Kāhui Ako ki Orewa

Friday, 26 July 2019 

Rāmere, te 26 o Hōnongoi, 2019

In this week’s update:

1. Welcome back
2. Professional Development opportunity at Orewa Primary
3. Tuhituhi/ Writing update
4. Playing traditional Māori hākinakina/ sports
5. Learner support tips
6. Pāngarau/Maths group update
7. Professional reading: 5 Ways To Engage Reluctant Learners
8. Podcast number 4: From teachers’ nightmare to accomplished educator

1. Welcome to Term 3

We hope you all had a fantastic holiday break and are avoiding the nasty winter bugs around.

This term our across school leaders team will be using the development map tool created by the Ministry of Education to reflect on our Orewa Kāhui Ako progress in our focus areas (Domains of Development.) This will help guide us where we need to head in the future in our journey of collaborative practice and focus areas of Maths, Writing, Te Reo and Learner Support, across our community. Our focus will be on the following Domains, with progress so far defined in four definite stages: establishing, developing, embedding, and fully functioning.

Domain 2: Leading for progress and achievement for every child and every teacher

Domain 4: Pathways developing and connecting along the whole educational journey for every child.

Domain 6: Building a thriving Community of Learning/Kahui Ako

2. Ngaio pukapuka kōrero/ Professional Development

Orewa Primary are hosting a Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko (the MoE’s National Digital Readiness programme) meetup on September 3rd 2019.

“Brand new to the digital technology curriculum content, not sure where to start? Join us for a fun-filled, hands on session to look at practical ideas to get you started. During this session we will look at both device based and unplugged activities, resources and ideas to implement readily with your students.” Registration details:- Link here

3. Rōpū Tuhituhi / Writing Focus Group

Our Term 3 focus in writing has arisen from our Term 2 writing moderation meeting, where we discussed the need to pursue the following areas:

1. NZC Levels 1 – 5 . Developing scaffolded expectations (anchor charts) that can be used to support instruction across the curriculum

2. Orewa Kāhui LPF matrix – Revisit our matrix to look at the content/ detail and modify where needed. Developing a LPF matrix in ‘student speak’

Please contact Sandy Blackburn sblackburn@wainui.school.nz if you would like to join in on these meetings or have any ideas that you would like us to share.

Do you need to help students to generate their ideas and imagination for story writing? Start the new term with Rory’s Story Cubes. A pocket-sized creative story generator, providing hours of imaginative play for all ages. With Rory’s Story Cubes, anyone can become a great storyteller and there are no wrong answers. Simply roll the cubes and let the pictures spark your imagination! Follow the link to the website here

4. Rōpū Te Reo Me Tikanga Māori

Top tip for normalising te reo Māori!:

Playing traditional Māori hākinakina/ sports

Hākinakina/ sport is a fun way to include Māori culture into your practice. Cultural activities that students are fully engaged in and having fun with are worth doing.

Discussions around Māori perspectives on health and well-being, exploring the origins of these games or similarities to games we play today, exposure to new language (Kupu hou) and the opportunity to develop physical skills and fitness can be easily woven into the learning of a game.

This week we trialled a kemu/ game call horo hopu from the r2r website and the students loved it. Before playing, we simply created a giant poi by attaching a rope to a ball, collected bibs from the sports shed and played the video below to the students, and we were away.

 

5. Rōpū Taunaki Ako/ Learning Support Group

Here is the third installment of what we can do in our classroom to support our learners. Remember UDL (Universal Design for Learning) = whichever strategies we use for one could benefit all in some way.

Modify the ecology (place, space, culture, environment, attitudes, learning barriers)

• Remove barriers to learning – physical and learning barriers for all
• Examine what is going on beneath the surface and modify environment accordingly
• Examine your classroom culture and environment – modify where required
• Modify factors in activity, task, delivery, expectation, method, output, interaction, collaboration, interest, time and inquiry.
• Modify the meaning of success as: growth, accepting a challenge, taking a risk, trying again, learning from mistakes, setting and achieving goals (not pass/fail)
• Demonstrate and nurture attitudes of: acceptance, enthusiasm, determination, positivity, encouragement, success and growth
• Modify the way you deliver classes – modify so the students can deliver/run/develop activities in the classroom, not teacher talk.
• Modify the way students can OUTPUT their learning (style, method)
• Modify tradition to become a growth mindset approach to all students can learn, rather than a fixed mindset
• ANYTHING you modify can help other students as well (Universal Design for Learning)

6. Rōpū Pāngarau/ Maths Group

The maths group will continue to share their maths programmes from the individual schools, and progress further along the LPF framework. In addition, we will continue to investigate the 2020 Digital Curriculum. We ended last term with a development of the continuum schools are on with regard to the implementation of the curriculum. It is interesting to share ideas and lesson plans which include both plugged and unplugged activities.

7. Pānui ngaio/ Professional Reading

5 Ways To Engage Reluctant Learners

Click here for full article : This short one page article has some really user friendly tips which can also serve as a useful reminder of ways to engage our reluctant learners.

8. Podcast number 4

The Wired Educator Podcast begins with an interview with Apple Distinguished Educator, Anthony Johnson. Anthony is a passionate educator and an inspiration to students and teachers alike. He reminds us that great teachers remember what it’s like to be a student. Link to podcast here.

To keep up to date, follow us on our Kāhui Ako website: https://orewakahuiako.com/

UPCOMING: