will be signing up to take the Stanford Jo Boaler course- How to teach Maths (for teachers). This is significant as it will create a big shift in teaching practice across the school.

Teachers were asked what they have changed in their programmes. There is wider curriculum coverage, number talks, Visual Maths, EOTC in Maths, Broad open ended problem solving, collaboration (teachers and students), Rich inquiry focus and a better understanding of formative assessment.

Many teachers found that triples were useful and affirming. It was good to set goals around these. The mini inquiries allowed for everyone to be accountable.

Teaching as inquiry has a huge impact on learners (including us as learners).

Next steps in Maths:

Staff are clearer about the Internal Evaluation process but not everyone is confident in this area.

We need to develop Number Talks as formative assessment and share these with each other.

How to teach mixed ability groups (the what).

Some questions to consider:

How do we ensure that we are stretching the higher achieving students?

Are we teaching enough strategies?

From our data, we have identified that we will need to have a focus on Writing next year.

Where to next for Writing?

We asked staff:

1. What aspects of your writing programme are you feeling good about?

2. Where do you need development and growth?

We will look at this data and make a plan for our next steps, using the visual template.

2018 Planned Actions

These meetings were focused around planned actions for 2018. 

This was the "Smackdown" led by Gabrielle

This was the "Smackdown" led by John:

We started by planning from the why? 

Inclusion Meeting: Preparing for Inclusive Education Internal Evaluation 16th October 2017

We are preparing for our Inclusive Education Self Review.

What is Inclusive Education?
What different groups do we have in the school?
What perspectives do we need to consider?

We will look at what the survey showed.
Look at school vision and Year 6 leaver's profile.

What are we currently doing that contributes to Inclusive Education?

What UDL strategies and tools are you using in your classroom? Why?

Refresh from ULearn...

In her ULearn17 keynote, Ann Milne shared her story of the Warrior Scholars from Kia Aroha college. The video below demonstrates a wonderful model of cultural responsiveness in action:

 
Warrior Scholars - Decolonising education from Teach For All on Vimeo.


These slides have been adapted from the ULearn presentation by Margaret Lelieveld and Sunny West. The slides are about ASD in the ILE:

 

This is a link to a transition checklist for ASD students (but would be useful for other students too)

The senior team have been working with Evan Barker, who has been completing his Masters Thesis, "The implementation of (UDL) guidelines … and its influence on students’ learning." This has further helped us to reflect on our journey, our achievements and inform our next steps. These are the slides about his research from his ULearn presentation:

 

Sustainability Enviroschools

Strategic Planning Meeting: Digital Technologies Curriculum

Digital Technologies Curriculum: What it means for us. This was shared at the board Strategic Planning Meeting. 

Rethinking What is Taught, How its Taught

Asia Awareness Staff Meeting: 18th September

Prior to session, read short article: http://educationcentral.co.nz/are-our-school-leavers-asia-ready/

How does Asia Awareness fit?

Vision, Learner attributes, Year 6 Leavers Profile, Inquiry, UDL, Cultural Competencies… Curriculum Document

How Asia Equipped is your school? Bus stop activity. Where are we at? What are our next steps?

Looking ahead to 2018 Action Plan

Some dates below for celebrations of languages and culture:

• Maori Language Week: 11 to 17 September
• Korean Language Week: 21 September to 1 October
• Korea Festival: October
• New Zealand Chinese Language Week: 16 to 22 October http://www.asianz.org.nz/education/nzclw
• Diwali: 19 to 23 October

Plan for these add to Asian Connections part of Inquiry plan.

Presentation from 13th March- Introduction to why we need to have a focus on Asia: 

Writing Moderation: September 11th 2017

Moderation is the process of teachers sharing their expectations and understanding of standards with each other in order to improve consistency of decisions about student learning.

Making consistent, reliable and valid decisions across different points in time is important when schools report student progress or compare cohort data with historical information.

Teacher Moderation notes: Writing Moderation: Term 3

Alignment matrix PTC and Standards for the Teaching Profession: Admin 7th September

Our Codes, Our Standards

Alignment matrix PTC and Standards for the Teaching Profession

* teachers needing to be assessed for reregistration during the rest of this year, can still use their evidence they have collected against the PTCs

* from the start of 2018, teachers will need to start collecting evidence against the new Standards

* for attestations from the start of 2018, teachers are able to use a mix of evidence from the PTCs over the previous period and evidence against the new Standards, collected from the start of 2018. This will apply until the next time teacher come up for attestation. Essentially, for almost the next 3 years.

From Education Council:

I have attached the  matrix that shows how the PTC fit with the new Standards (and also the placement of the professional Standards as part of the collective agreement that sits with the PTC or from 2018 with the new Standards). What it means is that as you quite rightly point out, teachers will have evidence in relation to the PTC right up to whenever schools and centres make the change to the new Standards in their appraisal cycles. We are saying that would occur at the start of the appraisal cycle in 2018.

However, if my PC comes up for renewal in late 2018, I will have most of my evidence in relation to the PTC. This table can be used to show that as I met the PTC, the corresponding new Standard can be attested as met (using the right hand column to match to the left). Also, as we want everyone to have a summary report at the end of their appraisal cycle, that will say the my principal is satisfied I met the PTC in that annual cycle of 2017 or if I did not meet any of them which that is and what the timeframe and action to address that is.

September 4th 2017 UDL, Inquiry and Maths/ Observation Triples

Further reading: What is Mathematical Beauty? Teaching through Big Ideas and Connections: Jo Boaler

Here is a run down for Maths Triples Next week and the week after.  There are a few group changes etc .  We also really want to 'join the dots' between our PLD Foci/meetings , WBS initiatives such as triples observations, teaching goals etc and student outcomes.  

 FOCUS of Maths Triples -    Improve student outcomes in maths                        

For these triples please think about the sorts of things you might want to demonstrate/explore/discuss during your sessions.

Please keep in mind the things we have looked at already so that the session is relevant:

-Using growth mindset in Maths

-Maths as a creative realm and the application of flexible thinking

-Visualisation in Maths, number talks

-Collaborative problem solving

-Formative assessment, student voice in learning, self evaluation and goal  setting

                         

There is likely to be quite a lot of cross- over with some of these things.  It is bound to be really interesting.  Exciting!

During this session we will also be setting Teaching goals :

These goals will focus on student outcomes.  What difference will ‘numbertalks’ or…………. make to this group/individual .... and where will they be by.........  How will you know ?    What will you see/collect/gather ?  What will they be able to do ?

Timetable

Week 7			Week 8
Time	Monday John Wanwan Susie	Tuesday Nicola   Scott Anna		Monday Shona Gabrielle Gillian Chris
	04 Sept	05 Sept		11 Sept
			9.00-9.30
9.00 - 9.20			9.30-10.00	Chris - Suz/Jude
9.20 - 11.00	John - Hayley	Nicola-Chrissy	10.00-10.40	Gabrielle - Kathryn
11.40- 1.00	Wanwan-Sherwin	Scott - Sherwin	11.40-1.00	Gillian-Hayley
1.40 - 3.00	Susie - Kathryn	Anna - Hayley	1.40-3.00	Shona - Sherwin

First 20 minutes:   Share how your Maths programme is structured.  

Before Observation - Person being observed will share:

• focus for the lesson, background to student needs in maths
• the planning - lesson sequence overview and student outcomes
• personal goals in teaching maths - or your Teaching as Inquiry

During Observation:

• note teaching strategies/behaviours
• what students are doing in relation to these
• what is effective?
• what could be improved?

After Observation discuss:

• what were the strengths?
• what could be improved?
• questions to think about/consider
• set a teaching goal for the next 4 weeks.  We will reflect on this during an admin meeting.

What staff said...

Teachers

Students

Planning linking to real world context/ Inquiry Provide contexts Posing questions (creativity, materials and opportunity to explore) Direct teaching (strategy and knowledge) Number Talks (visual, language) Formative Assessment Scaffolding Modeling Think aloud Open ended tasks Appropriately pitched UDL Authentic- linking strand to number Reflecting Feedback Provocations Provide a variety of materials Low floor/ high ceiling activities Maximising teachable moments (being nimble) Capturing learning Knowing the learner Knowing content

Exploring Answering Questioning Sharing Collaborating Showing Explaining Creative Output Being creative/ flexibe Doing (measuring, questioning, trial and error) Practising Proving Thinking Games Practise skills Think aloud Having learning conversations Taking risks Being curious Choosing how to investigate Visualise Imaging Reflecting Teaching others Solving real problems Opportunities to share/ celebrate Students as mathematicians

August 24th: Reflecting on Positive Education Parent Workshop

After a successful Positive Education Parent Workshop, we reflected on what went well and what would be even better if...

Inquiry Internal Evaluation

We have been working through an Internal Evaluation for Inquiry. 

After multiple discussions with the staff, we have identified what we need to prioritise:

1. There needs to be a consistent planning format across the school. 
2. We need school wide success criteria for measuring soft skills/ key competencies
3. We need consistent language when developing SC, positively framed, they are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and they distinguish between conceptual and procedural knowledge.
4. In order to tell the learning story, we need to unpack how best to use success criteria and communicate each criterion. We feel that breaking it into parts may be more effective than treating it as a whole. Seesaw is the vehicle for telling the learning story. 

ACTION: Staff need to plan for the use of the managing self success criteria formatively.  

Chose just one part at a time.

We need to have some information to share around this for our Inquiry Internal Evaluation and are conscious that it's week 6 already! Half way through the term!

Next week we will be sending out a survey also so that we can get more evidence of our practice in Inquiry.

Please familiarise yourselves as to where we are up to:

Inquiry Internal Evaluation