26/11/24 PLD Refreshed Curriculum, 3

In this session, we applied our analysis process to the Writing part of the English Curriculum (leaving aside Handwriting, which we have already tackled separately).

Our current programme is outlined at the top of the sheets, while the new Curriculum requirements are added below.

Key observations:

• Writing quantity: we talked a lot about how the year 1 curriculum now stipulates only one or two sentences, but is very clear about the quality of the transcription and spelling skills being taught. We speculated that, currently, we may rush children on to writing too much before transcription skills are embedded.
• The years 4 - 5 curriculum has progressively less about transcription and more about text types, content, language, audience etc. We discussed cognitive load: ideally, if children are proficient transcribers by year 4, they have more capacity to develop their content, structure and style.
• We noted that the transition from the old to new curriculum may leave more students than usual needing teaching to support their transcription skills so that they can access the year 4-6 content. Writing passports should help to pinpoint what our students need from day 1, but we may also need to capture now who is going to need what add/sup support.
• We noted that, while we're already teaching a lot of the content here, we need to be very clear about expectations at each year group and making sure in a blended class that we are attending to the skills progressions needed.
• Handwriting: do we have a unified stance? Is the NZ Handwriting Challenge the way forward.
• There is a lot to fit in here, needed a careful analysis of how we are going to use our time and how we can save time (e.g. quicker transitions).

PLD 12/11/2024, Refreshed Curriculum 2

Mapping teaching and learning: Handwriting and Reading

In this PLD session, we began some practical thinking about how learning will look in our classrooms next year. As this is a big project, we are going to break it down over the next few weeks. 

Alignment and consistency are emerging as themes when we talk about improving how we support our students AND how the new curricula work. We agreed to apply these lenses to our discussions by taking a closer look at two specific curriculum areas.

Our process was: 

1. Map how these subjects are being taught currently across our school. The aim here was to get a clear view of the journey our children are on at the moment.
2. Cross-match our current practice with the journey described in the new curriculum. 
3. Examine this to draw conclusions about PLD needs, scope for alignment and collaboration, what's new and needs our attention, what needs a little extra polish.

We chose to focus first on Handwriting (which gets more of a spotlight in the new English curriculum) and then Reading. 

Handwriting

Some key reflections: 

• Phase 2: what might handwriting look like in years 4 - 6 now? What's appropriate for some/all?
• Resourcing: books, lined/unlined paper, tables, pencils (or not?), programme?
• What's the gold standard: seating position, 'slope', pencil grip, resourcing (writing with what, on what?)

Essentially, we need to know more about evidence-based handwriting practice. We don't yet have a shared understanding about what best practice looks like at each stage. 

Reading

Key reflections:

• We're keen to understand what's different between years 3 and 4, and also what is different for the year 4s as compared with year 5s. What do the year 3s bring with them - and what ways of reading are they and their whānau familiar with? 
• Equally, what do we notice as year 1s progress on to year 2 learning? What do they bring and what ways of reading are they familiar with.
• We noticed that year 3 and 4 might involve more learning to recognise what features are being used in a text. In years 5 and 6, the shift is toward analytical thinking about how and why writers choosing to do what they're doing.

PLD 5/11/2024, Refreshed Curriculum 1

 

The Big Picture

The overall outcome which we will aim to achieve over the next 4 meetings : 

• Understand what is supposed to happen each year (bearing in mind that we will need coverage, but we have mixed-year classes etc.). This is where Matrices. will come in handy.  

• Identify what's the same, what's different.

• Interrogate what's different: a certain amount of this is about what and when (we already teach these things, but need to be explicit about what we're covering and when, according to the new curriculum sequence). A few things are brand new and will link to specific PLD.

• Collaborative problem solving of how as a whole team, resulting in being able to design a scope and sequence for Term 1.

• With these new/similar progressions : what are we expecting? What does this mean in terms of transition?

Session 1

Having taken some time to read and explore the new English and Maths curriculum documents, we came ready to begin our collective sense-making and planning. 

Here's the plan for today:

First Impressions of new curricula

We are noticing:

• More detail, less guesswork
• Emphasis on the science of learning
• Exciting - but ambitious!
• 'I can use this to assess more accurately'
• Will help us to prioritise what we do, how we spend time
• Flexible, creative, critical thinking: definitely in English; also in Maths?
• Breaks content right down
• Still allows for 'the art' of teaching
• Parents will appreciate the clarity - new reporting?
• The word 'mastery' comes up a a lot
• Spiral - returning to previous learning to secure it
• Planning year by year is a minimum requirement (rather that working within) 
• Maths vocabulary knowledge
• Word problems - what is this asking you to do? Which strategy will you choose?

Differences/Similarities

First thoughts about the 'how'

The aim here was to open up up the conversation about how we might implement the curricula and what we may need to consider.

These are first thoughts, which we will build on in subsequent sessions.

• What does action for learners requiring addition support look like in this context?
• Certain parts of the curriculum will need to be timetabled daily (e.g. core skills, PHoM). Might collaboration across spaces help (as will BSLA)?
• Hour a day literacy/maths - how?
• Differentiation for several year groups in one classroom (when new curricula very much based on year by year progression)
• What does an integrated curriculum look like? E.g. if we are using Pos Ed or P4C as a context for Literacy learning, how do we apply the Literacy curriculum, differentiate appropriately for different learners etc.
• Assessment - formative, summative. What and when?
• How can we use each other as resources: problem solving, skills building?

Finally, projecting forward to this time next year:

Next Steps

We agreed that, in our next session, it would be useful to begin to get into the specifics of how what our timetables might look like and how we will plan and implement these curricula next year. We can use our first thoughts as a starting point.

2024 Kura Ahurea - August 2024 - TOA Wānanga Hui Summary

 

2024 Kura Ahurea - March 2024 - TOA Wānanga Hui Summary

 

2024 Kura Ahurea - May 2024 - TOA Wānanga Hui Summary

 

PLD August 2024 - POSITIVE EDUCATION - 3 Weeks

 PLD- Week 1 we looked at some techniques for shifting states. Week 2 The Triggers Toolkit.......which is all part of our Pos Psych- Learn it....Live it before the Pos Ed teach it......

Trigger Toolkit Document

1. Take a deeper dive into that word that's bandied about- Resilience- by listening to a clip with one of the Resilience experts- Dr Karen Reivich.......I think it's a good idea to be really clear about what we mean as time has moved on and thinking around resilience has changed. It's also a word we use with whānau alot- so let's get on the same page!

Kura Ahurea - Language Planning - Tohutohu - Term 2

Classrooms Commands and Instructions using Rerehangu -  Whiore 

 

Kura Ahurea and Language Resources - Parakuihi and Rumaki Reo

Part of our Te Reo Māori has been to increase the Te Reo Māori being heard and spoken in a bid to improve our normalisation of Te Reo Māori.. 

Writing PLD: applying a reflective lens to our literacy practice

Guided by recent PLD, we have been working on sharpening our conferencing with students and using Active Demonstration. Many of us have TAIs or other projects underway in the Literacy space.

Meanwhile, the Kāhui Ako WSLs are involved in a collaborative model where WSLs bring and share their data, TAIs, leadership inquiries with the aim to be challenged, stretched and supported in their projects. The emphasis on rigorous exploration, rather than jumping quickly to findings.

With all this in mind, we are using the current pair of Writing PLD sessions to apply a reflective lens to the work we've all been doing. The aim is to sharpen our focus, discover new perspectives or resources, and discover avenues for collaboration between individual inquiries.

Session 1 

Beth's project is exploring best practice for early identification of students who may experience challenges in literacy learning and effective ways to uplifting the achievement of our 'students of concern'.

Thinking specifically about the 'students of concern' that we've all identified, we shared actions that have taken this school year. We then located these actions on an effort vs. impact matrix. 

Choosing where to place our actions and why, according to efficacy of outcomes and time/teacher resources demands, opened up some rich lines of inquiry.

When is an intervention not an intervention?

• When is an intervention not an intervention? In many instances, we are tweaking and shaping our teaching practice to adapt to the needs and interests of the students in front of us. This is being a responsive teacher - but it's not necessarily an intervention. 
• How do we define an intervention? E.g. it's not 'business as usual'. It is time-bound. It comes after a number of other 'business as usual' actions have been taken. This outline may be helpful.

Cognitive load

• Interventions are often related to specific components of writing, for example letter formation.
• Cognitive Load: the conversation referenced 'The not so simple view of writing'. Are we making sure that we're scaffolding the learning so enable students to focus on specific aspects of their writing, rather than everything all at once?

A question of design

• What is best practice for particular learning needs and how do we know? (Evidence.)
• Who are we targeting and why? We can only design effective actions if we are clear who they are designed for and what the desired outcome is.
• Does the action we're taking truly match the outcome we are aiming for? And how will we know?

We will return to these questions as the will inform our thinking about lesson design and specific interventions to support our students.

 Session 2

In our second session, we looked at a set of reflective questions that were designed to help us go deeper into our inquiries. We aimed to:

1. Nutshell our projects.
2. Experiment with using the reflective question cards to delve a little deeper. 
3. End by identifying which questions are most productive for each of us at this point and where possible collaborations may exist.

The reflective questions were arranged into sub-groups to help users to zero in on what stage of the inquiry cycle they are currently working within.

Outcomes so far

• We have identified that we have a tendency to work on our TAIs in isolation. Sharing what we're working on enables us to find productive connections with the projects others are engaged with. Explaining our thinking to colleagues opens the door to lines of questioning or new information that enriches our projects. We are resolved to do more of this!
• Some people are working on TAIs related to our PLD and some are not. This raises a couple of questions: how do we track through the success of our PLD? Should we try to choose TAIs that relate to our school business plan?
• Experimenting with the reflective questions was an interesting challenge. It is noticeable that we quickly get 'into the weeds', with lots of detailed discussion about individual children or dynamics that are happening in class. How do we get into the habit of elevating the conversation beyond the nitty gritty?
• Finally, are we getting the most out of our TAIs as a tool for improving our practice in lasting and sticky ways? 

No doubt there are more questions and reflections to add. In term 4, we will begin planning for our 2025 TAIs. It will be an interesting challenge for us to burrow into these questions and see if we can design inquires and that go deeper, are more connected, and yield stickier results. 

Building our literary culture: Staff Only Day Book Club, January 2024

 Book Club - Teacher only day, 31st Jan 2024

We are building our literary culture by sharing some current favourite reads and examples of quality writing. Thanks everyone for your thoughtful and entertaining contributions.

Beth’s pick.
Also, The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig
Recommended by Carl. Also, HP Lovecraft Investigations (BBC Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms)	Recommended by Suzanne
Recommended by Kate. Plus Sand Talk  by Tyson Yunkaporta (John referred to this.).	Recommended by Kirsten
Recommended by Rose.	Recommended by Jacqueline
Recommended by Hayley.	Mary Oliver, A Summer Day Mary Oliver, Sleeping in the Forest Recommended by Cloe