Mentoring New Teachers

On the 27th February I was fortunate to be able to attend a workshop run by the Education Council on the "new" standards that have been put out for teachers in schools. Unfortunately, some teachers have brushed this off with "Oh they have just put 12 criteria into 6 standards but really nothing has changed". When you read the standards carefully you notice that there has been a sea change which has already been reflected in the more progressive schools especially those who engaged with assessment for learning , Kia Eke Panuku , and to a lesser extent PB4L . So what has changed? Std1   Waitangi partnership - Practise and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori Std2 Professional learning - Critically examine how my own assumptions and beliefs, including cultural beliefs, impact on practice and the achievement of learners. Std3 Professional Relationships - Communicate clear and accurate assessment for learning and achievement for learning Std4 Learning-fo...

Tamaki College has been working with Ngahuia Lott over a period of years and she has been running workshops for us this year. This diagram shows the extent and meaning of what we have been learning. At the beginning of each year we need to build relationships with those we are working with including students. This comes under the heading of whanaungatanga. What is whanaunagatanga? For myself it is developing relationships with each of the teachers I work with. These are mainly beginning teachers who I will be supporting over several years but also in my role as the SCT I work with other teachers who would like support. I am lucky that I have been given time to do this important role and although I am not teaching in the classroom, I have had years of experience teaching in low decile and high decile schools and also with Team Solutions, University ofAuckland. Being able to work in-depth in one school is a privilege as one can work at a deeper level. Each of the beginning teachers...

I was fortunate to be asked to go on the the 4 day trip to Rawhiti Marae in November. I went with about 20 Māori students from Kata O'Donnell's tutor class and 3 other teachers. The purpose of the trip was to familiarise the students with Māori tikanga in a remote settlement on Māori land which is quite different from what they are accustomed to. Activities were run by WaiNot Tourism and featured a forest walk, snorkelling, fishing with nets, cooking pippis on the beach, swimming and jet ski riding. The students were kept busy from 7.45am until about 10pm at night. It was a great way for them to bond together well away from school and to have new experiences learning new skills. What did I learn from This? I learned more about ways of working with Māori students,the importance of tikanga, eating, sleeping and working together. It was fascinating to be in such a remote untouched environment and to see how the students behaved and related differently fro...

This year I have done lots of learning at the school through staff PLD, PLuG groups and committees. But I wanted to learn more about digital photography as this is my hobby. I think it is important to have an interest outside of education and a hobby that requires lots of learning and improvement can also add to one's skills and knowledge base. Being a learner oneself and having to struggle is always beneficial to teachers as it reminds you of how difficult learning a new skill can be. The 3-day workshop was held over Labour weekend including a few days prior at Akaroa and taught by an Australian photographer, Ken Ball and 2 NZ photographers, Diane Costello and Murray Noble . We were being taught to forget about all the rules of photography and to try instead to be more creative by combining photography & art ie paint, etchings, transparencies, vellum, camera movement etc. This taught me to be less focussed by the rules of photography and more open to curiosity, trying new ...

In Term 3 Marc (Literacy Leader) and I decided to put in place a Literacy Action Plan for the school. It was obvious from the asTTle and PAT results and the excel spreadsheets on NCEA data/credits that many students were not achieving. An analysis of  NCEA results and NZQA Assessment Reports on each subject that a colleague and I had done in 2008 had proved that literacy - vocabulary, reading, writing, was a factor for students not achieving the NCEA standards across all subjects. I repeated this for 2016 here: NCEA Examiners'comments relating to Literacy Maths 2016 Level 1 some of the technical statistical words relating to interpretation of time series graphs were not fully understood. Candidates also need to ensure that the specific directions in the question are actually addressed, such as: compare, describe, justify, give statistical evidence, comment on showing numerical working. Level 2 The vocabulary of algebra needs to be understood so that candidat...

A colleague & I did some research some years back by analysing examiners' comments on NCEA subjects.  We focussed on why students fail in NCEA? and How students get to Excellence in NCEA. We had a hunch that failure was to do with literacy - subject vocabulary, subject reading materials and subject writing requirements. We also had a hunch that from our experiences with classroom teaching, NCEA marking and working with teachers, that students attain Excellence or Scholarship through demonstrating the quality of their thinking and especially using the Extended Abstract category of the SOLO taxonomy. Analysis of the examiners' reports proved that our hunches were correct. 2016 examiner's reports can be seen here . The examiners descriptively list what students commonly did to be awarded Achieved, Not Achieved, Merit and Excellence. These lists are very helpful, especially for Beginning Teachers and the findings within the lists concur with our hunches of 8 years ago....

In conversation with a beginning teacher recently, the question of pedagogy came up. What is pedagogy? The Oxford dictionary defines pedagogy as"  The method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept." Teaching as inquiry is an important aspect of effective pedagogy The NZ Curriculum defines pedagogy as: " Teacher actions promoting student learning " There is also  culturally responsive pedagogy. Ako  underpins the Practising Teacher Criteria and is an important component of culturally responsive teaching and learning.  A good way to check if you are including effective pedagogy in your lesson plans & units of work is to use these sentence starters. I create a supportive learning environment by........... I encourage reflective thought and action by............. I enhance the relevance of new learning by.............. I facilitate shared learning by.................. I make connections to prior learn...