Target Girls' Group Writing

Today and yesterday the girls have been learning about adverbs. They went back over their exciting verb writing from a few weeks ago and added adverbs. Here is some of the work:

Target Boys' Writing Group

This term Jody and I have combined our target boys and girls and we alternate teaching them each week. I took the boys this week and they worked on using exciting verbs. It has been successful in that it has been specific, achievable and timely. The work below is what they have all done independently.

Religious Education Observation

Here is my Religious Education Feedback from Noreen Meikle (DRS)

2017 RE Observation

Today's CoL PD around Mentoring and the Spiral of inquiry

Here is a Padlet of teachers' hopes and fears from our CoL journey so far.

Maths Observation

Here is my feedback from Judith - DP- from my maths observation.

Maths Observation Part 1

Maths Observation Part 2

Spiral of Inquiry Complete

Today I assessed target students using e-asttle and there have been positive shifts.

TM: Was asttle writing level 2A, this writing was 3P. I don’t think 3P reflects what she can do independently most of the time (usually below that), but she is clearly hitting Level 3. What made the difference for T with this writing was conferencing and making her accountable (high expectations). She has also been focussing on the “We like writing that..” checklist which lifts her writing to a Level 3 standard.

NL: Was asttle writing Level 1, this writing came out at level 2A. I am thrilled to have him move a whole level (accelerated!) from well below national standard to the below range, but he will have to reach level 3B by the end of the year to maintain this range. He as shown improvement across all areas.

PM: Was asttle writing level 2P, this writing came out at 3B. The main improvement was in his structure and language. P should meet national standards in writing by the end of the year.

NH: Was asttle writing Level 2P, this writing came out at 3B. I don’t believe that it reflects what he achieves independently most of the time though. He is still very much a level 2 writer. The significant improvements that came through in this piece of writing were in his organisation of ideas and punctuation.

TB: T’ asttle level was 2A and this piece of writing came out at 3B. The areas he improved in were organisation and punctuation.

EN: Ella’s asttle level was 2P (well-below for Year 6) and this writing came out at 2A. Her areas of improvement were spelling and organisation. If Ella can progress to level 3B, she will come in below national standard as opposed to well-below.

RL: R was not a target student for this inquiry. He is ORRS funded. His level was 1B at the start of the year and has come out at 2P in this piece of writing. Great acceleration!

What made a difference to these learners for this piece of writing was a graphic organiser to plan their writing as well as first reading exemplars of quality writing for the genre in question. This will have helped with structure and language features as well as organisation (which they all scored well on). Punctuation has improved for a lot of them, so the self-assessment check-lists and our team punctuation workshops will have helped with that.

The students are also continually being reminded to state what their writing goal is and to focus on this when doing their writing in class. They are BLOG posting to show that they’re achieving their writing goals. This student agency will have helped also e.g. T needs to stop using random capital letters in his writing, which he has done successfully in the piece I assessed. T and N both had a punctuation goal and their punctuation scores went up. TM is trying to make her writing interesting for the reader as well as proof-reading, and she has certainly achieved that in the piece I assessed. E’s goal is to use tools to help with her spelling, and her spelling has moved up a level in the latest asttle assessment. N’s is to take risks and give writing a go, not worrying about spelling and being wrong, and he certainly has done that.

What still needs work? Vocabulary still needs development for ALL of these students. Perhaps this can be part of the next inquiry.

Here is a link to the completed Spiral of Inquiry for Term 1 & 2

This is only accessible to people at St. Joseph's with the link.

Treaty Workshop

Yesterday we did a Treaty Workshop with Amy Tipene.
It was very thought-provoking and there was a lot of discussion around deficit thinking and casual racism. It's important not to jump on the inference ladder.
We also thought a lot about ways to uphold the treaty principles of partnership, active protection and participation.

Here are some notes from today: