Play, Eat , Learn

Recently we have started our new initiative of Play, Eat Learn.  This means that we have made some changes to our timetable in order to allow this to happen.  The children are given time to go out to play before they eat at both morning tea and lunch.  When they have had a chance to play, they can then go on to eat their lunch and then carry on with their learning.  I see some serious positives for this initiative.  I feel that the main advantage of playing before the children eat, is that the children are not rushing to finish eating so they can get on with the playing.  I also think that after they have been inside ( usually) learning, then they need to have a run around.  I also find the transition from learning to play is very quick- which is great if you are on duty.  I might be worng but I think I have noticed less arguements and problems in the playground.  I see some advantages regarding the way we are running our "eat"part of the day, however I am unsure as to whether or not this is to do with the order of playing first or not. These advantages are that I think the children are more hungry so therefore they eat more lunch. I like the way everyone has the same amount of time to eat so this eliminates the rushing to play problem.  I have noticed a lot of chit chat with the children at eating time- sometimes a bit too much chit chat ( or rather a bit much volume.) I think taht on the whole, this is positive as they are building their realtionships with each other.
On the other hand I can see a couple of possible issues with this- one being that the children are eating quite late in the piece ( especially for lunch).  My reasoning for saying this is that I know that when the children are at preschool, they begin kai much earlier eg 11.30am so to leave it till 1.00pm is challenging for the little ones I feel. This will be something they will get used to but I think that when they first start school , it might be tricky.  I have to admit that I sometimes feel a bit guilty eating before the children too.  The only other issue I can see is that the little children sometimes need more time to eat their lunch than what they have.  I believe that this would only apply for my end of the school, in fact- I wonder if the senior part of the school experience the opposite problem?  And on the whole- these are little things. ( I guess I am trying to be reflective!)
Another part of our new initiative is the carb snack in the morning,  I think that for some of the children, this is vital and I certainly believe that without it, it would be bad news.  Happily, I am sure that most of the children get a good breakfast before coming to school but this is not he case for everyone.  The children like the carb snack and they are very happy to be involved.  I don't recall anyone who has declined the carb snack.  Obviously introducing such a thing comes with it's logistical issues- we have got onto those eatly in the piece and  it seems to tick along nicely for us.
We have also introduced the 'drink to think' initiative too.  I feel that personally I am probably one of the people to benefit the most form this as I am not great at drinking water and I am enjoying it- although my trips to the bathroom have certainly increased!!  The chidlren have also really appreciated the drink bottles being available all the time..  Some of the children are better at rememebering to drink it than others but I am trying to model this for them.  Initaially, they were always wanting to go to the toilet, but thankfully  this has settled down.
I am very keen to find out how the Omega 3 initiative goes as well down the track if we go ahead with this.  I have tried this with my own children and I saw almost instant results which surprised me.  It appeared to have a calming or leveling affect.
All in all, I think that to comment on the outcomes of these new initiatives is too early as we need to give it more time to reap the benefits.  It is great that we are trialling these and as it is with anything, we get used to it and if I was told it was going to change back to the 'old way' - I think I would be dissappointed

APPLIED PRACTICE IN CONTEXT

BLOG POST 2

WEEK 26

APPLIED PRACTICE IN CONTEXT

We are a school borne out of the earthquakes and we are the result of two schools closing down and opening as a new entity.  Most of the 375 children attending our school have come from one of the two schools that closed. Some staff have come from the two schools and there are a few (including me) that have come from elsewhere.  Our Lady of Fatima and St Paul’s are the two schools that closed and both schools were steeped in a history of their own. Stoll (1998) states that a school’s culture is shaped by its history, context and the people in it and that a school's age can impact cultural change.  I feel fortunate to be a founding member of our new school and to be able to help establish our school culture. 

We are a decile 8 school with a number of cultures represented. I think it is fair to say that the decile 8 would be an indicator of the socio economic status of our school.  Our school is situated in an area in Christchurch that has been specifically designed to have a real cross section of socio economic groups.  We are surrounded by some quite grand homes which are deliberately interspersed with some state housing.  This area of Christchurch has been purposefully designed to attract an eclectic group of people.   Because we are a Catholic school, our area is naturally widened and therefore we are getting students from the new subdivisions in the area, hence the decile 8 being a fair indication. It is interesting to note that we have in excess of 20 preschools feeding our school.   We have a vast majority of students who are of New Zealand European descent and the smaller groups we have represented include New Zealand Maori and Filipino and African among others. 

Building relationships with parents and most importantly children underpin my practice.  As a new entrant teacher I aim to be part of a culture where all children are supported in their transition to school and where children and other teachers in my team feel supported to take risks to achieve our common goal. 

Stoll (1998) suggests that relationships, organisational structure and learning nature are the basis of all culture.  We are working in a collaborative environment and since the beginning of our school opening, we have seen a strengthening of identity as a team and trust as we work together to achieve a common goal.  As we have collaborated we have seen an increase in communication and collegiality and I believe we are now at a point where we can be supportive toward each other to encourage best practice. 

The organisational structure of our school is transparent.  Our senior leadership team are integral in helping to develop our school culture.  They work collaboratively and give extra opportunities for us to work collaboratively as a team to establish working relationships and they are very supportive and caring. 

Our school is divided into four hubs.  Each hub has a unique culture which contributes to the overall culture of our school.

The learning nature of our school has been ever evolving since we opened. We have recently constructed our vision - “Choosing to be an innovative Catholic Learning Community that inspires and empowers learners to succeed.”  The staff were involved in this process and therefore I feel I have a lot more ownership around this.  The building of our vision continues to include the wider school community including our Parish and families as we are all collectively responsible in achieving this.

One of the issues we have in our community of practice is the fact that our vision is still so new and we need to embed it into our school over time.  We need to make it a part of our everyday life.

Because we are such a new school, I think we are on a journey of developing our school culture and we have to continue to tread carefully and be ever mindful of the reason we came to be.  This will be, at times, challenging I am sure, but exciting too.

REFERENCES

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

BLOG POST 1- Louise MacKay

WEEK 26

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

 It had never occurred to me before that my Community of Practice (COP) is embedded into many different aspects of my professional life.

Wegner and Treyner (2015) acknowledge that this is a relatively new title to give to an age old phenomenon and define a community of practice as being “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” 

I have reflected on who makes up my COP. I am aware that I am a member of a number of different COP at different levels.  These include my school community including my team ( hub) and the staff as a whole, my preschool teachers network group, the mind lab family, my professional learning group to name but a few. I am involved at different levels and I might add, at different times, with these COP, however there are two groups that I consider to be my “main” COP for the time being and for the purpose of this post, I will concentrate on my teaching team and my preschool networking group. My teaching team consist of 5 teachers, in my Hub at my school.  My preschool networking group is a group of about 20 teachers from different preschools in our area and the teachers in my hub at our school. I set up this group to share ideas, and develop relationships with the preschools in our area to help make the transition to school smoother for the children. 

 Wenger (2015) identifies three main characteristics that must be present to form a COP.  These are the domain, the community and the practice. The domain is the area of shared inquiry of the key issues, the community is about relationships among the members and their sense of belonging and the practice is about the knowledge, methodology, the documents and the resources.  (Knox 2009)

The shared domain with my teaching team at school is the children we teach and ensuring that they receive the best education possible and that their individual needs are being met in a nurturing and caring environment.   Our community is fostered by coming together regularly as a hub and as a team to pray and sing together, we share our successes as a hub by meeting for a weekly hui and we meet several times a week to learn together.  In my teaching team, we work together to learn from each other and to collectively work out how to meet our goals so that we value other people’s knowledge, expertise and opinions and allows for us to expand and exchange this knowledge.  This happens in several different ways.  We have weekly meetings to share ideas and plan collaboratively, we have individual as well as group professional discussions.   Currently we are working collectively on our values and our school vision as we are a newly opened school so this has been valuable in developing the COP ensuring that it is the combination of these three elements that constitutes a community of practice. And it is by developing these three elements in parallel that one cultivates such a community. (Wegner 2000)

In my preschool networking group, we have a shared domain of helping each other to ensure the children have a smooth transition from the early childhood setting to school. I am the leader of this group so I feel responsibility to ensure we are meeting on a regular basis to share ideas and expertise and build up a collective bank of resources.  Every member of the group is continuing to build relationships with each other and share knowledge to better themselves as teachers and ultimately to ensure the transition to school for these wee people is as smooth as it can be.

The members of both my COP understand the shared purpose of belonging to the community and are committed to regular interactions.  This has lead us to build up resources and knowledge and we all have someone to turn to if we need advice with anything.  I think our communities are something we need to continuously develop and nurture.

REFERENCES

Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk

Wenger-Traynor, E & B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice. http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Maths at Hoon Hay

A morning at Hoon Hay school
This morning we travelled to Hoon Hay school to see their Maths programme. I have had some time to reflect on a couple of points that I took from the morning.  Wendy Dent was the presenter and she talked a lot about using mixed ability grouping in Maths.  At first I was surprised to hear that this was how they group children through the whole school in Maths.   This, I feel, linked in nicely with the whole Growth Mindset approach.  Wendy talked about how the children that are ability grouped often see themselves as being better at something that others or not as good as others.  They judge their own ability by how they perceive others ability in the group eg If they are in a group with Fred who isn't as good at Maths as Mary, then they begin to believe they too are not good at Maths.  If we, as teachers use mixed grouping, then this confuses the perceived heirachy and all children learn to believe in themselves and in their ability.  They can also learn from each other.
We saw the different classes using a problem solving approach which was really interesting.  It was great to see the NE classes so engaged in solving the problems.  Each class ( regardless of level) did a lot of talking about the problem, what information they knew, what information they didn't know from reading the problem and then went away with a Maths buddy and worked on different ways of solving the problem.  I found this really interesting and it was great to see a system or a "formula" work across all the levels of the school.
I liked the way the childern worked so well together.  In the NE class, the teacher had a great "hook" for the children which involved having a mystery envelope with a number in it.  They had to make the number as many different ways as possible.  I will use this in my own practice.  The teacher was saying that it has now become a bit of a competition between the children who are trying to 'outdo' each other with winning the most ways of making the number.  I have been thinking of some ways that I could expand some tof these sorts of activities.
It was great to listen to someone who is so passionate about teaching maths.  I found her to be quite inspirational.