REFLECTIONS


 * ** Unit title: **
 * __ Proportions and Ratios __** |||||| ** Date: ** Term 3 Week 6 ||
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 * Not complete ** || 8WATL || 8Hays || 8KRAJ
 * Not complete ** || 8WATL || 8Hays || 8KRAJ

2 2  22 || 8Mats 4 16  2  4 || 8Shelj || 8Buce 4 14  3  1 || 8BUCE – The children really used the knowledge that we have been focusing on this year in order to help them. 8KRAJ –seeing pupils getting what ratios are all about and using sound strategies || 8KRAJ how 2 pupils went back to old ways.. || Okay - so I got hold of the NAs that I knew were working at a level same as or better than the Task 8 question and did it orally with them and the figures changed. Most got to an Achieved and one went to an Excellence. When I asked her about the difference she, “….didn’t really know why – just had a bad day last time…” Now how does that figure in the great analysis????? 8KRAJ I had a few moaners who did not like how to use best practice methods, were shown a few other ways then used best practice methods. || 8KRAJ Keep using mathex starters as these contain similar themes and showing ways to solve them. ||
 * ** Plus **
 * 8MATS – ** really pleased with my Excellence results
 * ** Minus **
 * 8BUCE – ** None, they really all progressed.
 * 8MATS – ** really sad about the number of NAs that came in – see Interesting comment….
 * ** Interesting **
 * 8BUCE – ** That the pre-test showed that they were not confident with using their place value knowledge, but their posts showed great improvements.
 * 8MATS – ** The results did not actually show the achievement of class work covered or practised. Nor did they reflect where the students were from the pre-test. (Don’t think I have worded this right – will have to think some more….)
 * ** Where to next? **
 * 8BUCE – ** I didn’t get too much into the stage 7 thinking due to such a few of my children being able to work at this level, or close to it. But I would advance them quicker to try, and look at extending them and encouraging.
 * 8MATS – ** more work needed obviously.

NC NA  A  M  Ex || 8Hays 10 3  3  3  3 || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 9 3  3  3  5 || 8HAYS – It allowed for good discussions and was high interest. 8BUCE – It allowed for children to support each other and they enjoyed the assertive side of it, and the presenting about themselves as individuals and friends. || 8HAYS – Only having one period a week with this class is always difficult. Being away before the final assessment meant that they did not have the continuation of expectation and many did not hand in anything for marking. I should have allowed them to take it home and complete also. 8BUCE – as above, didn’t get many in, had lots of interruptions which took up health time during the unit, and not administering it in the last week due to my illness meant there was no continuity. || 8HAYS – those that were handed in were of a good effort. 3 were outstanding in their answers and had obviously researched it at home. 8BUCE – the level of excellence was slightly higher, and the importance placed on presentation was exceptional. || 8HAYS – with this class make sure it is hands on tasks and very clear instructions, with plenty of time. 8BUCE – allow more time for health and place more importance on it in the classroom. ||
 * Unit title: DARE Project |||||| Date: term 3 ||
 * 8watl
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NC NA  A  M  Ex || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 3 8  8  5 || 8BUCE - My children enjoyed the tasks such as I am thinking of a number it can be multiplied by two to equal 100… (Bad eg, but similar tasks). Got them thinking and talking to their groups. || 8BUCE – The amount of time allocated to this unit and the interruptions due to the production and also my illness. Many interpreted the questions wrong on the test and took it as literal write out, not in number form therefore could not score higher. Test was administered while I was away so this I believe impacted on results. Number knowledge out of context is not very good. || 8BUCE – They were not confident with algebra but felt happy about the tasks that were set. || 8BUCE – more teaching of the algebraic rules. Some have to have the number knowledge re taught to them, which meant that when relating to the algebra they were able to recognise what it was asking. ||
 * Unit title: **ALGEBRA** |||||| Date:TERM3 ||
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Production Reflection.
== We did not start out this production very well. I allowed the children to first establish what they would like to do, however this freedom lead to ideas being too broad and then out of hand. I then reframed the ideas to allow them to include virtues, this response was met and then they began to come up with ideas. Originally I thought that I would allow them to do it in small groups, but because of dynamics and knowledge of some of the children this was not an option. ==

== On speaking with a group we suddenly started to talk about fables, and stories that we knew, and how they had been remade to suit the kiwi theme. This led to us doing Cinderella style BBC. I let children run with this idea and then realised that they were better with me prescribing what they should do and then they alter it in order to suit themselves. Casting was established very easily and children volunteered themselves up to doing it. This was a positive step as then children who were comfortable with performing were able to do so. ==

== In the future I would establish them to brainstorm it, and then I would prescribe it and get them to alter it again. I would not allow time for them to come up with their own, I would get them to do more acting skills instead, such as drama sports. This would help them with the skills that they need in order to be able to present themselves better and prhect their voice. == = = = ﻿Ski/Snowboard Trip Reflection. =

The ski/snowboard trip was a huge success. I am still awaiting final budgets to be paid but I hope all is well.
==== Planning and organisation was a strong point of making this trip successful - it helped also to control the parent and student input as many wanted to defer away from this at times, for example being late and wanting to stretch out the time of being up the mountain. Because the expectations were already in place it meant that we had a responsibility to the students and their parents to provide what we said we would. ====

==== A good thing that happened was that one of the parents has been on a lot of trips and proposed we set up a committee to help the students have a say and in order to keep an eye on any problems that arise, and put responsibility back onto them, rather then it be a teacher says must do - however some situations arose in this which I felt uncomfortable about, and the parent led it to occur - and the children were at times arrogant within this. This however was resolved by the end of the meetings. Not that it was a personal attack from the children, but the lines between committee discussion and them telling us what they wanted to do and that they wanted it to happen was met with caution. ====

==== We had two illnesses but were able to cope with these and had appropriate planning in place should they have required to be removed from the group - the accomodation was flexible and we were able to move people into different rooms in order to give them space. ====

==== The accomodation was good - the food was exceptional, the worry was that we were so spread out around the building, and that we had to share our facilities with others, but the group of students handle this exceptionally well and were able to be trusted. We thought that we may alter it for next year, and stay elsewhere, but the "seclusion" of the facilities also meant that we were not met with "much" of an issue. ====

==== The timing went well for the trip and sometimes I felt as though I was making decisions based on the group and having to cop the flack - but I now relfect on this and see it as me taking my role as the leader of the trip and having to make decisions that some like and some don't like. This relates to RTC 5 - where I have actively contributed to the professional learning community and successfully undertaken areas of responsibility effectively. ====

I needed to assert the children's rights on a few occasions and this shows my ability to RTC1 - engage in professional relationships and RTC2 - Promote the well being of the learners when off site.
==== One area of concern I do have was that I had intrusted the RAMS for the trip to be done by my fellow staff member - I did not ask to sight these. There were a few things that arose that I thought I wonder if that was down in the RAMS - and whe I asked he said that he had only gained the ones that were on the Mt Ruapehu website, therefore not really enough to cover the trip down and the return and also what different situations that could have happened at the accomodation. Therefore I will go furtehr into this next time, as it is another reliance thing for accountability. ==== = = = End of Term 2 Reflections = **__ Reading __** |||||| ** Date: ** || ** A ** ** M ** ** Ex ** ** Not complete ** ||  || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 7 8  4  2 || ** 8BUCE – ** The range of texts that were assessed may have been big but children felt like they had more than one chance to show their abilities. The term went well and the children really enjoyed guided reading opportunities. || ** 8BUCE – ** I didn’t do as much reading as I had in past terms due to the novel. This I felt did let the children down as they should’ve applied the elements of reading strategies better through guided reading as opposed to the long novel. || ** 8BUCE – ** I did expect more achieves from my class – and was aware that the questions in the test were actually difficult to comprehend too, which I believe let them down. || ** 8BUCE – ** More guided reading!!! And reading in general over a variety of contexts in order to increase vocab and application of knowledge. ||
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**__ Disasters. __** |||||| ** Date: ** || ** A ** ** M ** ** Ex ** ** Not complete ** ||  || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 2 5 7 5  3 2  1 4  5 5 || ** 8BUCE – ** With the current situation in New Zealand with the Christchurch earthquakes it has meant that we have discussed the many contributing factors of disasters in an informal way. We have had significant disasters in the world and in New Zealand at the time of this unit which allowed teachable moment’s to occur and be related to the learning intentions (probably not a plus that they have happened but good for learning). || ** 8BUCE – ** With being away for a significant amount of time I was unable to motivate the children in the last part of their independent study to achieve what was required. This meant that 5 unmotivated boys did not produce an assignment to be considered for marking. Children are still not looking in the correct forums for information and are going through a lot of different websites reading and becoming displaced. || ** 8BUCE – ** It was interesting to find that the effects of older disasters were not readily available for children. I encouraged children to look for information containing legislations that have been put in place to help, but this only came out in one of the assignments, and I believe that this has a lot of worth – many only said there was a large loss of life being the biggest effect. || ** 8BUCE - ** I would look at legislations and laws that had come about as a consequence of different disasters and their purposes. Additionally I would limit them further in their ideas and would supply them with the places to look for relevant information – making it so that they are not looking in too many places or getting half way through and forgetting where they found it. I also wish for children to quote and cite where they got their information from and include an index, this would limit them to only looking for quality references and stop the panic struck searches. || = = **__ Probability __** |||||| ** Date: ** || ** A ** ** M ** ** Ex ** ** Not complete ** ||  || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 7 12  2  0  1 || ** 8BUCE – ** The work that I have done for number knowledge surrounding decimals and fractions was evident in the results that were achieved. The children had greater confidence when dealing with the language of probability as they could relate it to their own lives. || ** 8BUCE – ** The assessment I feel did not allow for much of a decision to occur from not achieved to achieve, and was very narrow in the criteria – but then the test would be too long. The difference between merit and excellence was decided around one element of probability and this was too narrow a chance. || ** 8BUCE – ** Many of the children in the class achieved an achieved due to getting very few wrong in the beginning questions and more right in the merit and excellence. It showed that they were considering the higher order of operations for probability, which had been taught more explicitly. || ** 8BUCE – ** I would teach further knowledge about statistical trees – as it is a visual representation of knowledge required. We would also do more work on percentages and what these look like and how they are developed from a number. || = = **__ Narrative Writing __** |||||| ** Date: ** End of Term 2  || ** A ** ** M ** ** Ex ** ** Not complete ** ||  || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 5 7  3  2  3 || ** 8BUCE – ** Students were very motivated and liked to be able to experiment with problems and characters. The work at the beginning of the unit where we concentrated on the elements of setting, problem and characterisation separately went well. The students responded twice as well when modelling was done. || ** 8BUCE – ** I was absent before the end of the assignment so was not able to motivate them as well as I could have. I had a few who did not complete and that I believe is as a result of a relief teacher and ideas and motives not communicated as best as possible – therefore behavioural impacts. || ** 8BUCE – ** All of the stories that were presented were completely different. This illustrates that the children were given a lot of choice to experiment with throughout the unit and then were able to continue and show individuality through their choice. The greatest motivation came from children’s tv shows and also story books as we could find the majority of these were in narrative. || ** 8BUCE – ** I would do a lot more annotating of texts for students to show me their understandings of the structure. Some fell into the trap of writing a big problem and running out of time to resolve it and then reflect – so I was additionally put this into future planning. ||
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NA A  M  Ex || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 1 5  2  14 || 8BUCE – my class was very mature and concentrated on the importance of why we should know about puberty. || 8BUCE – weren’t very inquisitive which was a down fall as they may not have got the deeper understandings that they needed in order to be able to understand that this was happening to them. || 8BUCE – they were more interested in the biological side of things, like why do we sweat and finding out the reasoning for bodily functions, rather then what they are. My class were actually extremely naïve about puberty and what happened. || 8BUCE – we could have done some more scenario based things so that they could understand what they went through and how to be reasonable with their emotions. They would’ve liked more information about the body or even a video to tell them or express the change. Open conversations, rather then being so caged, however this was in their best interests also – so therefore may have been better to plan for dialogue and manage this in groups. ||
 * Unit title: Puberty |||||| Date: ||
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15th June 2011 MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION |||||| Date: Week 6 Term 2 || NA A  M  Ex || 8Hays || 8Scoe || 8Mats || 8Shelj || 8Buce 4 8  7  1 || 8BUCE – The children enjoyed challenging themselves to try an alternative strategy. Often they try and work it out the fastest way, but the work and teacher time got them to take time, think of one way and then another and reflect on which one would be easiest. I had it well organised and utilised last year’s information I had for the levels and looked at what I had reflected on. || 8BUCE- I was away for a large portion of this unit. When I got back the children had grown tired of the content, they needed refocusing. A lot of the work I had set while away had not been monitored so children were in consistent in their work or interaction with real life experiences and mult div. I didn’t manage to achieve any mult and div with decimals. || 8BUCE – children have not got fast recall of mult and div, they are reliant on knowledge of 2’s, 4’s, 5’s, 10’s. Need to get beyond this! || 8BUCE – More division application for the children. Some decimal numbers multiplication so that they are exposed to it. ||
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26th May 2011 Parent contributions, involvement and interactions.

Today I had a conversation with a parent of a child who has been absent. Below is the email I have sent through to a colleague about the communication that has occured. Have called Dad - Had a terrible conversation with him in regards to Logan's absence rates. He has said that he has been unwell, and that to be honest 80% of the problem is he doesn't make him go to school. He has said that Logan is motivated, but his absences are making him fall behind. I pointed out that I had counted 21 days out of 67 absent. He has said that yeah he will come to school more, I responded that we would like to have a meeting with him in regards to this and to motivate Logan to come to school.

A official letter I think needs to go home as a formality, I also mentioned we may require medical certificates for further explainable absences. He said it was all bout the money...

Also while I have been away LS has been away and an altercation had occured between the Principle and the mother about his frequent absences. I am unsure if the Principle was aware that we have had a home visit and that the dean, I am the family had an agreement to get him back to school. Unfortunately the change of me not being here has meant he has not been at school.

These are concerns because of the children being unable to catch up, it means teaching is very difficult because I can not have consistency and flow on of learning. If they were to come back now, we have established some writing and had two periods of planning, it would make it very very difficult for them to pick up on what we have achieved, or even contemplate the work that the children are doing. I am going to supply LS with some work as he is to have an operation on his leg.

Relates RTC 7 as I want to provide an inclusive environment for all. The RTC 9 is about providing for differing needs, and these two have similar learning abilities and absent rates. One has been "classified" and the other has been registered before as requiring special learning requirement - I am trying to cater for their own needs, but it is obvious that the parents are also limiting the children ability to learn.

NA A  M  Ex ||= 8Hays ||= 8Scoe ||= 8Mats ||= 8Shelj ||= 8Buce 5 13  0  4 || BUCE – teaching place value explicitly through warm up activities aided the children’s ability to make tidy numbers significantly compared to last year. || BUCE – Students showing strategies in group teaching and in book work but not able to apply it to the GLOSS test at the end and then reverting back to basic strategies because of the pressure of the testing for credits. I did not teach enough with materials. || BUCE – Even though I explicitly taught decimals to all, nobody got a merit and was able to answer the relevant question. My focus PD discussed the misunderstandings that children could have and these were evident in the gloss testing. || BUCE – I am to do more work using the numeracy project strategies of materials, numerals and then visualising. Additionally more learning through discussion of strategies and mathematical concepts. || See unit reflections with hard copies. Today I have thought considerably about my interactions and teaching with 8 HAYS health class that I teach one period a week. Unfortunately they are really unmotivated, there are a few with major behavioural difficulties. I emailed the dean, who is their teacher, to ask her to come and observe me teaching them and told her my concerns for their output of work. She has said that she is having the say difficulties and I have said I will plan a perfect lesson for Monday and we will both try to get the output higher to set the scene and what is required or expected of her class. I believe their are a lot reasons behind the lack of motivation or importance which is placed on class work. I need to find high quality work to express and show them how and what they should be able to achieve in the time we are given.
 * = Unit title: __ ** Add/Sub ** __ ||||||= Date: **20th March 2011** ||
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 * 15th March 2011**

Relates to RTC 9 iii As I am trying to consider and modify teaching approaches to address the needs of this group of students and try to motivate them, so therefore also relates to 2 i as I am trying to take steps that will take responible steps to provide and maintain the learning environment elements which affect the ability for children to successfully apply themselves to their learning.