Beyond a Blackboard

Our Manaiakalani cluster data for 2020 painted a very clear picture as to what we need to focus on this year: Reading and Maths. While our writing data continues to show accelerated progress, we are making the expected years progress in a year in maths and reading.  This would be perfectly fine if our students were achieving at the expected level, but this is not the case.    When I completed my honours dissertation I had a focus on maths and had strong results. Unfortunately the next year we had Maths PD which meant I had to stop using the intervention and try a different approach. This year I am able to go back to my original intervention and while I will modify it and add the new things that I have learnt to it, I am confident I will be able to increase my students achievement data. Therefore, it makes sense for me to focus on reading this year. A problem that our cluster has had consistently is that the rate of achievement progress slows over time, particularly in years 7-10. Anoth

Kia ora, I'm Danni Stone! I'm a year 7/8 teacher at Pt England School.  Over the past couple of years my inquiry has focussed on reading. In 2019 , I was interested in generating more discussion about texts and used reciprocal reading, argumentation boards and debate as part of my intervention. In 2020 I looked at teaching my students to self-reflect in reading; to identify when they found something challenging and to stop and employ a strategy to support their understanding.  In my class I regularly integrate reading, writing and oral language, which was a focus of mine when I took part in MIT .  Prior to this I completed a dissertation at the University of Auckland. This had an inquiry focus on using digital affordances in maths.  Please feel free to visit my class site , or watch my lessons on Class onAir .