28 Days Later

This is it.  The end of #28daysofwriting.  It has been awesome.  I have loved the experience and I know I will continue.  Tonight's post will probably be pretty cliche, from the title to the content but I don’t care.  I want to reflect on how this experience has changed me.

Tonight I am going to write about the things that I have learnt over the last 28 days.  It has been challenging but but change doesn’t happen without turmoil.  So by putting myself in the position where I had to do something that made me uncomfortable it changed me… for the better.

I learnt that I can do it. I wrote every day. No matter what. For 28 days.

I learnt that I have a few worthwhile ideas to discuss.  I thought I would have run out of ideas to write, but between classroom practice, leadership ideas and random rants I had plenty to say and felt like as the month went on I got better at saying it.

I learnt that people are actually interested in what I have to say.  Between the awesome feedback from my posts on twitter and as comments and the huge jump in traffic on my blog I was completely humbled by how positive the online community is.  I only began my blog a few months ago as a way to reflect on professional learning and my practice.  But since starting #28daysofwriting I have had over 1500 hits.  That's almost 8 times the number I had before!

I learnt that there are some amazing practitioners out there.  Reading peoples blogs and reading a huge range of experiences and perspectives is amazing for your own professional development.  Between reinforcing your own ideas to being completely challenged in your thinking it has all been fantastic.

I have learnt the power of the PLN.  I have had contact with an amazing group of people who without #28daysofwriting and Twitter I would never have had the chance to talk to.  These new connections are amazing.  I know that I have a number of people that I can now contact if I need help and support.  They range from beginning teachers to principals and educational specialists.  Where else could I have this kind of support in a small school in little old New Zealand.

I learnt that I work with some amazing teachers.  This whole process has made me notice more in my own school.  Between my colleague @BridgeeNZ who is taking part in #28daysofwriting who has consistently impressed me with her insightful blog posts, to the other teachers I work with who do an amazing job everyday.

I have learnt to be more courageous.  The thought of writing publicly terrified me before and now I know that I can do it and not do a bad job of it.  This courage has filtered into other parts of my professional life.  I always was an ideas person but know I value my ideas more and second guess them less often.  This has led to a more decisive educator.  I don't always get it right but at least I make a choice and try.

Lastly I learnt that I love being a teacher.  I kind of always knew this but this whole challenge has just reinforced it.  Education is my passion.  Now matter where in the system I sit I am passionate about schools and how they help not only the future of the students but the future of our society as a whole.  This kind of responsibility is as exciting as it is terrifying.

I hope you have enjoyed this final post.  I hope you have enjoyed writing over the last month.  This might be the last post for #28daysofwriting but it will not be my last post.  I am thinking about maybe starting #52weeksofwriting.  Writing every week for 52 minutes.  This gives time for planning and a less rushed post!

Anyway thank you all for you support, thank you all for you posts, and most of all thank you all for being part of this amazing profession called education.

This was my last post for #28daysofwriting.  I would like to say a huge thank you to @tombarrett for organising this absolutely amazing challenge.  

Good Days and Better Nights

It’s the second to last day of #28daysofwriting.  Hard to believe.  I remember back to day 7 thinking that there was no way I could keep it up but I have and I have really enjoyed the process.  I hope everyone else has had a good time doing the same thing and has learnt something along the way.  I know my practice is better for it.

Today was a really good day.  Things started to come together.  It started with a trip to the library.  After talking to the class about the importance of having a good book for Read to Self from the Daily 5 I felt like the students were ready to go with focus and enthusiasm.  And they did!  

Then someone had forgotten to return a book I had issued them under my name in the library… I couldn't get any more out!  So I sent someone back to class to look,  a long shot I know but they found it!  On the day went!

Next was reinforcement lessons for Read to Self and Read to Someone from the Daily 5.  Was I pushing it on a Friday… Nope!  It worked brilliantly.  We broke the class record and got to 16.42 minutes before someone moved because they had forgotten to get a second book.  And it was a really awesome 16.42 minutes too.  Total focus.  Not bad for 4 weeks into Year 3!

This let me even see a couple of extra reading groups that I hadn't planned to see and the guided reading lessons just flowed (Thanks to our RTLit for the few reminders the other day about effective guided reading!).

Then Read to Someone else went almost as well (it was only the second time!) and we were stopped by the bell!  

So far so good.

Next was LEARNerS Time where our students get to have choices about what they do as long as it meets some criteria.  I pushed my luck and told my class they had to finish their School Values movies before they could go.  Not a single complaint.  In fact total focus and drive to do a brilliant job.  Two days ago I thought it was going to be like herding cats but these guys pulled together and by today they were adding titles and voiceovers like pros on iMovie.

Then it was swim time,  Free Swim Friday!  We got there early and had the whole pool before the seniors got there.  I got to spend time seeing all the “mean as bombs” the kids can do.  It was nice seeing the kids relaxed and having fun.

Then one of my awesome colleagues came over and said she had come to let me go back and finish putting the videos together for assembly that afternoon!  I work with a really great team.  

Lunch time and I had finished the videos.  I typed up the script for my presenters and added the finishing touches to the assembly PowerPoint.  10 min sit down and talk in the staffroom.

Assembly went great, videos were a hit.  The song we practised and chose sounded good.  Then we tidied up and went home.

After school I got lots of jobs done, wall displays up and the classroom is tidier and looking good.

Then I picked up my own two kids and shot home to get ready to go to the Gourmet Night Markets at Mt Maunganui.  This was great.  Met friends there.  Had amazing food! Pork belly sliders, mussel fritters, bbq corn, steamed pork buns, caramel brownie, cold chai and COLD DRIP COFFEE!!!  A walk down the beach on dusk letting the kids run around picking up shells and watching a cruise ship head out was the perfect end to the night.

Sometimes a well deserved break is exactly what you need. Just some quality down time doing something really fun! Teachers are people too!

Some days just work… Some days everything falls into place and you feel like a really, really good teacher.  Today was one of those days for me, and I really hope it was for you too!

A bit of a personal rant tonight sorry! The day was too good not to write about.  I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and is having a good end to their #28daysofwriting.

What Type of School Do You Have?

Day 26 of #28daysofwriting.  Tonight I finished my Parent / Student / Teacher meetings.  They went well and I am relieved that they are over.  Tonight I am going to keep it light and humorous and hopefully get you thinking about what type of workplace you have.  Please don’t take this too seriously and I hope it helps you through the end of the week.

What type of workplace do your have?  That is the question tonight.  You spend a huge amount of time at work and you can either love or hate the experience.  To help you think about this I have provided a few examples.

Magical Fairy Sparkle Land:

Depending on your personality type this is heaven or hell.  Everything is smiles and lollipops.  Everyone loves their job so much and everything seems so perfect it almost can't be true.  Tigger type personalities will thrive here.

The “Kim” Work Place:

This school looks good on the surface,  but everyone knows there are problems.  Usually people avoid this place unless they have been living under a rock.  A key indicator of this workplace is STRONG top down leadership. But hey, what happens in this place at least makes sense to one person...right?

The Greek Centre for Philosphy:

This school is a hive of thinking and best practice.  Teachers discuss practice, talk about theory and contemplate and reflect.  This is the school where you develop and grow as a teacher but it will become all consuming and you will probably have no life.

The ‘Winners’:

This school is where everyone wants to be.  No one is quite sure what or how they do it but they are always seen as a team.  Cohesive, intimidating and generally awesome.  A job here always seems awesome but watch out if you don’t know much about what really happens.

The Office:

The normal School work place.  A real mixed bag of teachers.  Everyone brings something amazing as well as a few cringe-worthy traits.  Always expect the unexpected, but also always expect someone to have your back.

That is it.  That's my post tonight.  I hope you got a smile out of it.  What type of school are you at?  What works what doesn’t?  I guess the point of this post is that Culture matters.

The importance of the home school relationship.

Days 25 of #28daysofwriting and I thought I would take up a challenge I set myself right back at the start - write a blog post entirely on my phone.

Tonight was student goal setting night at our school.  Parent - Teacher meetings really.  But it was a really good night. 

We changed the format and had all teachers in the learning centre running meetings at the same time.  It worked really well.  It broke down the barriers between classes and we felt like a real team.  Our principal did a great job greeting parents as they came in. Taking time to drum up support and feedback from parents.

But the biggest success is having teachers and parents work towards the common goal of student achievement.

I had one parent thank me for 'getting' her child.  I had just noticed that the student was having a few stumbles around phonics knowledge in class and the parent said she noticed a similar thing in reading.  This wasn't something I had noticed but it made sense and there might be a bigger need there.  This parent told me she had tried to explain this before and she was so relieved I had picked up on it.

We are both on the same page now and we have a plan to work on at home and school.

Another parent told me her son had a new iPad and had been playing maths games.  This student has struggled in Maths in the past but over the past few weeks had shown a lot more confidence.   I knew what I was doing was making a difference but it definitely didn't explain it all.  When I realised the student had gone home and downloaded some of the maths games we use at school I was so proud of him for taking the initiative.  This home-school link has obviously helped improve how he feels about maths and he is getting himself on a roll in his learning.

I'm pretty tired after a long day.  But even just those two meetings alone made the night worth it.  Teaching is about making connections for students and we should never underestimate the power of the connection with their family.

Pencil Suites and Power Cuts

Day 24 of #28daysofwriting.  Almost over.  I am a little sad.  I know I will remain active on my blog, I love the habit too much now.  Maybe I’ll do #52weeksofwriting and write for 52 min once a week!

We celebrate new innovation.  The shiny new gadgets we have in the classroom…

I have a really great tool I would like to share.  Beautifully simple, it is accessible by all students, it is very intuitive, anyone can use it.  It requires no charging, which in a classroom environment is amazing.  It can help students to share their learning and develop their creativity.  Mistakes can be addressed really easily.  It is made of eco-friendly materials, and unlike tradition tech, it can be disposed of easily at the end of its life.  Everyone who isn’t using one needs to right now!

It’s a pencil…We don’t celebrate it, we don’t spout its benefits from the hilltops. We don't have Pencil Suites where teachers fight to try and get their class extra time on the school pencils. It gets the job done though.  Students use it when and how they need to share their learning.  So if we don’t celebrate the pencil why do we get all evangelical over the newest i-chrome-app-web-2.0-gadget?  Is it going to replace the teacher… I sure hope not because I like my job.

I am an avid supporter of tech in the classroom.  I think it is the vehicle for learning, an amazing tool that opens up learning possibilities for our students.  I know that I have blogged about useful web tools and apps and I have always tried to explain and justify their use in a classroom programme.  But apps and tools alone do nothing without some serious pedagogy behind what you do.

I was thinking today as @BridgeeNZ and I explained what we did with team teaching last year when we had too few devices.  I realised that underpinning everything we did were some core beliefs around learning.  

The Four C’s was one idea we tried to weave through our programmes.  Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration.  To do this we made sure that what we were doing with tech to achieve these goals was reflected in the pen and paper work the students did.

We tried to make learning fun,  relevant.  We tried to make sure our learning tasks were scaffolded and allowed students to use multiple ways to share learning.  We excited the students about their learning.

The last few nights I have been blogging about how I am starting my Daily 5 journey.  I know that tech will enhance what I am doing, apps will be used and YouTube videos will be watched.  But none of these things replace me, the teacher.  If the power goes off, or the internet drops out, I will still be able to continue.  Because the pedagogy of what I am doing sits within the Daily 5 and best literacy practice.

I saw this great little image tweeted by Shawn Blankenship (@Blankenship_S) and it really reinforced that our conversations around tech should always come back and focus on the learning outcomes, not the tools themselves.

So if your school has a Pencil Suite or if you panic at the idea of having no devices tomorrow maybe you should rethink what is really important in what you are doing, what are the big ideas and pedagogy that would still be important without the devices and apps. And then be thankful we live in a time where these devices are available!

Daily 5, Hashtag Fails and Twitter Debates

Day 23 of #28daysofwriting and I am feeling a bit apprehensive about whether I am going to be able to write over the next few nights.  We have Parent / Teacher / Student goal setting meetings…  untill 8pm both nights.  So I think I will have to try and write between my appointments!  But I am still enjoying this, big thanks to Tom Barrett for starting this up.

Today was a cool day… That's the only way to describe it.  Tonight's post will be a bit all over the show but it will reflect my last 24 hours.

I woke up this morning and checked my twitter account.  Nothing, nada, zip, zero.  I put myself out there and tried to set up a hashtag for best literacy practice (#BestLitPrac) and nothing came of it.  Yea it was only 12 hours but you know what its like.  Big dreams of seeing people rally around something you have created… Oh well - I think I did a post on your great ideas not being as great as you think!

Later I was quietly having breakfast when a couple of tweets came through about boys in education.  Hmmm interesting I thought as I watched a few comments being made.  Then I thought I’d throw my two cents worth in,  play devil's advocate.  The ensuing debate went around the cognitive, social and cultural differences between boys and girls.  How personalised learning came into play, whether or not boys classes were the go… it was great.  It's open debate and discussion like this that forces you to examine your practice, reflect on what you believe, how it links to pedagogy and best practice and pushes you to a ‘where to next’ point.  So thank you to those people involved.

So by this time I'm at school and getting a much needed coffee since I missed my morning run.

Then class time.  The day runs through and I trial a few changes to my literacy programme that I talked about in my post last night.  A few things worked but overall it didn't flow like I wanted it too. I think I may have lost my mojo.  

Lunchtime comes around and I am having a discussion with my principal about literacy programmes, trying to fit in the cool stuff and the must haves.  Mentioned that I want to get the Daily 5 going too… Then it hit me.  I shot off and quickly googled Daily 5 and double checked my idea will work.  

Sure enough, for some reason the idea was there all along.  In my brain I had been seeing Daily 5 as a support tool to my programme.  How wrong I was.  The Daily 5 will provide the structure for my programme and the cool stuff, and the must dos will fit into it. I whipped up a revised Literacy Tumble.  

No more groups trudging through a group timetable.  Now students have choice and responsibility - all that good 21st Century skill stuff that you know you want in a programme. They will be responsible for providing evidence, a big mind shift for them and this will take some time to get right.

Student will be given focus areas.  Areas where I know they need a little push.  Areas that tie into their learning goals.

I am excited.  After a few weeks of feeling pretty frustrated and bored by my own programme I think I have found what I want for this year group.  Talking to some of the other teachers about it got them excited (Daily 5 is something we have played around with but never quite nailed) and they were excited to develop some ‘check up’ resources to ensure student could show and share their learning.

I hope you enjoyed my post.  The Daily 5 programme I whipped up is completely in concept stage and would love any ideas and feedback about it.  What other great activities do you use in your Daily 5’s?

This post relates to the following New Zealand Registered Teacher Criteria:

4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice

5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning

6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

8. demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn

9. respond effectively to the diverse language and cultural experiences, and the varied strengths, interests and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga

Thoughts on a Quality Literacy Programme

Day 22 of #28daysofwriting.  It is the home stretch and I am amazed how writing each day has just become part of ‘what I do’.   I hope you enjoy my post on ideas for changes to my literacy programme.

I did some reflecting last week on my literacy programme.  I had to think about the teacher aide time I had and how I would use that effectively.  I had to think about how the iPads that I am setting up will change the programme and today I was trying to plan.  It was a challenge.

With the basics, a bit of handwriting - focusing on letter formation families and then Phonics - a non negotiable at our school and then modelled writing or shared writing I feel like it doesn't leave a lot of time.  I am going to join my reading and writing blocks together and create Literacy - because reading and writing don’t happen in isolation.

The first half will have the must do’s in it.  Setting the class up to go and work independently.  Then in this second block I will see my reading groups.  I don’t know if I am going to be able to include a reading activity or response to text because it will chew into their writing time.

With my iPads I also want to have students using Poptropica as a reading game.  I will set the student with challenges based an adventure each week or two from the game.  These challenges will help me to double check their comprehension skills.  I also want them to use this game as a motivation for writing, and see each student keep an adventure journal.  The great thing about Poptropica is that it is based on spoken text so the students will naturally have a reason to learn and use speech punctuation.  

I have other reading and writing apps I want to try in writing though.  And I really want to look into Daily 5 for the class.  

So as you can see I have the bones of my new programme but I can't quite see how everything will fit.  Between using new ideas and practices in my literacy teaching and the change in year level which has caught me out a few times over the last few weeks.

I know I want a Literacy programme that allows student to use their literacy learning in fun and relevant ways.  I want them to be excited about learning.  I want technology to help engage and excite them (and hide the learning behind a whole lot of fun).  I want to cover those basics that are needed in a junior programme.  But I feel like I haven’t found the best way to use the time yet.  

Maybe this is an ongoing battle.  Maybe this is part of the problem of being a perfectionist.  I just want to do the best I can for these learners and it gets frustrating when I don't feel like I have it right.

Teaching can be a lonely job at times and often when we do talk we talk about snippets of our practice. We talk about big ideas.  But often we fail to talk about the connecting ideas like timetabling, transitioning and how we manage the whole literacy programme so that it builds and supports the planned learning.

So I am going to risk sounding stupid tonight and say I don’t know the right answer and I would love some help.  I’m also pretty sure that there are others out there too who would benefit from this kind of discussion as well.

So my challenge to all #28daysofwriting authors is to make one of your next few posts about the best practice you have seen in literacy and how it is tied together in a overall daily programme.  Lets also tag it in Twitter as #BestLitPrac and see how much we can learn from each other.

I hope you have enjoyed the post and I hope you join in the discussion for #bestlitprac so we can improve outcomes for all our students.

The Power of the PLN

Today I attended #educamprotovegas and it was really great meeting so many passionate educators.  This event was a free UNconference.  People came, shared and learnt.  I recommend attending an EduCamp if you can.  

Today I saw firsthand the power of the PLN (Personal Learning Network).  A group of passionate educators coming together to share ideas to improve student learning.  #educamprotovegas was an event where I was fortunate enough to meet some of the people that I follow on Twitter.  It was really nice to put a face to a name and I was really impressed with all the great ideas that were shared.  

It was a real time version of what many educators are involved in online.  Developing and fostering connections, sharing ideas and working together for the benefit of students.  The PLN helps to break down the barriers of space and time and allows teachers to connect with others.  It get us out of what Steve Mouldey (@GeoMouldey) calles our own echo chamber, where we only hear our own ideas.  

So I fully recommend developing a PLN, connect with those in other schools, join Twitter, or Facebook or any other online tool that allows you to step outside your little part of the world!

Because if I had never joined twitter I would never have gone to #educamprotovegas and i would never have heard Kimberly Baars (@MissesArtech) talk about the Makersphere and all of the amazing things she is doing in it!  I would never have got to see a huge number of great little tools like OneTab, a chrome extension that can help manage all those browser tabs you have open at once that you don’t want to lose or forget.  If I hadn’t gone I wouldn't have had the chance to share some of my own little tips and tricks.  It was nothing mind blowing but it is always a great experience sharing tools with other educators in the hope that it might help them in some way.

I am a big ideas person.  And today my PLN was really helpful because it helped me to see the small little steps and the tools and resources that can help to make big ideas a reality.  So to my PLN and everyone at #educamprotovegas I would like to say a huge thank you and I look forward to seeing you all next time.

Thanks for reading my rather short and quick post today for Day 21 of #28daysofwriting.  And I would like to thank Annemarie Hyde (@Mrs_Hyde) for organising and running the day and being so welcoming.  I would also like to thank Steve Mouldey (@GeoMouldey) for his idea of an echo chamber and finally Kimberly Baars (@MissesArtech) for her inspiring talk about the Makersphere - Very sharp for a BT, will definitely be someone to watch out for in the future.

The Value of LEARNerS Time

Day 20 of #28daysofwriting.  It was a great day today,  got most of my to do list done.  Saw some students experience success and have decided I will be changing some of my routines next week to address some of the needs of my class.  Went out for a drink after school and caught up with good friends.  So really sitting down and writing is the last thing I wanted to do, but I’m going to be stubborn and the fear of failing outweighs anything else!

Today I am going to keep it simple and talk about something new that I tried today.  I have been tasked with adjusting some of the programmes in the Junior Syndicate and one of these is Junior Developmental time.  This time has been the time students are given to just be students, to play and create.  I think this is so important for students but it did need a tidy up, a bit more focus.

Last year I helped introduce maker time into the Senior Syndicate and we tied it to our inquiry learning topic.  It was definitely about student creativity but slowly you could see ideas from the students learning coming into their creation and the conversations the students had slowly became more precise and technical as they learnt more about the topic.

In the juniors I wanted to try and keep it more open and allow students that Genius Time where they can explore their passions.  But it needed a tie in.

So we used our school Values - Lifelong Learner, Excellence, Actively Involved, Respect and Nurture.

These form the basis of our LEARNerS - with S being success at the end  

There were a range of activities the students would be choosing from; Lego, wood blocks, puzzles, water play, playdough… you get the idea.  Students could also research in books and use the iPads to learn more about something they are interested in.  Knowing this I tried to tie a few different skills to our school values.

So I came up with the following areas the students needed to think about and write about (at this stage)

1. Actively involved: This became about how students worked in groups to achieve something.
2. Excellence: Try something new or improve on last time.  Whatever you do must be challenging.
3. Lifelong Learner: Find out about something you are passionate about and record new learnings.

I just whipped up a couple of quick graphic organisers for students to use but later I will develop some templates using ComicLife or teach students how to share their reflections using iMovie.

The students worked really well and it was nice to be able to walk around and ask them what value they were focusing on.

So  I guess the point is that by tying in ideas from different parts of your school's programmes you can double up the effectiveness.  Because today I got to see my student getting to work on things that really excited them while they were actively thinking about our schools values and how they were helping them.

Setting Up My iPads - A Few Handy Tools

Welcome to day 19 of #28daysofwriting.  It is hard to believe there is only just over a week left.  I hope everyone who is taking part has been enjoying the process.

So after a busy couple of weeks I have finally pulled the iPads out and started to set them up.  iTunes isn’t my friend.  Maybe it is because I became best mates with Google and it is taking a bit of time to come to terms with the new technological garden I have to play in.

So I thought today I would write about some of the apps I will use.  This will not be an exhaustive list, or by any means the best list out there but it is my list and I will explain why I have chosen to use them.

Comic Life:

This great little app is really good as an all-in-one writing and publishing tool.  Students enjoy using it but it can be a bit fiddly to change some of the settings and to find many of the customisation options.  But for younger students, choosing a template and just going for it is a great way to help motivate writing and their own comics can be used as reading texts in independent reading time.

Storybird:

This is not so much an app as a web tool.  But it has been one of the most motivating and promising writing tools I have used.  It works well on the iPad and the fantastic artworks students can use as prompts in their stories mean they really want to write well.  Some of the highest quality pieces of writing students produced last year were while they used StoryBird.

Garageband:

This is a great creative programme.  Students get hands on experience with musical sounds and instruments that primary schools simply can’t afford.  Students can create soundtracks for their own films or they can use it to record themselves reading - and then make it hilarious by altering their voices.

iMovie:  I have written about this one before too.  It is a great way for students to share their learning.  They can make full length videos or use the trailer option which is a great way for students to learn about camera shot types.

Explain Everything:

This is a fantastic tool.  It can be used in a huge number of ways.  This tool allows you to add video or images and then add voice and annotations over the top of them.  This can be used to make videos for your class explaining a new concepts or students can use it to explain their own thinking.  I have even see new entrant teachers use it as a way to record how students are forming letters to help identify next steps.

Slide Maths:

These set of maths games a great for basic facts practice and recall.  It is especially good because up to four players can play on a single iPad.  This is fantastic for a class with limited numbers of iPads or when other iPads are needed for other tasks.

Poptropica:

This is an interesting one.  After visiting a few high performing schools and seeing them use minecraft as a motivational tool for writing I thought about whether or not this was the best tool.  I saw my young boy playing Poptropica and realised that it is a really good reading activity as students have to read the speech.  The I realised that using this tool to motivate writers encourages them to use spoken words in their writing, so exposing them to speech marks and other interesting punctuation.

Minecraft:  

This is one i'm going to have to sell pretty hard to get the money to buy it.  But Minecraft is a great tool for teaching students about geometry, area, volume and basic number skills.  It puts studen’s into a deep and engaging problem solving environment where they can explore many mathematical ideas in a practical way.

Some speech to text software:

This will be important for some of my struggling writers.  There are times where I need them to record ideas but it is not writing time and the quality of their ideas is more important than the writing component.  This is where this software helps break down any barriers to the students showing their learning.

I am out of time now.  I hope that my post give you some useful ideas that you can use and some insight into why and how I use them.  

This post relates to the following Registered Teacher Criteria:

4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice

6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

7. promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment

12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice

Untitled Post

I was on such a roll… Last night I had an idea… But as I sit here tonight I am drawing a blank.  So tonight I am just going to take some time to reflect on the year so far.

2015… for me it was a much needed fresh start, we all have those years.  Lots going on.  Putting yourself out there and taking risks.  Getting burnt.  Developing your practice in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways.  2014 was that year for me and somehow it seems to have spilled over into the new year.

But I am approaching it with a growth mindset.  I have been challenged with leading the Junior school after an amazing few years setting up team teaching and digital pedagogy in the Senior Syndicate.  It was the best time in my career but it wasn't finished so I couldn't help but feel I was losing my baby.

I have been on a professional learning journey that has taken me so much further than I ever expected and the scary and exciting thing is there is so much more.  This year I am going to set some goals.  Some big ones.  I am going to attend the Aspiring Principals course, I am going to get into senior leadership and I am going to run a marathon.  

For people who know me well none of this will probably come as a surprise, but it is scary to write them down.  The scariest part of writing that last paragraph was that at least one of those goals aren’t decided by me.  I can do my best but at the end of the day the success or failure of those goals fall to someone else's decision.

Maybe that’s how students feel.  They give their best effort with a piece of work and for whatever reason, maybe we as teachers expected more or we missed that moment to celebrate the work with a student.  And that must feel horrible.  

According to the Incredible Years programme the magic ratio of positive to negative interactions is around 80/20 or higher.  I believe this applies to students, colleagues, parents… Everyone.  

So this is where 20 minutes into the 28 minutes of writing, I try to pull this post together with some clear message.  I guess what I am saying is that at this time of the year where we are setting goals for the year,  school charters are going in,  teachers are meeting parents and talking about what will be happening,  we need to stop and think about what kind of year we want.  

I want a year were the people around me are happy and fulfilled.  Students, staff, parents, all of them. I know that our school has some work to do this year… I know I have some work to do this year.  It will be tough and without the support of those around me and the 80/20 ratio of positive interactions then the team could fall apart.  The team in my class,  the teaching team.  

So my big goal this year is not any of those mentioned before… It is to make sure that I do my part in having positive interactions with everyone so that as a team we are able to make the progress we want to this year.

That was my rant tonight,  hope I held it together after a long day in the sun at swimming sports.