Registered Teacher Criteria 1.
Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga.
What do I do to establish working relationships with my ākonga, their whanāu and my colleagues and others to support the learning of those I teach?
As a staff we spent our two teacher only days on the Marae of one of our very own teachers. This was a fantastic way to begin our journey for the year and show us in a very real way what it meant to build relationships within our own staff and take that back to our classrooms, school and the wider community. The main concept around our time together was WHAKAWHANUANAGTANGA, the process of building relationships and relating to others. This time together was very special and the relationships between the staff were strongly connected during this time. We didn't participate in planned activities nor were we forced into groups to discuss certain topics. We were given time to sit together and talk, eat, laugh and share with each other in pairs, groups or just altogether. All the while, thinking about the children that we would be receiving into our classrooms the following week, and how we can take what we ourselves have experienced and apply it to our first weeks in the classroom.
Being my second year of teaching and knowing that I had my own class this year, I wanted to start my year in a way that was different to those around me. We all spend our first two days of school carrying out meet and greet interviews. This is where we meet each of our students, along with the family members they bring along. This will usually consist of parents and siblings but sometimes extends to grandparents as well. After spending time on the marae and realising that most of the best conversations we had were over a cuppa and a bikkie, I wanted to bring this into my first experience with my families. I felt that people would feel more relaxed, accepted and welcomed if I sat down and had a cuppa with them and just got to know them as a family rather than focussing on academic achievements and goals. Those will come naturally with time, but for me it was crucial to make great connections from the very first day.
My families thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with a cuppa and chatting. They felt cared for straight away and seemed to be at ease quickly. This has opened the pathway for me to be able to approach them in the future when I need to chat about their child in a positive or negative light. Since the beginning of the year I have made sure I keep in regular contact with parents through email and through dojo, which sends notifications directly to the parent's phones. This has been really successful for those parents who don't check emails regularly as it is instant and they can message me directly straight away.
This year I have a class with a number of low learners. This has meant that I have more than one RTLB coming and going from the classroom on a regular basis. I also have an occupational therapist that visits a student that has suffered significant trauma and a social worker that visits another child. Having so many adults come and go from the classroom has been a challenge as often it can slip my mind that they are coming. I keep in regular contact with each of these people and we meet to plan the next steps for our students. These meetings will often include their parents so that everyone is on the same page and we are all heading in the same direction with the same goals in mind.
I have often met with their teachers from last year to ask about what they were doing and what worked well. I know that I don't need to reinvent the way we work with these children, I just need to find out what has worked well for them in the past, carry that on and make improvements where I can with the help that I have available to me.
It's all about communication. Whether it is with my students, their families, my colleagues or the specialists that work with my students...it is about keeping the lines of communication open and honest in as many ways as possible.
Registered Teacher Criteria 4. As a staff we spent our two teacher only days on the Marae of one of our very own teachers. This was a fantastic way to begin our journey for the year and show us in a very real way what it meant to build relationships within our own staff and take that back to our classrooms, school and the wider community. The main concept around our time together was WHAKAWHANUANAGTANGA, the process of building relationships and relating to others. This time together was very special and the relationships between the staff were strongly connected during this time. We didn't participate in planned activities nor were we forced into groups to discuss certain topics. We were given time to sit together and talk, eat, laugh and share with each other in pairs, groups or just altogether. All the while, thinking about the children that we would be receiving into our classrooms the following week, and how we can take what we ourselves have experienced and apply it to our first weeks in the classroom.
Being my second year of teaching and knowing that I had my own class this year, I wanted to start my year in a way that was different to those around me. We all spend our first two days of school carrying out meet and greet interviews. This is where we meet each of our students, along with the family members they bring along. This will usually consist of parents and siblings but sometimes extends to grandparents as well. After spending time on the marae and realising that most of the best conversations we had were over a cuppa and a bikkie, I wanted to bring this into my first experience with my families. I felt that people would feel more relaxed, accepted and welcomed if I sat down and had a cuppa with them and just got to know them as a family rather than focussing on academic achievements and goals. Those will come naturally with time, but for me it was crucial to make great connections from the very first day.
My families thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with a cuppa and chatting. They felt cared for straight away and seemed to be at ease quickly. This has opened the pathway for me to be able to approach them in the future when I need to chat about their child in a positive or negative light. Since the beginning of the year I have made sure I keep in regular contact with parents through email and through dojo, which sends notifications directly to the parent's phones. This has been really successful for those parents who don't check emails regularly as it is instant and they can message me directly straight away.
This year I have a class with a number of low learners. This has meant that I have more than one RTLB coming and going from the classroom on a regular basis. I also have an occupational therapist that visits a student that has suffered significant trauma and a social worker that visits another child. Having so many adults come and go from the classroom has been a challenge as often it can slip my mind that they are coming. I keep in regular contact with each of these people and we meet to plan the next steps for our students. These meetings will often include their parents so that everyone is on the same page and we are all heading in the same direction with the same goals in mind.
I have often met with their teachers from last year to ask about what they were doing and what worked well. I know that I don't need to reinvent the way we work with these children, I just need to find out what has worked well for them in the past, carry that on and make improvements where I can with the help that I have available to me.
It's all about communication. Whether it is with my students, their families, my colleagues or the specialists that work with my students...it is about keeping the lines of communication open and honest in as many ways as possible.
Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice.
How do I continue to advance my professional learning as a teacher?
As I think about my own teaching practice, I am overwhelmed with a feeling of gladness that I have started my teaching journey at Huapai District School. This school is one that is heavily supportive of all their staff, not just beginning teachers. There are regular opportunities to learn from each other and share our knowledge with others around us. I have the advantage of a mentor teacher who is the school's reading specialist and that has meant I have had some excellent training and support in this area. My mentor comes into my classroom to observe and model group teaching on a regular basis. I am able to approach her with any concerns and when they are to do with how to teach something in a better way, she jumps at the chance to come in and model. We often will do this interactively, so we are both hands on and I can learn and try as we go.
In this school we also have vertical teams, which provides me with a group of teachers with different ways of delivering the curriculum across the year levels. We meet regularly and discuss how we are presenting learning to our students and often help each other adjust things to suit specific learners.
Once a week I get into at least one other classroom to observe another teacher. My focus this far has been numeracy as we have also had on going professional development in this area. This involves being observed teaching against specific goals set previously. We video the lesson and then watch it back taking note of things we do well, and things to improve on. We then have a professional conversation with my mentor, maths facilitator and a child who was part of the lesson. This gives us information about whether the student knew what they were learning and why. These have been incredibly valuable and have made it a lot clearer in terms of knowing what my own steps needed to be. From this, we set new goals and those are worked on in preparation for the next observation.
I also work closely with my co-teacher who is a very experienced teacher. We also get together regularly to discuss the best way to deliver certain aspects of the curriculum.
When I think back to my practice at the beginning of the year, to what it is now - I can see the positive change and look forward to that continuing as the year progresses.
Registered Teacher Criteria 6.
Conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme.
What do I take into account when planning programmes of work for individuals?
I am lucky enough to be in a position where I share this responsibility. My co-teacher and I do most of the main planning together and then we plan more specifically on our own for the groups we are responsible for. I have also been part of the Supplementary Inquiry Team which has fed greatly into my literacy planning - not only for my target students but all of my groups. Being part of this team and running a supplementary group within my own class setting instead of having the students withdrawn has had some fantastic benefits and we have seen some great results. It has allowed me to individualise my programme and be more specific as to what each child needs, to improve where they are sitting against national standards.
With the introduction of our self directed learning programme earlier in the year, it has become a lot easier to individualise and cater for group work. This happens mostly through the one-to-one devices. We are able to send specific work to one or several of our students at a time instead of whole class learning. This allows me to be able to move children at their own pace rather than feeling left behind or bored when things are not challenging enough. Using Hapara along with Google drive to set and track their work means we can also communicate with them in a way that is live and relevant.
There are students in the class who are outputting significantly more work because they are able to type into a document rather than for some of them, painstakingly writing in their books. Others prefer to handwrite their work which is encouraged.
Having a learning assistant in our class has meant that now the children who need extra reading mileage or who benefit from having someone sit with them to guide their thinking can have that. Our learning assistant takes the pressure off us and releases us to do more specific intentional teaching while she is able to read and go over basic facts with our target students. Giving them more one-on-one time with an adult is priceless.
I am lucky enough to be in a position where I share this responsibility. My co-teacher and I do most of the main planning together and then we plan more specifically on our own for the groups we are responsible for. I have also been part of the Supplementary Inquiry Team which has fed greatly into my literacy planning - not only for my target students but all of my groups. Being part of this team and running a supplementary group within my own class setting instead of having the students withdrawn has had some fantastic benefits and we have seen some great results. It has allowed me to individualise my programme and be more specific as to what each child needs, to improve where they are sitting against national standards.
With the introduction of our self directed learning programme earlier in the year, it has become a lot easier to individualise and cater for group work. This happens mostly through the one-to-one devices. We are able to send specific work to one or several of our students at a time instead of whole class learning. This allows me to be able to move children at their own pace rather than feeling left behind or bored when things are not challenging enough. Using Hapara along with Google drive to set and track their work means we can also communicate with them in a way that is live and relevant.
There are students in the class who are outputting significantly more work because they are able to type into a document rather than for some of them, painstakingly writing in their books. Others prefer to handwrite their work which is encouraged.
Having a learning assistant in our class has meant that now the children who need extra reading mileage or who benefit from having someone sit with them to guide their thinking can have that. Our learning assistant takes the pressure off us and releases us to do more specific intentional teaching while she is able to read and go over basic facts with our target students. Giving them more one-on-one time with an adult is priceless.
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