I have been trying hard to develop maths lessons that are authentic to the children, so that they can apply their maths knowledge to real-life contexts. Some of these include designing their own milkshake (measurement), plan a holiday (money, add-sub, budgeting and researching), and design your own video game truck (multiplication and division). I have attached these lessons below. The children have really enjoyed these lessons and have responded really well to them and shown a lot of string math knowledge.

I have developed strong relationships with my team that I teach with including relievers. I have attached a message that my CRT reliever sent to me.

I have finished up my role as the Kahui Ako within teacher this term. I appreciated the opportunity for leadership and enjoyed my time in the role as I got to meet a lot of new people and be pushed out of my comfort zone, however I decided not to reapply for the position as I feel I need to focus more on the things I am already doing and try to have a better work-life balance. Attached is a photo of the message put out in the Kahui Ako newsletter last term.

Over the past 3 terms I had the opportunity to experience leadership as I was the Kahui Ako within school lead teacher. As part of my role I experienced P.D of digital technology, I also planned and led workshops and was part of some strategic planning and conversations. I have attached photos to support this. link

I think that relationships is a strength of mine. I have worked hard to develop strong relationships with the children in my class and their familes, and feel that i am doing well. Below is a photo of a pink slip I received from a parent that supports this.

I have been focusing on my behaviour management and as part of this, I have done some observations on Natashas teaching. I have attached the observation and my next steps from this observation below. link

I was a part of the Digital Technologies Leadership Group through the COL. In this group, we have met with Nicki from Core during Terms 2 & 3 to discuss where we are at with implementation of the DT curriculum across our schools, and where DTs fits in the Technology Area of the NZ Curriculum. Nicki has provided us with a roadmap to give us a starting point for reviewing our current strengths and needs and creating goals towards 2020 implementation. As a Kāhui Ako, we have identified ‘enablers’ and ‘blockers’ so that we can find ways to work together to achieve the best outcomes for our students. As part of this P.D, I learnt about unpacking the progress outcomes for Computational Thinking and Design and developing digital outcomes, I also learnt about the authentic use of tools and some unplugged activities I can do in my class. Alongside this, I have also been doing online P.D through Kia Takatu to support this learning.

Last term we had a focus on feelings and relationships in our classroom. As part of this I taught lessons on Attitudes, Values & Friendships, Empathy, and identifying feelings. I felt that the students in my class responded well to this lesson and grew in their ability to care and support each other. I have attached an example of this planning.  link

This year I was in charge of planning for pet day this year. I spend a lot of time contacting judges, organising prizes and entries and resources. Unfortunately, the weather meant pet day was cancelled. However, we still ran the novelty events and I felt these were very successful. I have attached some of the work I did towards pet day as well as some photos of the novelty events we held. link

We spent some time doing Matariki learning and celebrating in term 2. I ran a workshop teaching the students about the nine stars of Matariki and we created a collaborative piece of art to support our learning. Claire did some crafts on the stars. We also had a shared kai to celebrate the Maori new year.

This term my syndicate is doing a focus on maths for Inquiry, with particular focus on “How can we increase students view & perception of mathematics to help them become more positive, engaged and motivated so that their learning in mathematics accelerates?”. We have identified a number of children who are unmotivated and lack a positive view of mathematics (maths is hard). These children, we have also identified as having low achievement in mathematics (see beginning of 2019 achievement data).   We will have 8 year 5/6 and 8 year 7/8 children in a withdraw target group to accelerate their mathematics.  These children will be withdrawn from week 2 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for 20-30 minutes extra mathematics. I will be takig the year 5/6 group and Natasha Jenkins will be taking the year 7/8 group.

Classroom observation on me, done by my team leader Natasha. The focus was on my behaviour management during maths.

I have been working alongside Shane at school to look into Maths best practises in our school and ways we can improve this. This has involved surveying the teachers in our school and also the teachers in our COL to find out what they are doing in maths and whether it is effective, doing some professional readings, and finding out what the needs and goals are for teachers in our school and COL for maths. The focus is on finding ways to effectively teach children maths in our school and increase the levels of achievement. See below for more details.

Today I received this email from a parent in my class (see attached email). It is good to see I am helping this child and building a strong relationship. This reassures me that what I am doing is important and is working and helping with the wellbeing of the children and families in my class.

In our class, we noticed that the children needed a visual aid to help with the school-wide behaviour management card system. Throughout the junior and middle school, they use an apple system, green apple = great, orange apple = warning for negative behaviour and red apple = red card which means detention and a phone call home. The children are to move the worms on to the different apples as they go through the school warning system. We found that this system was a bit “baby-ish” for our senior students so I have created an alternative that is more focused on the senior schools’ desirable behaviours. Often we discuss the concept of “living above the line” which comes from Habits for Wellbeing by Jane Taylor and discussion with our Principal Mark Ellis. On her  website ,  Jane shares a powerful quote that says “Ninety-nine per cent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver. We had a discussion with the children about what i...

This term as a class we created an ICT agreement to keep ourselves safe online and to use the computers in a safe and sensible way.

At the beginning of the year the students were given their testing from the first couple of weeks and from this they were able to come up with what they believe they need to work on. We used this information so that the children could self-set some goals they think they need to work on. The teachers then went through and added in anything else they thought the children were working on. The teachers can now use this information to direct their learning towards achieving these goals and the students are aware of what they need to work towards. This was also shared with their parents at the goal setting interviews in week 5. Example of the set up in doc attached.

I have been working on an individualised plan for two children in my class that struggle to fit into the mainstream classroom flow. This program includes some hands-on learning activities, research and reading that the students can do in their own time at their own pace without having to try and keep up with the rest of the class.

In the first week of school we spent some time with the children collaborating a classroom treaty for the children to follow this year. We began by reading the Tree Hut Treaty to introduce the concept of a treaty, followed by creating our own class promises, the children all had a chance to voice their ideas and we put these together to make a collaborative set of rules. The children then each received a piece of the artwork to complete which in the end created a big collaborated picture of the school flame which we felt was an important symbol of our class rules and school values.