The big move from Single Cell to Open Plan

As the end of another academic year draws to a close, I take myself back to day one of the year.  I was greeted my very sweet 17 New Entrants, with their crisp new school uniforms and brand new shiny black shoes.  This is not a scenario unfamiliar to me as I have greeted New Entrants for years on their first day at school. This year was a little different for me.  We had decided to introduce Learning Through Play in order to improve the transition to school. Learning Through Play was designed to make children feel settled and relaxed when they are beginning their day.  I didn't realise the amount of learning and the value of play at this stage, I think, upon reflection. I always knew it was important but it had never occurred to me that they were learning so many different skills including problem solving, communication, conflict resolution etc.  The first term in the single cell classroom was made a great deal easier by having our lovely Teacher Aide- Rachael. She was amazing and we had a lot of professional conversations around the different children and the activities they gravitated to. I later learnt that these are the urges that children display.  As much as I could, I tried to provide activities and areas that would lead to fostering these urges. We set up a construction area in the classroom complete with real road signs and wood, nails and hammers. We had a number of boys who were right into this area of the room. The noise of the hammers banging eventually got the better of me and trying to pull phonics groups and reading groups out with hammers banging, meant I had to change it up a bit- ie getting tools that were plastic.  A group of children also were displaying a real interest in shopping. Helen, another wonderful Teacher Aide, set up a shop with conveyor belt etc. It was very cool and we asked parents to bring empty boxes in so we had some produce. This was great, but if I am honest, I found it really hard in a single cell classroom with all the noise and not to mention mess. I wonder if the novelty of it all made the mess worse or were we blurring lines because we didn’t have the appropriate space.

In Term 2, two significant changes happened in my teaching world.  We moved into our teaching space and made the move from single cell to a collaborative teaching and learning environment.  The second significant change in my teaching world was that my youngest son started school in the same learning space as me and my middle child was also going to be in the same space. This seemed at the time quite a lot to get my head around.  We spent a bit of time moving into our new block and it is fair to say it wasn’t without our teething problems as we all found our feet and found our place in our team. Finally we had an appropriate space to administer our Learning Through Play, an appropriate, and to my surprise, quiet space to take our groups in the teaching room.  The middle two rooms include a provocations room where children are provided with equipment and challenging question to provoke their thinking, and a Follow Up room where children complete work from the teaching session.

This took a bit of getting used to, but the space is fantastic and the children quickly came to terms with the new routine.  

Throughout the year we have played with the spaces a bit.  We each have a “home base” area and this has been moved and tweaked a few times since moving in.  We have moved furniture and added equipment to, and removed equipment from the play area.

We are all on a journey and while things are working well enough, we still have a great deal of room for improvement.  

I love working as a collaborative team for many reasons.  I enjoy the proximity teaching, the fact that we can bounce ideas off each other,the increased professional discussions and the general collegiality which naturally occurs in a team setting.

I see room for improvement in the follow up room with regard to children being on task and the monitoring of those children as well as children in the provocations room and the Learning Through Play area while you are coaching. It is very difficult to do justice to everything with so many children.

 It is fair to say I much prefer my teaching days to my coaching days. It is also vital that the children are being challenged and extended in the provocations room and I feel this needs work.

On the whole I have enjoyed working in our new space and this was confirmed when last week I was asked, if given a choice ,would I want to go back to single cell- or stay in the open plan MLE. I surprised myself by answering, without much thought needed, - "No way- I love the collaborative learning environment and I would struggle to return to the autonomy of single cell"
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It has been a big year with it’s fair share of ups and downs but I have learnt a lot this year and changed my thinking considerably around some reservations I might have once had about play based learning and open plan MLE.

Francis Valentine- Mind Lab

Last year I completed my certificate in Digital Technology and Collaboration through Mind Lab here in Christchurch. Often I had watched videos fronted by the founder of Mind Lab - Francis Valentine. I often saw her on the news and thought it would be great to one day hear her talk. That opportunity turned up last week. Her talk was in our new school hall and replaced our staff meeting for the week. Probably the first thing that struck me was how genuine and real she was. She mostly talked off the cuff and she was very engaging. Francis’ s message was very clear from the beginning- we must incorporate digital technology into our classrooms and change the way we teach and think if we are to educate the students of the future effectively. The 21st century skills are different to the 20th century skills we used to teach and the types of jobs we are preparing our children in our classes for look very different and to some extent- haven’t even been thought of yet.


It is important to note that technology should only ever be a tool to make learning engaging, aide communication and stay connected.

We are in a position where we need to prepare children for a global world. The effect the world has on us is much bigger than the effect that we have on the world because NZ is so small making up only .33% of the world economy.

One of the arguments for supporting technology is the fact that things like Fortnight and some gaming can have a negative effect on our young people so the question remains- How can we support technology when it has potential to cause us problems? The use of technology requires common sense and as parents, and to a lesser extent educators, we need to know when it is time to switch off the technology.

Some would say that it is a sad state of affairs that we are facing a future of the old “analogue” jobs of today will soon be replaced with digital technology- robots and drones etc

It feels a bit like the human touch will soon be surplus to requirements. In their ever changing world our children need to be resilient, flexible, communicative, problem solvers, team players etc if they want to be successful in the future.

One of the things that I often talk about and think about is the fact that children of today do not need to really retain information or wait to find out anything they need to know these days. Everything is at their fingertips and most importantly they can get almost any information their heart desires instantly. Children of today don’t so much need to know the answers but they need to know the solution.

Never has there been a time of such rapid change in the technological world and the analogue world for that matter- it is our job as educators to prepare our students to feel confident in the face of change and be able to adapt to new technologies. It is a case of what worked for me in my education, won’t work for the children of today- the world is very different.

We need to ensure that we are not preparing our children for a world that used to exist, but doesn’t anymore- we need to prepare them for the world in which we are living today and we need to look to the future.





If I am honest, I came away from this talk feeling ever so slightly scared for the future of education and the future my kids. I have since thought about this and have decide I am a bit scared of the unknown! I believe we are heading into uncharted territory and for the most part it is exciting if not a little scary.

Food for thought- Having Life to the Full Course 2018

I recently spent 4 full days completing ""Having Life to the Full course with the Catholic Education Office.  I enjoyed this course and found it very interesting to learn more on the Catholic take on some fairly delicate topics. One of the things that resonated with me was the way the Catholic Church has recently become more "modern"  Pope Francis has been pivotal in leading the church in to becoming more a much more accepting place. The church has become far more accepting of people in same sex relationships. While the Catholic church still will not marry couples in same sex relationships, they are welcomed into the church and they are celebrated.  The church has also greatly relaxed it’s thoughts on divorce and receiving communion if you are divorced. I think this is a giant leap for the Catholic Church in times where our numbers of attendees on Sunday mornings are rapidly dwindling. Here’s hoping these more modern attitudes will bring back some people who previously felt shunned?

We covered a lot about the issues we as teachers are up against when we teach sexuality in school.  Here is an example of how one of those many issues might be addressed.

A parent rings you to complain that sexuality education should not be part of the Health curriculum in a Catholic School. How do you respond?

Sexuality is a component of the New Zealand Curriculum which legally we have to cover.  We teach sexuality in a very positive way while all the time being acutely aware of the age and stage of the children we teach.  We teach to the highest ideal while maintaining a profound dignity and respect for each other’s differences.

Sexuality  education is also about developing young people’s skills so that they make informed choices about their behavior, and feel confident and competent about acting on these choices. We want our students in Catholic Schools to have the Catholic perspective on these teachings.  

Sexuality is a gift from God, God lives in us and becomes present to others through us.  “Sexuality is an all-encompassing energy inside us. In one sense, it is identifiable with the principle of life itself. It is the drive for love, communion, community, friendship, family, affection, wholeness, consummation, creativity, self-perpetuation, immortality, joy, delight, humour and self-transcendence.” - Rolheiser, Ronald (1999)

John 4:8-16 says in the Bible that “ he who does not know love does not know God, for God is love.”

God loves us so much that he sent us his only son so that we might live through him.

John goes on to say that if God loved us so much to send his son, then we ought to love one another.  

If we love each other then God’s love has been perfected and he is abiding in us. By confessing our faith, God aides in us and we in Him.  God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in him.

In St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he talks of love being patient, kind, not being boastful or keeping a record of wrongs.

This verse describes the characteristics of true love. These qualities can certainly be found in the person of Jesus Christ, and they can be found in all truly loving relationships. The problem with trying to “find” love in our dating lives, is that too often we don't look for these characteristics. Rather we look at physical appearance, popularity, or wealth. These are not the qualities that God looks at and neither should we.

Sexuality is a beautiful, good , extremely powerful, sacred energy , given us by God. We are embodied souls with sexual needs and identities, that God wanted this, and that this is  good.

Effective sexuality education also provides young people with an opportunity to explore  how it involves emotions, respect for one self and other people and their feelings, decisions and bodies. It gives an insight into  what the positive qualities of relationships are. It is important that they understand how bullying, stereotyping, abuse and exploitation can negatively influence relationships.

Understanding Leveled Text

I attended a course about Guided reading  which I found to be interesting. It was a good reminder of a lot of things I already knew but it is good to hear it again. The main message from this course was that we need to teach children to be balanced readers, rather than just good at decoding. Comprehension is really important.


The course was referencing the PM readers (my favourites) that we use at school. I hadn’t realised that so much thought and consideration goes into each written text. I learnt that the first contraction the children will meet in a PM reader is in Level 11 ( I’ve- I have). In a well leveled text, nothing is left to chance. They count the amount of words and the number of times that certain high frequency and interest words are allowed to be used in a text, the number of words and lines on each page is important and well considered - who knew??


We were taught that it is important to have more of an understanding of the levels within the structure of PM’s rather than just saying that a level 4 is harder than a level 5 text. The reason why we used leveled text is because as children learn to read, most will become a balanced reader. What is a balanced reader? A balanced reader can decode, correctly say words on the page- pull words apart and put words back together. They will be fluent and have correct phrasing, and they will have a good understanding of what they have read.


I found it interesting to note that fluency and phrasing is leveled just as much as the decoding is leveled. Decoding is the easy part to teach and this is the part that parents of the children we teach see as most important. Often as children move through the levels, we learn that children can decode but can’t answer anything about what they have read.


When a child is 8 years old, they should be decoding 80 words per minute, a 10 year old- 100 words per minute and a 12 year old 120 words per minute.


The early levels are strongly developed for CAPS. There is consistent placement of print and the number of high frequency words are slowly increased as you move through the levels. The return sweep is introduced in level 2 and always for a new sentence. Every level has a repetition rate and new words will be repeated a certain number of times. Between each level, a new word is introduced -1 word in 20.


The phrasing and fluency is carefully planned. Level 15 books have all the line breaks uneven and you will notice conjunctions at the beginning of the line as oppose to Level 30 has very even line breaks and children have to read more than one idea so they are reading compound sentences. Level 20 books no longer have conjunctions at the beginning of the line - they are in the middle and by the time we reach level 30 conjunctions are replaced with commas. I have a new respect for the PM authors.

In order to become a balanced reader, children need to be exposed to a lot of different books including narrative, information, explanation etc. Children need to be balanced readers at every level and leveled texts were developed to produce balanced readers. We as teachers of reading need to be careful that we are considering the fact that children need to be balanced readers at every level and not create a race to get to a certain level as fast as we can. We also need to consider the interest level of our readers and the reading age needs to match this. It is easy as teachers to want to race children ahead and this is a timely reminder to slow the process and ensure the children are reading where they should be- not where we would like them to be.

PMI - Learning Through Play

Learning Through Play in the Kakano Hub-Team PMI

P	M	I
Children excited about coming to school, happier to leave parents and play Parents interacting with their child other children/preschoolers in play Parents peace of mind, leave knowing their child is happy playing with friends Children more settling at school going into the daily routines More like preschool Smoother transition to school Children have the opportunity to be creative Children are able to voice and choose their learning through provocations Teachers build relationships with all children tin the hub - benefiting all Children mixing and interacting with children they might not usually choose to play with. Caters for all children - no one is left out. Teachers working with each other using different strengths More time to talk to parents and establish good relationships Lots of variety and choice of activities for children Easy to locate/communicate with parents Fun! More friends to go around Lots of opportunities for sharing and celebrating the learning	Can be difficult to observe and interact with children Some children struggle when first starting with the amount of children.   Budget can be restrictive Keeping the Hub tidy, making sure everything goes back in the right place - hard to keep track of children’s books Noise - can get noisy Storage and resourcing Hard to fit in to the curriculum. See so many ideas but they potentially cost too much to implement Harder to find specific children in a timely manner More doors for children to ‘sneak’ out of, to toilet etc.	Children can pursue own interests Providing children with a different set of skills including problem solving etc to fit with the 21st century Brings different children together who would not normally interact with each other. It provides a great opportunity to talk to children and get to know them a bit better in a less formal setting Change in teacher language ie ‘provocations’, ‘learning space’ etc. What the children create Children's talents shine through Constant change over of activities in provocations room

Catholic Convention 2018

I have just returned from Wellington last night where I spent 2 nights away from my 3 kids and husband ( this is a first for me). I left him in charge and boarded a plane ( and I HATE flying) with 3 of my colleagues to head to the 2018 Catholic Convention in Wellington. I had heard my sister rave about these conventions in the past and never expected to have the privilege of attending one myself.

I attended many seminars and listened to the many keynote speakers and to write about them all would take me forever. I was really interested to hear Dame Therese Walsh Dame Therese Walsh DNZM is a chief executive and business leader from New Zealand. Her particular successes include her roles as the chief operating officer for the 2011 Rugby World Cup and head of the organising body for the 2015 Cricket World Cup, held in Australia and New Zealand. Her Catholic upbringing and education in the Catholic system was integral to her success in every aspect of her life. Her values and morals are rooted in her Catholicism.

It was great to hear other speakers along the way but the speaker that I take away was David Wells- and I am not even talking about his keynote speech. It was a seminar on Thursday afternoon that I ended up attending quite by chance called “Cheer up, You look like you sucked a lemon.”

I was surprised to enter the room and see so many people there - especially the amount of principals I recognised. The lady introduced him and apologised for the late start and explained that the session would run 10 minutes overtime-( you should have hear the groan in the room at the thought). David started talking in his very pronounced English accent and I was instantly hooked ( I love anything English!). There were lots of thought provoking messages David delivered that day that will stay with me for a long time. Some of them are quite random! He was recalling his Dad dying and being on his deathbed. David asked his Dad which piece of advice he should heed from him above all the many times he had given him advice?. His Dad replied, ‘Enjoy life David- just enjoy it as much as you can.” He then told a sort of joke which stuck with me. It goes something like this….When we die and we get to the pearly gates- God will meet us and ask- “So how was that amazing gift I gave you?- you know - the gift of life?” David replies- Well I didn't like the Monday’s- they were awful- really hard work. God replied “Oh I am sorry to hear to hear that- so tell me about the Tuesdays!” David replies-”Oh no I didn’t really have much time for the Tuesdays either- but I did enjoy most of the Fridays- they were mostly good!” The point being that our attitude can really affect us more than we realise. If we have a negative attitude- suddenly we find ourselves hating 2/7 of our whole life ( and I didn't even get to Wednesday- cause sometimes they are not much fun either.) This might not read so well, but for me it was life changing! I have quoted this to many of my friends and family and everyone has laughed initially and then discovered the truth in the situation.

The other thing that has stuck with me is about the approach we have to going to church. We are supposed to be these very happy Christians who go to celebrate and worship the Lord each week at Mass. Yet when we are actually in Mass, we are glum- not too many of us are smiling and we ( especially me) spend a lot of time telling our children to be quiet and sit still etc. Who cares? This was highlighted by David (and again I have quoted and tried to remember this in practice- and am failing miserably I might add) when his daughter who was 4 years old at the time told him she had a new version of “Here is the church, here are the people, open the door and here’s all the people.” Her newly created version went like this- "here is the church, “Here are the people, open the door and here’s all the people- sh sh sh sh.” This rang true to me because I think we are so regimented sometimes in our Mass- and our children can be known to whinge because they have to go and be silent and conform for an hour each week- is this what God wants?- or does he want us to not sweat the small stuff and be happy in his presence? In other words- we have been given this amazing gift from the Lord- the gift of life- we need to cherish each minute and each person we encounter and laugh and enjoy the gift we have been blessed with. This has been profound for me.

I might add- that we went overtime- and hung on every word that came from the mouth of David Wells that day. I think most Principals were late for their AGM in that room and chose to stay till the end of the seminar. Sadly, I realised it had been a long time since I had laughed so much that tears streamed down my face but I did that day and I have tried to remember to cheer up and not look like I have sucked a lemon!

I am grateful to my school and BOT for allowing me the privilege to attend such a wonderful convention. Please can I go next time?

Learning Through Play

I was asked to speak at a Nanny Conference recently. This was a valuable experience for me because it pushed me into thinking on a deeper level about our journey of Learning Through Play so far. It provided me an opportunity to prioritise researching and reading more about the value of play in education. I guess the biggest reminder for me was that this is not a new concept and it is something that people, as long ago and, as intelligent as, Vygotsky and Piaget have claimed essential to the growth and learning journey of our children. Please see the link below of the power point and speaker notes that I created or the evening with the Nanny's.

Learning Through Play

Longworth Education

Longworth Education- Learning Through Play

I was lucky enough to attend a full day Longworth Education Course with my team. I had heard a lot about Longworth education courses and knew this was a course which would be worthwhile. I found the course provided a valuable pedagogical base and framework to support learning through play which has become a topic in Education that has a high profile in New Zealand. Up until now I have always been conscious of using the word “play “. Longworth education encourages us to be proud to use this word because play is so powerful in the learning and teaching of our children. Our children are not designed to sit up straight and learn in a formal setting and more and more this is becoming evident as we scrutinise the children appearing on our roll at school. Play is a platform in which so many vital skills are taught and practised including problem solving, creativity, communication and the development of vocabulary and oral language.


Longworth describe the philosophy which drives play based learning. Primarily play is self chosen and self directed. It is about the process, rather than the product. It contains structures or rules established by the players themselves. It is Imaginative, non literal and removed from reality and it occurs between those who are active, alert and non stressed. (Gray, 2013; Brewer, 2007). One interesting point that was made was that it is OK for children to have the freedom to “quit”. I find myself naturally encouraging children to see things to their completion and to keep on trying and not to quit. I hadn’t considered that children who quit have made a conscious decision to leave their game and not returning which will encourage them to think about and act upon alternatives. If they choose not to quit and to participate then they will need to be open to resolving conflict that arises and have to work it out for themselves.

It was very clear that imaginative and dramatic play are very important for the development of social and cognitive skills in children. When children are engaged in dramatic and creative play of their own choosing, they are operating at a high level of cognitive and social development. Dramatic play allows space for development of executive functioning skills, identified now as key skills for the modern adult world. (Longworth Education) Dramatic and imaginative play allows for creativity and equips children with the skills required to problem solve and communicate effectively.

Today I learnt that children naturally display certain urges or behaviours that they repeatedly display. It is important and useful for educators to sit back and observe these behaviours which are allowing children to explore their thoughts and imagination. Play gives preschoolers a chance to express their feelings and practise managing them and we can learn a lot about our children through observing these urges. Some of the urges include rotation, transportation, water, fire, ordering, construction, throwing etc. We, as educators should be observing these urges and allowing for them in our environments by providing a variety of opportunity to allow the children to explore them further.

On the topic of environments, let’s head back to Longworth and see what a played based learning environment is characterised by. The following slide sums it up perfectly.
http://www.longwortheducation.co.nz/
Some of the challenges that I am working through in the providing of  a play based environment include the importance of taking a step back from children. It is important to resist the urge as teachers that some of us naturally have to leap in and solve the children’s problems and disagreements. Longworth Education have strongly discouraged this and I struggle with this in my teaching. I see the benefit for sure, it is just hard to stop myself sometimes.

I wonder about the loose parts and how we are to go about managing this aspect of the learning through play proramme we are running. I have questions which include- where do we source these and how do we keep supplies topped up on a limited budget? I wonder how often we need to be changing up the equipment and I still wonder how much equipment we should have out at one time. I have become more tolerant of the mess that is “play” ( both at school and at home) but mess still bugs me.

I got a lot out of the course today and I believe my colleagues did too. It will impact my teaching and that is for sure. Thank you Longworth Education.

RE Seminar

RE COURSE

What a way to kick the year off.  Today we attended the seminar related to The Social Justice paper we are doing for RE this year.  After a long break- it was a bit hard to get my head back into the space required for such a day.  The room was hot and there were a lot of us there and if I am honest, at times I was a bit uncomfortable.  Now I have sat down to blog about this while it is fresh in my mind and I am surprised to see I have taken so many notes.  The reason for this I think is because there were so many things today that were worth noting.

We were very lucky to hear Father John Adams speak firstly.  He was inspiring and the main thing I took from his talk was regarding the work that St Joseph’s parish (lead by Father John) to the Phillipines each year in March.  He showed a video of their trip and the different ways they provided practical help and opportunity to the communities less wealthy than our own.  He talked about how we are all created in God’s Image and that doesn’t mean we look like God but more that we are strong at the roots with a local response to the poor.  In the future I would like to think that I could be involved in some sort of work with the poor abroad to help and to feel like I had helped make a difference or live in the image of God.

The main key note speakers of the day were Michael Stewart and Julianne Hickey from Caritas.  They clearly defined the vast and far reaching role of Caritas and gave a very powerful presentation highlighting some of the many great works they do at both a local and global level. 

Social Justice was the theme of the day- Social is defined as relating to society or organisation.  Justice is fair and reasonable behaviour or treatment.    

Social Justice is the promotion of just societies and the fair treatment of individuals and communities.  God has made the earth and all it contains for everyone to share.  It is the right of everyone on this planet to share fairly in these riches.

Social Justice includes ensuring everyone has their basic needs  (education and health included) provided, Peace instead of violence, Discrimination free living,

As Catholics we have a duty to see, judge and act.  It is important that we open our eyes and be aware of the “problems” facing many our community members.  This involves looking at the here and now.  We need to form a judgement on the situations before us and in light of these same principles we need to decide what can be done to implement change( See, judge, act.)

It is our challenge to actually make up our minds to open our eyes – Don’t be unaware, then judge effectively- become grounded and finally to encourage action and become responsive.  We have a duty to scrutinize the sign of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel.

Some of the issues we face that we need to be opening our eyes to in 2018 include climate change, homelessness, refugees, consumerism, the effects of social media, capitalism, addiction, the effects of technology and how we use it and obesity.  This involves seeing and looking out for social issues and talking about them and ultimately being proactive.

This has got me thinking about ways in which our school can be involved in living the values supported by Caratis.  I wonder if we should start locally in own school and community and maybe raise money for children to get stationery at the start of the year, or school uniforms for those families that might struggle.  I wonder about the rubbish issue- taking the challenge to have a rubbish free school, building and planting a vege garden so that it could provide food for those in need- the options are endless.  I wonder if we can begin to achieve some of these things through Young Vinnies (if I am involved in this in 2018)

Laudito Si On Care for Our Common Home (Laudato Si') is the new appeal from Pope Francis addressed to "every person living on this planet" for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. Pope Francis calls the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of our environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. This encyclical is written with both hope and resolve, looking to our common future with candor and humility.

The 10 components

# Praise –how can we praise God and creation?  Laudato si means – praise be to you.

# Waste- take the challenge to clean up rubbish in the community- reduce, reuse, recycle.

#Climate Change-Share stories to gain understanding of the seriousness of climate change.

#Ecological Education- Encourage and discuss small changes children can make to care for creation ( eg using power more carefully)

#Thinking Beyond Ourselves- Putting others needs before ours.

#Holding onto Joy- Reminding children to always remain joyful (give thanks in all circumstances).  Have opportunities for students to share why they are thankful.

# The Excluded- Open students eyes to global poverty and the inequality of the world.

Standing up for the Poorest- Foster the “generous” spirit.  Think of ways to help the poor.

# Technology – Our Friend? – Reflect on our reliance on technology and the benefits/ issues.  Maximise benefits- but keep life simple- fo back to old ways at times.

# Stopping to Listen- Make time for children to be reflective- to listen to play.

I got a lot out of today and I look forward to doing the assignment.