Room 9
Term 3 - Welcome Mrs Jane Poff (Mrs P)
This term Jane joined the team as a full time teacher and is working in Room 10 to replace Miss Kane. As Jane is already part of the school wide team, she is known to the children and is familiar with our routines. We are collaboratively planning units of work together and because our rooms are linked, we have a greater understanding of the children within our rooms. . On Monday and Tuesday afternoons, we are collaborating within the Junior Team on the topic: Healthy food and bodies. Your child has chosen a topic to learn about and attends these lessons over these afternoons. On Wednesdays we teach SportStart; Jump Jam and Maori/Singing collaboratively. On Thursdays - Mrs Kayte Jory is in Room 10. Between the two rooms we teach Art and Music on this day. Please introduce yourself to our "new" members of staff.
Bees
As part of our team collaboration on sustainability, Room 9 looked at bees and their work within the food chain. We were lucky enough for Charlie's dad to come in and talk to the team about beekeeping. The children were fascinated and asked many thought provoking questions. We finished the afternoon, by eating honey sandwiches!
Maths collaboration/CRT day
As part of our ongoing Professional Development we are required to visit another teacher(s) during this time. Today I visited Natalie in the year 3/4 team during maths. The lesson started with a hot spot taking into account all levels of ability within the group. There were several workshops - two involving number and the third a strand maintenance workshop. All children were busy learning and discussing what they were doing and learning. The teacher taught groups that were based on what individuals/groups of children needed to learn. The ICAS sheets were used to record information as well as a group book. It was good to see the children were working independently while Natalie was able to work with individuals and groups. Thanks for having me Nat. I enjoyed visiting your room and seeing how hard your children were working!
Reflection: Both Mackenzie and I plan our maths together (usually on a Thursday) and we talk about individual children, their learning and their next steps. The children are regularly moved from group to group depending on the content taught. We also use the ICAS sheets when teaching our groups. Although our children are less independent they are becoming accustomed to working between two classes and working at different "stations" during lessons.The stations in the Rooms 9 and 10 are aimed at any "gaps" children are missing or reinforcing content taught. At this point, the stations are teacher directed. My aim is for our children in year 0, to become more self directed learners and take more ownership of what they need to learn next. The maths rotation in the year 3/4 team is similar to what we are already doing in the 0/2 team, which was interesting. This will give consistency to any children moving to this team, the following year.
Reflection: Both Mackenzie and I plan our maths together (usually on a Thursday) and we talk about individual children, their learning and their next steps. The children are regularly moved from group to group depending on the content taught. We also use the ICAS sheets when teaching our groups. Although our children are less independent they are becoming accustomed to working between two classes and working at different "stations" during lessons.The stations in the Rooms 9 and 10 are aimed at any "gaps" children are missing or reinforcing content taught. At this point, the stations are teacher directed. My aim is for our children in year 0, to become more self directed learners and take more ownership of what they need to learn next. The maths rotation in the year 3/4 team is similar to what we are already doing in the 0/2 team, which was interesting. This will give consistency to any children moving to this team, the following year.
Ako Maori Learn Maori
Ako Tuatahi First Learning
Over the last few weeks some staff and a BOT member have attended a Te Reo course held at South Intermediate. Some of the topics we have covered are: Myths and stories; Pronunciation; He Mihi; Translations and Grammar. This has been a great refresher course for me. As I trained in Dunedin under North Island tutors, there are some subtle differences I've learnt with some words and pronunciation. Both Mackenzie and I are integrating this more into the classroom and bringing back some basics such as greetings and commands in the classroom. Our tutor Regan is fantastic and we are very grateful we are able to attend this well run course.
Collaboration with Whanau
On Tuesday 19th we arranged an informal meeting to meet our parents/whanau in the Te Kouka team. This was an opportunity to catch up with teachers and parents alike. We gave the families opportunities to tell us what they liked about our school and what are some improvements we could make. After some afternoon tea there was an opportunity for discussion around some of these issues. It was also a good opportunity to get some feedback about our Modern Learning Practice. Thank you to Janice Krammer for arranging a lovely afternoon tea and to the families who were able to come. We hope to arrange something similar next term.
Term 2
After a lot of discussion we have begun the term in Home Rooms. We are collaborating daily this term with Room 10 (Miss Mackenzie Kane). We will continue to work together for Phonics, Writing, Reading, Maths and some topic areas. At the end of the day the children come back to their Home Room teacher and class for special time together. We will continue to work with the rest of the Junior Team for Cultural Interchange, Topic, ABCD (Discovery) and Assembly time.