Challenges at work

This week has been extremely stressful working with James and there have been a number of factors that have contributed to this.

- James has tendencies to hurt other tamariki in our class, often I cannot work out what has led to these incidents and often they seem totally unprovoked. I have worked hard since moving into primary teaching to create a calm and peaceful learning environment where tamariki can come and know that this is their special place, a place that is safe and caring and they know where they are loved. This to me is one of the most important aspects of my pedagogy. So I have really struggled these past two weeks seeing tamariki getting hurt, seeing how bewildered and upset they are when they don't know why James has hurt them. I have struggled to justify to them as to why the event has happened and have found it distressing as often the hitting is quite hard and to the face.

_ James is still toilet training and often won't co-operate to visit the toilet, resulting in accidents.

- James doesn't return after morning tea and lunch breaks. I did put on the white board a photo of James introducing him to the rest of the teachers asking that they please help him get back to class but it hasnt happened very often. James has also gone missing after the bell at 9.00.

- Our teacher aid situation has changed drastically this term. I have gone from having the support of a teacher aid two days per week to having none. James' support worker is Rebecca, she is great with him but has been away sick this week. Although I had replacements this confused James and his behaviour escalated and by Thursday and Friday the situation in class was almost unteachable and the new teacher aid who started on Thursday was questioning if the job was right for her. 

I am trying my best to support James, but feel that at present I'm not doing anyone in my class justice. I am acutely aware of my eight year one students who need extending. And also to the rest of the tamariki who have just started and are still settling into routines. I feel really torn as I am so often having to be pulled away from teaching to address issues that arise with James and by the time I get back to where I was working the teachable moment is lost.

On Friday I had a meeting with Bathsheba, Tina and Aimee. I said that I wasn't coping and that I feel extremely stressed and that my mental wellbeing is not good. That my mind is consumed by James, trying to work out a solution of how I can better support him.  They asked what I thought a solution might be but I felt so overwhelmed that I couldn't even think straight and became upset. Bathsheba suggested I take the weekend to think things over and we would catch up next week.

28.2.19
Today Suzanne from Parkside came and spent time in Ruma Tahi even though James was away. She has been really supportive and offers suggestions and ideas to try and help me. I do however find it really difficult to have discussions about James while I am teaching. I was trying to work with tamariki who were working in their zones and in the end I had to stop as I couldn't support nga tamariki and talk to Suzanne at the same time. Next time she visits I'm going to ask Suzanne if we can have any discussions regarding James during break time so that I can concentrate fully on either my tamariki or the professional discussion and not juggle both.

5.3.19
Aimee told me last night via text that as from today James will be moving out of my class and into Ruma Rua. Later in the day when I asked Aimee how James Mum is feeling about this change she said she was fine about it and that she requested the move into either the Whare or Ruma Rua. I felt slightly left out of this process but feel it is for the best and I can now focus on my teaching rather than behaviour management. 

Play-Based Course

I was really looking forward to this course in the hope of gaining clarity on just what learning through play looks like within a school environment. I was hoping I would get some reassurance about what I believe we should be offering compared to expectations of traditional learning environments.

Lots of my questions were answered today and what really resonated with me the most was how crucial loose parts resources and open-ended play were to tamariki learning through play. That these resources are fundamental in a learning through pay environment and that without these resources it is virtually impossible to run a learning through play programme.

The course also made me question how valuable is the learning that comes from sitting at the assembly for five year olds, what are they getting out of it?
How school-based enquiry doesn't work with play based, that learning through play is the enquiry. This is something Aimee and I have really struggled with and hope that this view of a school-wide enquiry changes for us next year.

I now know what my next steps are going to be as I understand transitioning to a learning through play environment cant be rushed and that by taking small steps will help sustain an effective programme.

I found the information around literacy and numeracy empowering, I am going to greatly reduce worksheets and encourage the same learning through different mediums in play. 

I am going to do a wall display linking play-based learning to the curriculum, this will be added to so it becomes a working document throughout the year.

When taking pictures of tamarik work to put on Seesaw I am going to add a sentence or two about how that learning links to the curriculum so that learning is more visible to whanau.

For reading I am going to trial stopping phonics during reading time and instead do it when we are writing. I will try and condense my reading groups into four and maybe make the range in each group slightly broader and maybe link them to the colours for reading levels. I will do what Mandie showed me and just do two reading groups per day.

Writing will be trialled in the morning first thing with phonics as a whole group. I will model a story and tamariki will copy for the younger ones.

I will begin to build up our loose parts selection both inside and in the bush area and water play with spouting offcuts, tyres, pallets, stumps and planks and rope. I will let tamariki outside lots more. 

Challenges to overcome
Funding for the sandpit
Storage
Space
Aimee moving next to Room One so we can share resources
Gaining support and understanding from management
Lack of loose parts

Reading advice from Mandie

I have been wondering about my reading group techniques for some time now so asked if Mandie could come and model what she does with one of my reading groups.

Mandie came this morning and demonstrated how she takes a reading group. Mandie gave me some great tips and pointers. No one had told me to stop finger pointing once chn have 1:1 sorted so this was great to find out. Mandie suggested I get chn to keep their hands under the table while they read and tell chn to read with just their eyes.

I liked how Mandie started the session with the alphabet cards and asked chn if they could spell a certain word on the whiteboard, they were allowed a quick look then Mandie covered the word with her finger. Chn responded really well to this technique and were excited with the new challenge and I could see the benefits of it straight away. I think I will use shape words for this activity, and use a list relevant to the group.

Mandie then went through the reader with chn turning the pages of their book as she went through each page, pointing out words, discussing the story and text so they were familiar before they started reading.

Once they started reading Mandie and chn read together, Mandie asking different chn to read a page every now and again but mostly together. If there was a word they didn't know Mandie would write the first letter on the whiteboard and ask chn the sound if they couldn't get the word she would do the next letter and so forth.

I found this visit so helpful and supportive, Mandie gave me great feedback on chn and also demonstrated a running record for me. I wish I had Mandie's help when I first started, I feel I have been really doubting myself and have been worried I wasn't doing my chn justice which has been stressful. Mandie told me that the chn in the group that worked with her are all where they should be for reading ability and will be moving up a level soon. This was really reassuring to hear. Im feeling much better now and have a clear direction to take and new techniques to try. Next term Mandie said she can visit again and this time I have asked her to model writing, Im looking forward to it already!

Reading update


I have trialled Mandie's reading techniques for a week now and can really see how well they are going to work. I have noticed in this short time an improvement in fluency by keeping hands under the table. Children are also really enjoying using the whiteboards to spell out words.
19.9.18

visit to Ramarama School

Today I visited Ramarama School to see a play based class room in action. I came away feeling pretty disappointed in what I had seen, I felt many of the children weren't really engaged in meaningful play and that the environment wasn't really set up to capture children's interests and extend their strengths. This visit helped to affirm my practice and did trigger a few ideas from what I had seen and how I felt I could refine what I am currently doing. I think in would be really valuable to my children if I could provide more of a play based environment by offering sand and water play. I would also like to build up my literacy and math asctivities and to be able to provide more construction type activities. I was able to come away with a few ideas around phonics such as introducing letter sound songs to my class. Aimee and I were able to talk to the principal about her Friday morning tea incentive that she runs school wide which is based around the school values. Each week teachers choose two students each and their names are put in a hat. At the end of the week the 8 children's names are pulled out of the hat and they get to have morning tea with the principal. I could see how this is a great incentive for tamariki and liked the way it focuses on good behaviour and could see it having a positive effect in our school.

Teaching Portfolio 2018

This a a space for me to collect and present the evidence needed to show that I am meeting the NZ Practising Teacher Criteria. The twelve criterion are listed on the right side of the page  and have a number to show how many pieces of evidence I have collected,. An initial post was needed to set up the 'label' needed to make the list. With each post of text or photo/video, I can add a date and a label to show when the criteria was met. 

I revisited Katrina's class last Thursday to bounce some ideas around with her about my zones as I had been noticing that our tamariki weren't engaging in activities for as long as they had been and we were having to rotate every ten minutes and we often only made it to 10.00

I knew Katrina took her zones right through to lunch time and thought i was ready for some fine tuning. Looking around Katrina's class I was able to think of new ways to tweak my zones, Katrina offered some great ideas and encouragement and I was ready to give things a try. The next day I shared my ideas with Angela and with her encouragement we redesigned the zones for Monday with lots more choices and we also introduced maths activities within the zones too.

New introductions included the maths area, play dough, floor puzzles, whiteboard activities, tamariki led writing table and a number of other activities. We wanted them to have a greater choice that captured their interest longer and encouraged group interaction and problem solving and teamwork.

On Monday Angela and I was amazed at how things went, after introducing tamariki to the new zones they were excited to make a start and were so engaged in their activities that we didn't rotate zones until after 30 minutes! There was great cooperation and a greater focus group-wide. There was only one zone that didn't work as well as we hoped but with the introduction of a couple of extra activities, it worked just as well as the others.

These two terms have been an enormous learning curve for me and I am finally feeling more comfortable and confident in what I am doing. I am excited and so looking forward to next year as I will know what works well and how I like to 'run' my class, I will be able to continue to build upon my resources and will continue to streamline my zones and will trial a way of recording them in term one next year.