Skipping September

Our school took part in Skipping September in which we raised money for the Heart Foundation. This is us working together in the school skip competition.

Coding

As part of our 'Future Friday' rotation, students are exposed to 3 aspects of ICT; Coding, 3D Printing, and Robotics.

This is my class being introduced to visual programming language using coding software.

Japanese Art

The start of our Japanese art wall as part of our country study.

Singing opportunities

Tapping into the interests of students has provided beneficial when deciding what and how to teach Room 5.

Music and singing is an important part of the kids' lives and they enjoy showing off their talents. Here is a couple of examples from the past couple of years of Room 5. Even though they act shy, they love it!

CLICK ON THE WHITE BOX IF THE VIDEO DOESN'T COME UP STRAIGHT AWAY!

No Diggity - Early 2015

 

Oh my Sweet Carolina - Prize Giving 2014 

Say something 

Kid's Sing Competition - Rehearsal 

Supporting Colleagues

Mr. Rosvall expressed an interested in switching year groups to Year 7 and 8s in 2016. I invited him into Room 5 for a morning block to experience what it was like to interact and teach this year group. He'll be back!

Using formative assessment to create individualised next steps

Part of my early 2015 goal was to record teacher observations and formative assessment data so that accurate next steps could be made for the students.

Anecdotal notes which reflect on teaching of lessons

Suggested next steps

Notes and tracking of progress in Maths lessons

2015

School duties and responsibilities

It is important to take on responsibilities and help out to make sure our school runs smoothly.

Myself and the twins on a Friday morning doing road patrol.

Taken the same day is a photo tagging on the next duty teacher. We have a peg system that is linked to house points that rewards students who show school wide expectations during morning tea and lunch.

Raising 'Below' students to 'At' the National Standard.

Rita Palmer is a specialist in Reading and works with schools and teachers all around the North Island. I requested a session with her with the aim of finding strategies and ideas about how to raise my group of 'below' students to reach the National Standard. I have seen great results on her advice.

Basketball

"Undertake areas of responsibility effectively"

Below is the Year 7 and 8 Basketball team that I take. We have practises twice a week and a game at the Hastings Sports Centre on Thursday evenings.

Working together

"Take all reasonable steps to provide and maintain a teaching and learning environment that is physically, socially, culturally and emotionally safe"

One of our class motto has been "it's about us working together". The aim is to create a classroom environment in which everyone feels safe, includes other and help and support their classmates. Activities which promote relationship building creates this.

Camp Tutira 

Marching Academy

During April, the collage students from down the road came to our school to promote the Marching Academy at their school. A great chance for the students to help and support each other and to work collaboratively toward a common goal. 

Visiting other schools - E-learning

Recently, I requested a day's leave to go and visit two other schools in a different city. They have introduced e-learning effectively into their programme and I was interested in seeing how this was happening and what ideas our school could adopt.

It was interesting to see how one of the schools used 'Google Classroom' which allowed the teacher to organise and email students their work. Commenting, providing feedback and feed-forward was much easier. The class could also work on a collaborative document on the IWB.

Super Sixes Tournament

Last Tuesday and Thursday, I took a team of Year 6s down to the Hastings Sports Park to compete in Athletic and Cross Country events against other schools from around the Hawkes Bay. It was a great chance for our kids to mix with other schools and to showcase their talents.

Technology savvy classroom

As students are slowly being exposed to a technology savvy classroom, I have started to use the teacher Ipad more to replace some of the more conventional methods of teaching.

 Previously, each Reading and Maths group had a large scrap book used as a 'modelling book' in which ideas and teaching are recorded into. The students have access to this if they need to familiarise themselves with what is being taught. I have started to record group teaching using the ipad app "explain everything" on slides.

When the students get their own ipads, this can be uploaded onto individual devices.