INQUIRY GOAL - 2014 - TERM TWO REFLECTION

Term Two Reflection:

• Target group are having weekly focussed lessons on sentence structure where they are learning about the different types of sentences simple, compound and complex.
• Target group being more able writers compared their Asttle writing samples to each other and gave feedback against the success criteria that we constructed collaboratively.
• Although original marks did not get altered, I then gave them a copy of their Asttle writing and they were able to make changes to it based on their peer feedback and looking at the SC.
• Lots of co-construction of SC has meant this group understand the task more.
• Introduced Free Write Friday where the boys get to write their own stories but have to include aspects of the writing grammar focus we have had in class each week eg. highlighting the different types of sentences in different colours.  
• These are highly engages in the #100daysoflearning task set for homework which gets them to write a summary of something that interests them.  This has increased writing at home and their writing quality has improved from term one.
• Attitudes towards writing have changed as they now feel more motivated to write about more exciting things.

Senior School Enrichment - Innovation Unleashed

The Senior School have been working collaboratively on building an enrichment programme this year.  The 2 day programme is organised to ensure learning time is maximised for all students, we provide differentiated learning in all areas and students are given greater opportunities to participate is less traditional subjects.

NPS Enrichment Programme Presentation

Being two terms into this programme I was interested to know how the students were finding it compared to last year where the programme was more scattered over the week.  I created Google forms to collect and collate student voice.

Year 4/5 Student Reflective Survey
Year 4/5 Responses

Year 6 Student Reflective Survey
Year 6 Responses

As teachers we are finding the 2 day enrichment programme is meeting students learning needs and wants more effectively and also allowing more time to be spent on core curriculum subjects.  The programme now provides a wider range of subjects such as Robotics, Philosophy for Children, Mandarin, Te Reo Maori, PE etc which build children's capabilities and equips them with the skills they need to be life-long learners.  The programme incorporates areas of the NZC and ensures that children are given the opportunity to learn and practise the key competencies.

Teacher Reflective Survey
Teacher Responses

One of the reasons the enrichment programme was designed, was to address teacher frustrations regarding the interruptions to core curriculum areas due to timetabling issues with music, Mandarin and Te Reo. For teachers who run a 3 phase reading and writing programmes were severely truncated due to the students coming in and out and predictable, but nonetheless inconvenient times. 

We designed the programme to incorporate some 21st century learning tools (coding programmes/robotics), as well as thinking skills (P4C, Thinking Skills).  These programmes had not been offered previously, but have a proven track record of engagement and positive impact on achievement. While it is too soon to make any assertions about impact on achievement, anecdotally, we can say with some confidence that levels of engagement are high. Low rates of managing off-task behaviour, high levels of focus and commitment.

The programme plays to teachers' strengths and interests, which naturally flows on to the students. 

Reflection by Belinda Hitchman (Year 5/6 Teacher)

Lily-Belle and David have written student reflective blogs about the programme which can be read at the following links:

David's Reflection about the 2014 Enrichment Programme
Lily-Belle's Reflection about the 2014 Enrichment Programme

My thoughts on #100daysoflearning as a means of motivating students!

Part of my inquiry goal this year is to engage students in writing by using ICT and blogging as a means of communication. In particular my target group is a small group of boys who are not enthusiastic about furthering their learning and have started to plateau with their writing because they no longer enjoy writing. Along with implementing lots of other initiatives in my writing programme, I am really encouraging #100daysoflearning with them. This gets them thinking about things that they are passionate about and can use as inspiration in their independent writing.  

#100daysoflearning has really started to take off on our class blog http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/

The children are encouraged to post something that they are passionate about and I am finding the posts really interesting to gain insight into my students interests and strengths.  It is amazing how many of them are choosing to post information about things that we seldom cover in school for example history, geography, zoology, art history etc.  

The next step for me as a teacher is to promote their #100daysoflearning posts to others so that they get more feedback and people reading and responding to their posts.  I would like to do this via a quadblogging initiative but I am still learning how to get started on this process.

I asked my students what their thoughts about #100daysoflearning were so far and two things became apparent.

1 - they love having the freedom and opportunity to post about things that they are personally interested in.  The ownership is on them and they are engaged in mini personal inquiries that promote thinking, questioning, exploring and problem solving.

2 - they all said that it was fun being a teacher and writing questions about the video or picture so that their friends could learn from what they had shared.  This is so powerful and for Year 4 and 5 children to have this depth of thought from a simple task which has very little teacher input is amazing.

Final thoughts for tonight from me... I am excited to see those children who do not usually engage in homework getting involved in this project.  It is having a peer pressure effect on the class and each week we are getting new children posting something with the hashtag #100daysoflearning.  This is extra to their syndicate homework but yet it is the first thing that many of them read on the blog.  

You know you are onto a good thing when you as a teacher are learning about King Charles the Second from a Year 5 student!

#100daysoflearning brought to your by Monty

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/6e2e2d46-8cfc-4a33-bfb3-eb5f8f1373e9/100daysoflearning-horrible-histories-slimy-stuarts/#comment-478

Another great #100daysoflearning post by Monty who is Year 5.  He is really interested in History so is basing all of his posts around the Horrible Histories videos.  I am really engaged by his posts and I have learnt something about Charles the Second and Oliver Cromwell...but I cannot get the rap song out of my head!!