Beyond a Blackboard

This afternoon teachers from the Manaiakalani cluster gathered in the hall at Tamaki College to receive feedback about our cluster data from Woolf Fisher. The session started with an introduction from Pat Sneddon. He reminded us of the journey that we have taken; from an initiative that started in 12 schools, the Learn, Create, Share or Manaiakalani model is now live in 100 schools. What a huge achievement! He then delivered the news that the government has now committed to taking it into more low decile schools across the country, with crown funding! It is always helpful to be reminded of where our learners are at as they enter our schools. They can identify and write far less words than the national average. Our new entrant teachers have a massive job helping these learners, and the data shows that their reading is moving relatively quickly, but they are still behind in writing. Interestingly, in the higher year levels, students were making far more progress in writing than the...

After seven weeks in the sun, I was eager to get back to school and meet my new class. It was the first time that I got to stay in the same classroom (what a difference that makes!) and my second year at Pt England School. This time I felt confident to draw on my past experiences;  I am familiar with the Pt England way and the norms of the school, so I knew what to expect. As I love getting my students to collaborate, debate and discuss their learning with others, I set a series of team building tasks to build a positive class culture. I linked each task with our theme for the term: Kia pai te kotahi, better together and we used the experiences as a springboard for our discussion about our class treaty. This class were extremely receptive to team building and I was blown away by their confidence in speaking to each other and willingness to work with anyone. In each activity I got them to work in different groups and some even required them to hold hands (which can be quite t...