Whitebait connection

As a part of the class inquiry where were involved in the Whitebait Connection program which invloved our local farm and the local waterways. We were involved in classroom sessions and a trip to the local farm to test the water quality and suitability for the native inanga. Majority of the class were fully engaged in this learning and were able to take action in the form of presenting our findings to the whole school and planting over 200 trees on the local farm to provide a health nesting environment got the inanga. We have purchased our own water quality testing kit with the plan to continue testing local waterways and actioning change. I feel like this was a good example of connecting with our local community and providing authentic learning experiences.

T-shaped literacy/Inquiry

At the beginning of the year I found the students were very reliant on me - they were not using student agency and the qualitiy of work and the thinking and explanation behind mostly literacy responses were not showing the critical thinking that i know the students were capable of. My process started by putting examples on the walls of what the reading responses should look like so the students had something to measure their work against. This made some improvement but it still did not fully encourage the critcal thinking. I attended DFI and I felt that this was the changing in direction for my class as I was more digitally fluent and had access to resources that I could incorporate inTo my class to help students become more digitally fluent and then use these to promote more critical thinking. I could see more changes in my students learning there was more engagement and more output of learning. I then began to look more into t-shaped literacy we had heard about it earlier in the year but i was unsure of 'how' i would implement this into the class and 'what' it would look like. Each week there would be a theme or big idea which usually stemmed from our inquiry topic or front loading information for explanation writing. With a clear simple easy to use site and exposing students to a variety of texts and multi-modal opportunities they were able to engage in critical thinking and showing their thinking in digital ways. Next year i will continue my journey into t-shaped literacy.

Sports co-ordinator

My biggest role in leadership this year was stepping into the role of the whole school sports coordinator. This is a real passion of mine and I was really pleased to get this role. It was a real big learning opportunity for me organising whole school event such as athletics, tryathlon, cross-country etc. For me to do this it involved a lot of extra paper work and time to make this happen I had to be extremely organised. I also had to liaise with other schools/teachers and sports coordinators. As a whole I am really please at how Physical Education has developed at Kaingaroa School. All of the events that were planned ran smoothly and aligned with physical education in other schools and wider communities. I was able to privide opportunities for students to experience higher level sporting for example the Rippa Rugby team which I coached qualified to compete in the Northland wide competition which has never been done in the 5 years I have been teaching. I also had some really positive feedback from the other teachers , who have said that events were well run and easy for them to follow taking the organisation/ permission slips away from them . I think the feedback from the other teachers was really valuable and a confidence boost for me. Next year I hope to further improve physical education within the school.

Pasifika- Leadership

This year we started a new Pasifika performance group, which was run by Rob and myself with Foliga supporting in the dance aspect. We have a growing number of Pasifika students at Kaingaroa School and this was a good way to connect with those students and give them a sense of belonging in their own culture. We practised 2 Samoan dance in which i was able to see behavioral students take on leadership and really make positive changes. I was also able to see the shy students move out of their comfort zones and perform in front of parents and peers. We also incorporated Pasifika arts (weaving and tapa). I believe this was a really positive experience for students and the school as a whole.

DFI 9

Today we had a quick look at google classrooms , in my honest opinion I don't think I would use this with my class as I find google sites are a lot easier for myself and for my students to navigate.
We also sat our google exam and I passed!!

Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed these sessions and have learnt so many useful tools that I can now implement in my classroom and share with colleagues

DFI 3

In week 3 of DFI I unfortunately had to leave early due to a family emergency.
However I did look and reflect back on other peoples blogs.
The session was on creating.
Creating is important to cater for the different needs of all the learners in your classroom.
A key piece of information that I gained from looking at other peoples blogs is that the learning needs to take place for the creativity to happen.

I have tried to implement this into my own classroom teaching I use a google slide deck on my class site on the slides I have made them multi modal .
I have also learnt how to make follow up activities on google draw as opposed to giving a generic worksheet this allows for the students to insert their own creativity.

I have also experimented with making playlists on youtube to channel to monitor and guide the students on the internet.

DFI 8

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa today - specifically empowerment?

I enjoyed the korero on empowerment today it was very relatable coming from a low decile school with students in our school community who may be not empowered and gave me ideas of how to reach them

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

Today we "played" with a number of different digital tools that are engaging and can be used in the classroom I saw an easy and achievable way to use stop motion and movie maker in the classroom 

There were many coding ideas that I would like to try with my learners that are both unplugged and and using devices.