Jacque Allen Team Meeting 17 June

 School Writing Goal: To grow student agency in writing.

Drive their learning talk about their learning at school and at home.

We want them to have a voice so they can become independent adn capable of directing their learning.

We want them to build assessment capability in writing so they can be independent participants in their own learning.

Professional Reading

Very good conversation around students determining the Success Criteria.

Success criteria should be a transferrable skill (not just specific to THIS task).

Open and Closed Learning Intentions

We worked on examples. Robin and I did a closed learning intentions. Bridget and Elroy did open.

Closed: LI - Spell pural words correctly

SC: Remember - only nouns can be plurals, change y to ies, add"s" to consonant endings, words ending in s, ss, ch, sh, x and z - add es, list the exceptions!

We don't need to always get students to "copy" the LI into their book.

Our Collaborative Inquiry Focus

DMIC Observation with MARTHA

Here is the DMIC lesson I used today when Martha observed.

Again I was nervous about doing it, but she was great in discussing each step with me along the way.

These are new things I picked up on:

Less of children putting hands up and more of me calling on them.
*More of me asking them to repeat what each other has been explaining.
*More of me asking them to justify their thinking.
*Taking the lesson where it needs to go as the needs arise (it turned out that most of them had forgotten how to calculate a unit fraction of an amount to then find the greater fraction, but the context for this learning made it all the richer!)
*Looking at where to take this next in terms of the needs that arose today - creating our own real-life problem, doing the same survey with OUR class and then calculating the fractions... they were nowhere near looking at the percentage situation as the fractions need focus for now..

I really enjoyed this lesson and am buzzing with new excitement for DMIC Maths!

Seesaw 2019

I have really enjoyed using Seesaw this year as a tool for home-school partnership and collaboration.

Jody and I shared a Seesaw page so it was wonderful to celebrate the work of all tamariki across our learning hub. It's also been wonderful to see parents like and comment on the posts of their children.

This has been a consistent way in which parents have been able to stay connected with their children's learning and to get a gauge of how it's been going for their children, judging from the  learning evaluations their children have made as well as the quality of the content posted by their children.

Here is an example of posts (book reviews).

DMIC Maths Observation 4 September

Today Trevor came to observe me take a DMIC lesson. I was anxious about it so he guided me through the process. I used a STAGE 7 GLOSS fractions question (which he liked!)

I was so stunned that the children managed to solve it and shared their thinking excellently through diagrams. Interestingly most of them cannot solve this problem on their own in the GLOSS diagnostic interview with me! But the collaboration led to deeper understanding. They even established a new rule/pattern which I hadn't expected. This was very rich learning so I'm looking forward to implementing more DMIC lessons.

DMIC Visit - MATHS

Trevor visited (FROM DMIC MATHS) to model a DMIC lesson. The children were engaged and keen to share their thinking. The mixed-ability is interesting as the weaker Maths learners were learning from their peers. It was great to see the children take ownership; explaining, illustrating and justifying their thinking to the other groups.

I'm looking forward to having a go at using this problem-solving approach, although a bit daunted by it. I hope I will be able to take the children in the direction they need to go, picking up on the gaps that arise at the time.

Catholic Schools' Day

For Catholic Schools’ Day on Tuesday, Years 0-7 tamariki came to school in house colour mufti, the proceeds of which went to Caritas relief work in South Sudan. They started their day with morning prayer in the hall, followed by Caritas lessons in the classrooms, learning about life in South Sudan. Luckily the rain subsided for the middle block, during which the children met their houses to participate in Caritas Challenges, so that they could walk in the shoes of children of South Sudan. These were called MOVE IT, SWEAT IT, CARRY IT and LIVE IT. More information is included below. Our Year 7s lead a thought-provoking liturgy in the hall in the afternoon, which was followed by quiet reflection time back in our rooms.

 LIVE IT! For this challenge the children had to make cardboard shelters. There are millions of refugees in South Sudan who have to set up home in temporary shelters. Our tamariki worked well together to build their shelters. Special thanks to Music Mania and Elite Appliance Servicing for giving us so many cardboard boxes, as well as families who dropped some off during the last month.

 MOVE IT! This involved walking around the block for 25 minutes, in order to imagine walking long distances, as children in South Sudan would. The older children were very supportive of younger children during this walk. Here is a photo of the Costello House ready to move it!

 SWEAT IT! For this, the children did some chores around the school - car washes, weeding, picking up rubbish, wall-washing and dusting classrooms. Great acts of service!

 CARRY IT! Children lined up and passed buckets of water to one another to fill a clam shell. The leaders worked hard to run to the tap to fill their buckets! The older children were also very supportive of the younger ones in carrying the water. 40% of people in South Sudan have to walk 30 minutes or more to access water, which they then carry back! Sadly, 30% of them do not have access to safe water. Also on Catholic Schools’ Day, Our Year 8 ākonga attended a Mass at Holy Cross, Papatoetoe, along with the other South Auckland Catholic Schools in our Kahui Ako. They represented us beautifully.