Co-Teaching Celebrations

Throughout the second half of this year I have enjoyed co-teaching our Year 9 PE classes with Alice. We've had three units together; Movement Ed, Fitness and Outdoor Ed, and each had a different Achievement Objective attached to it. I spent my whole first year at Tamaki co-teaching all of my classes, and I really enjoyed it. I felt like I learnt a lot alongside another teacher, and loved bouncing ideas off of one another before, during and after lessons. So I was excited for this opportunity again. 

Alice has a few more years experience than me, so brings lots of great ideas. As teachers, we have similar views, expectations and philosophies. We both have an interest in curriculum and how to integrate curriculum terminology and knowledge within our teaching and learning. We both have high expectations for students, wanting them to achieve to the greatest of their potential. We both like to challenge students to critically think about their choices, their involvement and their opinions. We both prioritise inclusion and participation. 

These similarities between us have been great for the culture we have developed in our class. Questioning students on their levels and the achievement objectives has certainly helped to develop the positive learning culture too. I feel majority of our students have moved away from the expectation that PE is just playing sports, as they initially thought. There now seems to be more understanding about the E in PE! I've also loved hearing other students starting to help one another when they are unsure, and holding each other accountable for individual and class success. 

  

Obviously Alice and I have some slight differences, but they don't have any major impact on our planning and teaching. The only thing we could come up with are slight expectation differences around behaviour and uniform. The stuff that fortunately is minimal due to the class culture!

I really hope that I have further opportunities to co-teach, as it is so valuable. So much can be learnt from having someone else alongside you, irrespective of their experience. I do think it can be very challenging if you don't have similar views, expectations and philosophies - but this provides quite different learning opportunities, more personal growth possibly.

Who knows what the future holds...

 

  

Top Ten Teacher Traits!

Aaaand the Seniors have officially left for study leave! Even with an extra two weeks with them, that time has passed so quickly! Before they left, I asked students, as well as a couple of colleagues if they would like to give me some feedback on my teaching this year. Across the comments, there were 10 themes that came out. These are in no particular order. 

Enthusiastic, Energetic, Positive Vibes

I certainly give my best to keep positive during my lessons, as the students clearly feed off the energy I give (or lack!). I often find myself quite mentally exhausted from the acting that may be needed, especially on those not so great days. I do think I have become much better at expressing to my students when it's not a great time though, once those relationships have been established.

Critical Thinker

When I was growing up, like many young people, I always wanted to know the why, and wanted to challenge people's ideas and understandings of the world. I'm glad that this was picked up from a few students, that I'm trying to bring this criticality into my teaching. I want students become more aware of different perspectives, so they become more assertive but also more open-minded towards others' thinking.

Goes The Extra Mile

Well, don't all teachers? The kids definitely recognise if you go above and beyond, or if you rinse and repeat!

Constructive Feedback

I was pleased to see this come up frequently throughout the comments, as I have been trying to develop the skill of giving feedback (both written and verbal). I definitely learnt a lot through the Assessment Essentials Course, but also have gathered confidence in my ability to give feedback due to more experience. Having regular checkpoints, including 15 minute 1:1 chats, has been really helpful for me to monitor student progress, as well as adapt future lessons to support their learning. 

Prioritises Wellbeing

Goes without saying really. Hāuora comes first. If their whare is about to collapse, there's no way they are going to learn!

Holds Students Accountable

From meeting deadlines, to following school rules to completing what the work they said they would - there were lots of comments around accountability and the use of time. I found it interesting how many found this positive for their learning and personal growth. To be honest, it really grinds my gears when teachers don't follow through with their word or the expectations that were set as a team/department... but I can only control what I can control!

High Expectations 

I genuinely want the students to achieve to the best of their ability, always teaching to an Excellence level. I've reflected multiple times around the value of high expectations in the classroom, and it's nice to hear the students recognise this.

Long Term Planning

Thinking back to the 'why' I previously mentioned, each lesson I ask myself why are we doing this activity, why am I using this resource and why am I structuring the lesson this way? This helps to increase understanding for myself that I can share with the students around the bigger picture of the learning. Not only right now, but also where we are heading next and how these skills/knowledge are useful long term. 

Positive Relationships

Need I say more?

Push Students out of Comfort Zone

Despite having a Senior Health class with majority of the students having high social anxiety, I really encouraged the students to step out of their comfort zone. We discussed several times the importance of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. The importance of trying new things, taking small risks, especially talking with and in front of others. I hope to reflect a little more about anxiety in general, in a future post. 

So there you have it, Dougherty's top ten teacher traits according to my colleagues and students!

Ako: To Teach & To Learn

In addition to the roll out of an integrated curriculum this year, there has been an inclusion of two non-curriculum related classes; Ako and Mai time. Mai time was developed to give students an opportunity to create passion projects around something of their choice. This means the students can develop skills and learn about things that are of particular interest to them. Ako time was developed for 4 key reasons;

1. Increase awareness of topics and learning
2. Improve student self confidence and social confidence
3. Reflection on Mai time projects and progress
4. Increased understanding of student levels and progress (see more here)

Therefore, I can include any activities within my lessons which help to develop/work towards these four aims. I love Ako time!! I think it is fantastic there are opportunities for students to develop practical, social and theoretical skills which they may have had little time to develop prior to this year. One of which is the ability to reflect. Each Friday morning students reflect on the week that has been - what they completed in each of their classes, what they found difficult, what they enjoyed and what their next steps are. See below the template for the learning journal my students (are supposed to!) complete each week (I can't believe it's already Week 12/18!). 

Some of my personal highlights from Ako lessons include listening activities, an activity about values and being open-minded, and student created games.

I had noticed, and had feedback from some students, that this group struggles to listen. It was taking a long time to get their attention to give instructions, once it was nearly 7 minutes!! As a result, we had a couple of lessons focused around listening. We played Chinese whispers, completed the Life with the Wright family activity and played Draw It (a simple game where you give step by step instructions of what to draw, and between each instruction the students pass their paper to someone else). The students started to become  frustrated with each other when someone wasn't listening, and started to empathise for their teachers and peers when they were trying to speak! Their listening definitely improved after this.

To encourage students to think about other people's perspectives, and challenge their own values and opinions, we completed the classic Sinking Ship activity below. I had planned for this activity to last about 20 minutes, but there was so much positive debate and discussion it ended up being nearly an hour! With some guidance, by the end of the activity the students were much more respectful of each other's opinions (still a way to go, but small steps!), and gave each other time to say their thoughts.

Finally, the students got into small groups and created mini games to teach and play with one another. I gathered a random assortment of equipment and gave each of the groups tokens to use in an equipment auction. They then had only 30 minutes to create a game they could run for 15 minutes with two other groups in the class! I was pretty blown away by some of the creativity the kids had, with minimal resources and not a lot of time. General feedback was that they enjoyed this activity too, so definitely something that will be repeated in the future!


Only a few days before lockdown I asked the students to complete a feedback form for me to gauge their understanding of their topics and what they are enjoying/not enjoying about school and Ako. There were a few common themes as outlined in the visual alongside - things they like about Ako, things they dislike and suggestions they made. I look forward to implementing some of this feedback into future lessons when we are back at school. At the moment it's really not the same!

Engaging Students From Afar!

Last night I attended a webinar called Supporting student motivation and engagement when learning from home, facilitated by The Education Hub and Harry Fletcher-Wood. If you are wanting to watch the recording of this webinar, you can access it here. This webinar was good timing for two reasons; I'd already been looking into motivation and engagement (see blogpost here), and we are back into online learning after one week before the holidays. The two things I left thinking more about, and two things I could put into action immediately, was that less is more, and to use the chat box to encourage students to share - give them opportunities to respond. 

We are using Google Meet with our classes. For the most part, I'm keeping myself available at the beginning of lessons for 10-15 minutes to give instructions and answer questions and then again for the last 10-15 minutes if students need further help or to have a debrief. This morning though, I wanted to have some deep 'discussion' with my Year 12s, in an attempt to replicate what we'd do if we were at school.

We started to discuss gender and sexuality stereotypes. I would ask a question such as when you think of male or masculine occupations, what do you think? Then students would post into the chat box what they were thinking, and as their comments came through I would read it, and then ask follow up questions. Even though I was the only one talking, the students were actively engaging in 'discussion' through this chat box - it gave everyone a voice, and to be honest there were WAY more voices heard (obviously not literally) than if we were in the classroom!

Secondly, we keep getting reminded that less is more, that we can't expect students to be able to meet the same expectations and complete the same amount of tasks as if we were at school, that we need to prioritise key learning we want the students to retain. After the stereotypes discussion, showing them a prerecorded video I'd made (which included reading a picture book!), and then an adaptation of a human continuum (displaying numbers on their video (could have just used fingers) to represent their opinions on a statement I gave, such as it's embarrassing for males to cry in public), I'd had 26 students actively involved for an hour. I was absolutely stoked!!! So, even though there was still half an hour left, and I had another activity planned, there had already been rich 'discussions' and I felt the students had learnt a lot, so I called it there and told them to go and have a cuppa! I decided to stay on if anyone wanted a general chat, and for half an hour 6 students stayed and conversed with me and each other about their isolation experiences so far!

As we navigate this unusual time, we are learning a lot as teachers, as partners, as colleagues and a lot about ourselves. In addition to these two considerations, remember to maintain your connections and relationships with your students, don't try to recreate the wheel, and help the students to develop study habits/ a routine!

Just Keep Swimming, Swimming, Swimming!

One of my favourite units to teach is the resilience unit in Year 12 Health. The purpose of the unit is for the students to become more aware of some of the risk and protective factors that are present in our lives (things that make it more difficult and things that help you to be resilient when you are faced with a difficult change respectively), and to learn different strategies to implement to increase one's resilience. Two years ago, while I was teaching this unit for the first time, I was needing to be quite resilient myself. I wrote this post exploring some resources I read/watched related to resiliency. I also was a guest blogger for #slowchathealth last year, emphasising that mental health is not equal to mental illness... 

Last year for the first time, I had an outside speaker come into my Year 12 class, Zac Franich, to share his story. The students responded incredibly well to this. They were attentive and respectful, and I think many developed greater empathy - which is a major goal for the unit. I want the students to develop a greater understanding of what people may be facing day to day, when they may have no knowledge that they are facing that. I want them to have more sympathy for others when they are sharing their stories - even if to them that story does not seem like a big deal, as for some it may be a massive deal. To actually feel empathetic, even if they are a stranger. 

As a result of the great response to having a guest speaker, I decided to develop most of the learning around risk and protective factors through several speakers this year. We have had 7 people visit us and share their stories when they've needed to manage changes in their lives (5 in school and 2 from outside). Their stories have varied from more low level  scenario such as being left in a flat on their own with no money to pay the rent, to an extreme of a family member murdered. Because the speakers used up a lot of class time I asked the students for their thoughts on having this many. Every student valued having a range of guest speakers, to hear about the things they have been challenged by, and many commented on enjoying such a variety of stories - so we will definitely be repeating that in the future!

Some of the strategies we have practiced as a class (whilst having access to no devices) has been socialising through games (such as Jenga and Last Card), mindfulness/visualisation scripts, colouring in/drawing, creating stressful day to do lists to come back to and sleeping. Yes, I give my students time to have a nap in class! In addition I have shared further places students can learn more or access further support, such as The Lowdown and Reach Out. As a class, we also brainstormed some other strategies we can use to help ourselves or others when feeling down or stressed or facing a big change in our lives.

For the assessment, many schools ask students to interview someone and then describe their risk and protective factors and explain the strategies they used. Instead of this, at Orewa the students develop their own characters through a series of diary entries. I really enjoy reading these entries, because most of the students are quite creative and craft some amazing stories. Slightly less than a quarter of the students said they would have preferred to interview someone instead of creating their own character because that would be 'more real life', so possibly in the future the students could have a choice. Especially because there were ample opportunities to chat with the speakers in class. 

The students write and submit their internal this week, so it'll be interesting to see what their results are like, after such positive feedback and high engagement in class. I'm particularly interested to compare this year's results to last year's, as this is the target unit for 2020 to increase achievement. For the mean time, check out some of the students' comments below! I'm especially proud of comments related to feeling comfortable and supported in the class. And as Dory sings, "just keep swimming!"

Behaviour Management: Conversation Over Confrontation

Late last term, Adam reminded us of the importance of attempting restorative conversations. These are a behaviour management strategy, which focuses on the repair and rebuild of relationships, as opposed to a punitive approach. The aim of developing confidence to create restorative chats with students, is for the students to gain closer connections with others and become more empathetic and aware of others thoughts, values, feelings, decisions. 

Learning how to hold a restorative conversation, and practicing how to complete them, are important for the future of the student's relationship with you and others, but also their long term behaviour. I leant a lot about these conversations at Tamaki (see here and here), but as I was so new to teaching, I found these conversations very difficult. Throughout this year I have been attempting to have more, because I think they are significantly more beneficial for the student's learning than punitive measures like writing lines and detentions (which I unfortunately still give, as they are part of the school system!), because the students are likely to learn more from a personal, honest chat as opposed to copying words onto a page or a confrontational grilling!

I decided to write this post late last term, when Adam asked the department if we are open to learning. If we are open to discuss the things we are challenged by or things that are not working. It is of course much easier to write a post about things that are going amazing, but we are obviously more likely to learn from reflecting on and thinking about the not-so amazing stuff. For me, two  things I am struggling with are having these conversations with students, but also having challenging chats with my colleagues (I plan to read a lot more about the latter and write a post in a few weeks).

The most recent attempt I had at a restorative chat was with a Year 9 student late last term. This student had repeatedly been disruptive throughout the lesson, disrespected others and was not getting involved the activities. After several reminders of how to talk to others, he threw a racquet forcefully at the ground for his own entertainment. By that point I'd had enough, and asked him to sit out. He went and sat on a chair a few metres away from the class game and a couple of minutes later I sat on the floor in front of him. I attempted to maintain the WARM layout for the conversation (as previously linked and alongside), and keep a calm voice. He was able to explain to me what'd happened throughout the lesson and who may have been affected by some of his decisions. He agreed that these needed to change. What actually emerged from the conversation was that his mum was really sick, and it was unexpected. He was angry about this. Why did his Mum need to get sick? Why couldn't he help her? So every time he was bugged by someone or something, that was pushing him closer and closer to the edge. We both felt a lot better after our discussion because he knew that I was more understanding of how his actions came about, and he was more understanding of how some of his behaviours were unacceptable. Moving forward, I hope to see more positive choices from him, to see whether this conversation did have an impact on him!

I watched the above Ted Talk which explores restoratives practices to resolve conflict and build relationships. Some of the key points I took away from the talk were;

- Students may not understand what they have done is incorrect or wrong, so it is important we educate them about why it is not ok. If they don't understand why it isn't, the behaviour may reoccur.

- Katy used a 'time in' instead of a 'time out' - when students were deemed as 'misbehaving', instead of sending them out of the class, she had designated a 'time in' zone, where she asks the students to go, to then have a chat with them.

- Before having the conversations, consider how whatever had happened leading to the chat, and the chat included, could have actually contributed positively to the future.

- Be honest and empathetic

- Understand why the restorative conversations are important in the bigger picture.

- Use I statements rather then saying You, to avoid blaming or accusing.

- Consider and attempt a discussion about why the student made the decision(s) they did - what is going on in their lives, did anything possibly trigger it etc.

- But also avoiding the use of the word why when possible

- Talk with the student, not at them!

Highlights & Challenges: A Visual

Throughout the year I have volunteered again for Auckland PENZ, helping with the Graduate Mentoring Programme supporting beginning teachers and undergraduate students (see last years post here). At one of our sessions, Sarah Loomb from Alfriston College showed us this reflection tool - draw 9 things that have stood out for you so far this year including highlights and challenges. I thought this was a great idea for an end of term 3 reflection, and a great visual. I ran a session with the first and second year teachers at Orewa, with the focus around the practising teacher criteria and registration, then used this to discuss what criteria it may give evidence and reflection for. So what do they mean to me?

Snow Camp

I was lucky enough to attend one of the Level 3 Outdoor Ed trips to Mt Ruapehu in August. I learnt more about risk management, including preventative measures and responses when things do happen. On our first day up the mountain, there was an avalanche that made the news and we went into lock down with kids as a precaution. This is a once in a lifetime experience, and one that I will never forget. The biggest thing I took away from this trip was the importance of everyone being prepared for the outdoors and to stay calm!

Associate Teacher

As previously blogged about, I was an associate teacher earlier in the year. This was both a (positive) challenge and a highlight, because I learnt a lot about myself but found it hard to leave him to do his thing! Trying to teach someone how to teach, but also ensuring the students were still learning/achieving what I wanted them to achieve was difficult, but great for my own development. 

Integrated Unit

I am getting very very excited for the 2020 integrated curriculum. I think it’s going to be incredible for the kids, but I’m also starting to feel a little anxious about how everything is going to pan out! Creating a unit with 5 other people has been hard. Very hard. We all want what is best for the kids, and our subjects, but sometimes these wants don’t align. The group I’m part of though, have all been quite flexible and accepting of these differences and tried to make it work. We are quite lucky we are somewhat compatible with one another! 

The one thing I don’t like about this process though, is that we aren’t guaranteed to teach the unit we’ve developed next year. There will be 75 students with three subject specialist teachers - but these teachers could be anyone from the department! So it may not be the other person or I in our integrated group, which will be disappointing after investing so much time and effort into creating the unit.

Teaching with Adam 

This year Adam and I share a Level 3 PE class. We don’t co-teach like I did in first year, we have half of the periods on the timetable each. I was really nervous to see how this would work for a variety of reasons; Adam and I teach quite differently, he is much more experienced than me, Level 3 students may be hard to motivate and the time we would need to plan together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been hard, but not for most of these reasons (the kids have certainly been hard to motivate!). I believe we’ve worked well together, trying to find a balance between what we both want in the lessons as well as what we want the students to learn/achieve. Our communication between each other has thankfully been our strength. 

What I’ve actually struggled with is the content; what I need to teach to ensure all the kids have the possibility to achieve an Excellence. Adam is knowledgeable and experienced, so he knows the course in and out, but I don’t. Throughout the year I’ve tried to ask lots of questions, and read lots of information, but I never felt like I fully grasped the big picture of what the kids were learning, what the purpose was. As a result I feel guilty that I didn’t give all students the chance to achieve an E, purely because I didn’t fully know how to support them to get there. If I was to teach this course again, with the baseline understanding I have now I feel I could minimise the risk of this happening again.

11PE Class

I have drawn angel emojis because that is how I refer to my Year 11s - my absolute angels. I have been really lucky to have a class that enjoys learning, are actively involved and supportive of one another. I look forward to teaching this class because they are a dream. Many still struggle with learning difficulties and we still have P.E. is not P.A. chats from time to time - but the culture of the class is incredible! To paint a picture - during the last period of term the kids were all working peacefully on their assessment and there was only one passing comment about wanting to have a practical. This felt like a massive win!!

Working with new people 

I’ve touched on this briefly above, referring to snow camp, the integrated unit, and sharing a class. Additionally I’ve been in charge of a course (below), and taught courses alongside some different people and some the same from last year. Without going into too much detail, I’ve found some professional relationships really hard this year. It can be challenging to have some conversations with other teachers, when they are more experienced than you, have been around longer than you and/or have positions that you don’t have. I have quite a loud personality; I’m opinionated and happy to stand up for what I think. This can be problematic. I’m having to learn when to bite my tongue and how to change my tone of voice to ensure my intentions are clear, are positive and are not treading on anyone’s toes. Because every challenging conversation I have, needs to be approached differently.

Strike Day

A momentous occasion that’ll be part of NZ history. I felt proud to be a teacher walking down Queen Street, but also immensely sad how the negotiations played out. This was an emotional roller coaster for me, having to constantly remind myself how I teach for the kids not money, but how overworked and undervalued I feel. The process certainly reminded me why I love teaching, but I also noticed I felt deflated and reduced the amount of time I invested in schoolwork at home.

Teacher In Charge of 12Health

Being in charge of a course has meant I’ve learnt more about moderation procedures, planning senior units, facilitating meetings and adapting the course from student feedback. I plan to write an entire blogpost about this later in the year!

Certificates 

I’ve previously blogged about what the Miss D is proud certificates are here, and student feedback here. This has been a considerable highlight of my year. I get warm fuzzies when I send the certificates home, and look forward to it! I decided to send them on Friday mornings, which has been a great way to end each week - particularly when I’ve had a stressful or horrible week. 

Overall this visual has been a great way to reflect on many things throughout the year, and recommend others to do the same! One term to go...

Whānau Pride - A Student Motivator

Throughout the year I have been sending home 2 Miss D is proud certificates per week, as previously blogged about here. To check in how they've gone so far, I decided to ask 8 students the below key questions about the certificates, to use their feedback to reflect;

- How did you feel when you received the certificate?

- How did your caregivers respond?

- Have you had any positive things sent home like this before?

- Do you think receiving the certificate affected how you were in Health/PE afterward?

- Would you suggest I continue to send these? Why/Why not?

Although I have 5 major classes, I have only sent one certificate to one Year 13 so far, so decided to focus on my Years 9-12 for feedback. Alongside are some of the key comments the students made, which left me thinking further (and feeling warm fuzzies!).

When I went through the students' responses to the above questions, the common words which appeared were good (8/8), proud (5/8), happy (4) and recognised (4). The overall consensus was that students felt good or happy they had been recognised for working hard in Health and/or PE, and their caregivers were proud of them. This is great news, because this was the intent of the certificates - to increase positive messages and connections with whānau and to spend some of my time acknowledging the incredible things the kids are doing (as opposed to the time needed to spend chasing up students who have been off-task or not self managed for example). Many of the students also spoke about how the certificate started positive conversations with their caregivers about their school successes!

Between this feedback and my own observations, I have noticed how I have begun to look forward to Friday morning when I sent home the certificates. Although some times I struggle to narrow them down to only 2, and other times struggle to think of 2 people who have gone above and beyond, it is a great feeling spreading positivity home to the students and their whānau, making me more excited and passionate about my teaching in hope to send more home!

Another interesting statistic and observation, was the difference in student responses within my class, after the students had received the certificate. 4/8 students explained  that receiving a certificate did positively affect how they were in my class after, 3 Juniors and 1 Senior. Some commented it motivated them to continue to succeed, and others said it made them feel special I had recognised them, so they wanted to give their best to continue to be recognised. The 4/8 students who said the certificate did not affect how they were in my class afterward were interestingly all high academic students, who already want to be successful and I don't think the certificates made a direct difference to their engagement or work ethic for example (as identified by the other 4). Though, the certificates possibly strengthened my relationships with these students. In conjunction with these stats, I have observed the students who are in Years 9&10 are generally more positively receptive to the idea than the Years 11&12. Possibly the Seniors feel the certificate is childish, so I may need to reconsider what to do next year for my Seniors. But I will definitely be keeping the certificates going - particularly as my Year 11s have now started calling it a club that only some people are part of!

A couple of further comments/suggestions from the students I will consider further;

- Tell my classes at the beginning of the year, so the students know they may receive one if they go above and beyond. (This year I've kept it on the complete down-low, and sent the certificates directly home, without discussing them or who received them with my classes). BUT students may feel disheartened if they know about it, but don't receive one.

- Have a board of all of the 'members' and/or the 'ex-members' of the 'club', so we could strive to get onto the board.

We Like to Move It, Move It!

As we are adapting our Junior courses into an integrated curriculum next year, we also need to consider how we are going to adapt our methods of assessment. Rather than giving students grades that are inconsistent across departments and within departments based off of Achieved, Merit or Excellence (which can be subjective even with a marking criteria), another major shift next year will be assessing students based off of levels of the New Zealand Curriculum. This is going to be a challenge for us, and for the students, especially when we are going to need to design the rubrics for these levels for each of our integrated units!

As practice for this method of assessment, this term we utilised the NZC levels to assess our Year 9 Movement Education unit. The purpose of this unit is to encourage students to step out of their comfort zones and to learn some new skills for dance, gymnastics and parkour. This new method of assessment the students are unfamiliar with, hence we started by co-constructing what these levels actually looked like in action, see pictures below. 

Once we had discussed these levels and the purpose of the unit, I asked my students to select one emoji to represent them throughout the term. We regularly had mini discussions about what level the students thought they had been demonstrating throughout the lessons and why. In addition, students moved their emoji to the self assessed level. See alongside the progressions from the beginning of the unit to the end of the unit - it's interesting to see how many students fluctuated, but also great to see so many students sitting at or above the expected level of a Year 9 student! 

This method of assessment definitely required some more prep, and a more conscious effort to embed within the teaching and learning, but I think was a great way to have more consistency of grading and also students had more understanding of the why and how. I enjoyed discussing with students why they were moving (or not) their emoji, because most of them were able to give detailed responses related to their demonstrations, with examples. 

Some stand out comments from some of my students about the overall unit include the following;

"I think it is a very good thing to do it has definitely helped my confidence and it was heaps of fun once I got into it."

"I learnt a lot of new skills and things I couldn't do and I learnt that if you commit to something you can most likely do it."

"The dancing impacted me because it pushed me out of my own comfort zone to try something new and kind of scary. I don't enjoying doing dances in front of other people but it wasn't that bad once I was doing it with my friends."

"My main challenges were in the parkour where I was not getting too involved in the whole thing only one part of it but I thought I should give it a go so I could get up a level and try to enjoy it more and doing that helped a lot."

Moving forward into our next unit which will also use this method of assessment, I would like to have more discussions with students throughout the lessons, rather than just at the end when they are moving their emojis. I found this time I was only able to talk to each student once or twice throughout the unit, and obviously the more often, the greater students can demonstrate their understanding. I think that this is important, as next year we will have 75 students to assess against the NZC levels, rather than about 25. Additionally, I have previously learnt that gamification is a tool which many students positively react to - so I think I need to refer to moving up levels more often as a challenge for students to reach (as the last student voice has suggested).

Staff & Student Wellbeing - Super Important!

Last Monday and Tuesday I was lucky enough to spend two days at Christ's College in Christchurch at The Positive Education Conference, along with about 600 other people (Twitter feed: #positiveeducation2019 ). The conference was focused around student and teacher wellbeing, and gosh it was amazing. I left feeling slightly overwhelmed as there were so many amazing presentations, a lots of information to take in, but also so happy that wellbeing is at the forefront of so many educators minds.

I was, and am continuing to learn what Positive Education actually is. Essentially, it aims to teach students specific skills to enhance their wellbeing and lifestyle. Geelong Grammar School is leading Pos Ed, starting to teach Pos Ed courses/lessons about 10 years ago. Charlie Scudamore, the DP, was the opening keynote for conference, and was very insightful as to what Pos Ed actually is - this video also helps to explain. Geelong believe for Pos Ed to be successful, we must Learn, Live, Teach and Embed - and all steps are important as you can see below.

As we move into an integrated curriculum next year, our timetable is also changing. There is going to be an option line for students to complete their own inquiries/passion projects, as well as time for academic and pastoral mentoring. I can see how Positive Education could be included into these lines, because some of the initiatives and activities in Pos Ed are extensions of Health, and some are basic life skills like how to save money (here are Geelong's key concepts). I need to reflect a little further around this, but would love to put something together for our kids during this mentoring line (especially as one of the key messages from conference was that Positive Education cannot just be put into form classes once a week, but must be embedded within the teaching and learning curriculum/timetable).

Some of the things which left me thinking further about were:

• Sometimes what we see as misbehaviour, may actually be an imbalance in emotions which students don't know how to cope with, such as high stress. In this case, it is important we respond to the emotions, rather than the behaviours. 
  
• Students (and staff) need to learn about emotional regulation - the ability to recognise when any given emotion is inappropriate at a given time and to respond accordingly.
• Our 'thinking brain' can be taken over by our 'emotional brain', therefore we may not be responsive if our emotions are out of control - this relates to a lot I've learnt about arousal levels and the importance of teaching students strategies to calm their 'emotional brain', so that their 'thinking brain' can be effective. Three steps to attempt to make this happen: recognise, rebalance and rewire.
• "Don't work from the rakau, work from the ngākau" - move away from a tickbox to get things done or meeting standards, towards working from and for the heart.
• Our mental health system currently only has the capacity to help/support 3% of our population, so it's incredibly important we are looking out for one another and ask 'How are you, really?'
• We need to encourage and allow children to be the boss of their feelings, rather than their feelings bossing them around.
• If you were a fly on the wall, how would you feel, and what do you think the environment would be like?
• Mindfulness can be considered as mental fitness; thinking about the way we think, regulating our attention and being more aware of our surroundings.

Teacher wellbeing was a large focus of the conference. We are all aware how hard teachers work, and how we often put everyone before ourselves. I have definitely found that I have been quite stressed recently and that my to do list just gets longer and longer. The two key messages I took away were to recognise and nurture the things that support our wellbeing, and to only control what we can control. There is only so much we can do in a day, and only so much we can change, so there is no point obsessing over things out of our control. Darfield High School shared some of the ways they are embedding the 5 ways to wellbeing from Mental Health Foundation within their practice, to increase teacher wellbeing. I was really amazed how high a priority in their PD and use of time teacher wellbeing was - see some of the ideas alongside.

Moving forward, I need to consider how I could include some of the things I have learnt within my practice. I can be more aware of students and their emotions, I can look out for my peers/colleagues, and I can consider my classroom environment even moreso than usual. As mentioned there is great scope for Positive Education to be included in our 2020 curriculum, I just need to think how... And I would LOVE if teacher wellbeing became more of a focus for us too...

Three Years Under My Belt

I cannot believe my third year of teaching is over, and my first year at Orewa College. I have been on a rollercoaster this year, learning so much about the school culture and curriculum. I felt a little lost throughout the year, but also had substantial support surrounding me with my million questions! I had an end of year appraisal meeting with Adam, my HOD, discussing my strengths and areas I need further development in, in relation to the practising teacher criteria (see full report here). This post identifies some of the key points from our discussion.

My strengths are my lifelong learning, my professional relationships (particularly with my students), my classroom culture and the learning opportunities I provide. To strengthen these PTCs even further, next year I would like to make connections and increase my relationships within the community, and increase my understanding and inclusion of the Ako Orewa learning process (as previously blogged about). From student feedback, such as these comments from my Level 2 class, I feel confident with my classroom environments and hope students continue to feel safe and comfortable in my lessons.

Moving forward, the two PTCs which need the most attention/growth are 1 (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) and 5 (Design for learning). Next year I would love to learn more Te Reo Maori concepts, customs and terminology. I feel I naturally use some key phrases such as Morena, Haere Mai and Whakarongo Mai within my practice, but have a lot more to learn about cultural practices of Maori and other cultures within our community. One cultural practice we need to be aware of when teaching sexuality education for example, is that Tongan and Samoan students cannot be in the same lessons as their siblings as it is considered inappropriate. I feel though, I need to learn a substantial amount more about the history, culture and beliefs of our non New Zealand European students.

Therefore, my major 2019 goal is to become more confident in the use of Te Reo, read about tikanga Maori and have professional conversations with the Languages department at school. As a result, I would like to further develop the cultural responsiveness within my classes, to ensure I am inclusive of all students, with a specific focus on Maori. 

An additional goal is to analyse student achievement and student progress more regularly throughout the year, not only at the end of the year. After the Seniors left, I spent time breaking down student results, reflecting on the results, and examining where to go next, but feel I needed to have more discussions with students throughout the year to formatively assess their learning, not only summative assessment. I feel that can be achieved by shaping the structure within my classroom to allow for small group tutorials, as well as discussions with individuals. This structure will require a lot a trust within my classes, which will come back to how I create relationships with the students. I am grateful to be sharing a Level 3 PE class with Adam, and his strength is structuring his classes to have tutorials and check-ins with the kids, so I will learn plenty alongside him!

Now though, it is time to unwind and have a break, ready to tackle some new challenges next year!