Time is Passing By Quickly!

I cannot believe we start Term 3 tomorrow. I have completed 18 months of teaching! Time is flying by, so thought I would take some time to reflect on how I am tracking related to my 2017 goals.

1) More time for me

Throughout Term 2 I felt like I had barely any 'me time'. I felt very busy and incredibly stressed trying to juggle everything, especially with a bad back. However, since I started teaching, this has been the most social term I have had so far. I spent lots of time with my friends, rekindling friendships I hadn't spent much time developing last year, and strengthening my relationships with my closest friends. So although my taha hinengaro is a little down, my taha whanau is the strongest it has been for the past 18 months.

During the holidays I read a book about Matariki (see my reflection here), and this made me realise how much I love to read for pleasure. So throughout the coming term I need to spend more time reading and doing things I enjoy - that isn't work related!!

2) Read educational blogs

Due to my regular engagement with Twitter, I have found lots of blogposts to read, which I have really enjoyed. Some posts have made me reflect about my own practice, some have shared resources, and some have encouraged me to explore further. Throughout Term 2 I have tried to leave comments here and there, because I know how much I love when I have comments on my posts! Cheryl and Marc both started working at Tamaki this year, and have embraced blogging, so I regularly read, comment and share their posts within my own.

3) Experiment with more digital tools

Last holidays I attended the Google Summit, and one of my takeaways was Google Expeditions introduced to me by Angela. As part of the Y10 exploring substances unit (resources here), we completed an Expedition called Human Anatomy, Respiratory System - Smoking and Your Lungs. This enabled us to track down the trachea and into the lungs to look at the alveoli then explore what can happen to the lungs from smoking cigarettes (see the below pictures). The students were incredibly engaged and asked lots of questions about the lungs, oxygen intake, cigarettes and other effects on the body. So, this new digital tool was a great success, which I will definitely be including again next year! I am hoping to include a couple of others into my anatomy revision lessons with my Year 11s in the coming few weeks!

  

I have also tried to include educational games into the lessons, as I know many of our students love gaming. These include the alcohol clock game, a cyberbullying decision making game, Anatomy Arcade and Interland. I feel therefore, I am tracking well with this goal and look forward to learning and implementing more tools.

4) Attend more extra curricular activities

I have watched a girls rugby game and a girls basketball game during the term. I was able to make connections with some students who I have struggled to connect with in the classroom environment, and also see some students participate in another part of their lives, which was so great! Last year I enjoyed supporting the First XV, and hope to attend a game or two during Term 3.

Throughout Term 2 I leapt out of my comfort zone and started coaching the U17 boys basketball team. I played miniball when I was much younger, but never basketball, and I have certainly never coached it before! I have had lots of support and fun so far, it's been a great learning journey! I will reflect in a few weeks once the season has finished.

5) Include blogging into 11PE

This is part of my dissertation and inquiry process for 2017. I will be reflecting on this specifically in a couple of weeks, because our next PCT meeting is about inquiry, and so is our next #NZBTchat.

I feel overall though, that for most of the class blogging has improved their confidence and their writing. Others have struggled to post, who I will continue to work with throughout the next term. I have really enjoyed reading through the students posts, and seeing their portfolio building up! 

Bring on another big term, with heaps of exciting things on the way including teaching sexuality education for the first time!

Learning in Different Environments

Today I assisted with the Senior Girls at the Eastern Tag Tournament, which was so much fun. One of my goals this year is to increase my engagement with extracurricular activities, namely sports, and this was my first day involved helping out.

As discussed here in more depth, I want to get to know the students outside of the classroom a little more, rather than always in a teacher role. By being a coach, manager, driver, supporter or first aider, I get to know the kids in a different light. Today really demonstrated this to me.

Many of the girls I had not met before, as I haven't taught them, so I was really stepping out of my comfort zone. I was nervous as to how they would respond to my instructions when they don't know me, and I don't know the sport very well. I did, though, make this very clear from the beginning - I was there as support to manage the day and the students. 

Even just asking the students to put their seat belts on in the van I was unsure how the students would respond. As expected, some groaned about it, but I was pleasantly surprised they followed my request. This respect continued throughout the day, so behaviour management was minimal. Today really demonstrated to me how stepping away from the subject learning environments changes students, many positively as they are there because they want to be. I really hope I am creating a culture in my classrooms where students are beginning to feel like they want to come to my lessons, like the students wanted to be playing tag today.

I love how sport offers another learning environment for the students. Today the girls learnt so much about determination, perseverance, encouragement, listening and self control, all soft skills incredibly important in learners. Fortunately, in PE especially we are able to provide students with ample opportunities to develop these soft skills, but I am unsure how often they can develop the soft skills in other subjects. Therefore, today was another wonderful avenue for the kids.

Although I am super nervous and lack knowledge of coaching basketball, I think this will be a positive learning experience for me in the coming months, and hopefully the boys too. I feel more confident after today about the positive impact interacting with students outside of the 'classroom' can have!

First XV On Form

For the past week my Year 13s have been buzzing for their big game this weekend, against the top team. As I have a long-distance relationship, and friends and family across the country, I am often away during the weekends. However, this weekend I was not. 

I was thankful the weather was in our favour, with beautiful sunny skies and no rain as we have had intermittently over the past few weeks. The boys had a home game, so my partner and I trotted along to support them. Boy, was it a game. I am so proud of the boys, they performed well. 

They worked together, supported one another and won 26-12. This means they are now sitting at top of the table for their division, so exciting!

I am unfortunately way too busy this year to help out coaching and with extra curricular activities, but I cannot wait until I can in the years to come. The sense of determination, motivation, achievement and cooperation evident throughout sports is incredible, sometimes this is not easy to see during school time. Involvement in extra-curricular activities also shows you in a new light to the students, which I think is important. We are people, with lives outside of school, which students can struggle to comprehend sometimes.

Although I cannot help now, I look forward to supporting more of the rugby, as well as the basketball teams when I don't have lectures, and helping where I can in the future. 

This clip has made me consider what a coach actually is, and what coaching is. Often we associate coaching with sports teams, however I think we are all coaches in a variety of ways.