Gail Loane Observation - Monday 15th Febraury 2016

Guided Writing - Foul Shot

Circle formation.

Handed out exemplar- what type of writing is it?
Poetry- why?
The way it is set up- goes through what each part of the poem is- elicits prior knowledge around stanzas, sentence structure.

What else do we expect from poetry?

Lots of- think pair share.

Gail reads out poem- follow with your eyes.

What sport is it?
Show me the word or line that tell us it is that sport.

-cricket- is there any information in there that tells us it isn't cricket.

Going for 100% understanding- going through the poem line by line. Checking for understanding.

Put a star by the ball- this is where the action starts.

Student acts out the poem.



If we were to do what Edwin A Hoey has done, which is take a moment in time and create a poem, what do we need to do.
What makes up each line?

Tell us what he is doing.
Verbs-actions
Underline the action words.

Success criteria - Created with the students.

Each line has an action.
Each line starts with a capital letter.
No weasel words- Only the most important/necessary words.

-What kinds of words are not in there? So what kind of words are in there?

Choose a sport or activity
Goes around each student and gets them to say aloud their sport or activity.

Teacher shares a personal experience and demonstrates their 10 seconds of action.

Teacher gifts students languages as she speaks- eases into the water, springs...

In pairs, students act out their 10 seconds.

Back into circle, one student shares their action and class adds language to their movement.

What's your first line?
Students say their first line out loud.

After Lesson Discussion:

·      Structure is effective for all different texts.

·      Didn’t share what the text was – allowed the students to come up with this on their own.

·      Always building up knowledge. Will build up more knowledge about poems over the term. What does this text offer?

·      Make it a discovery. Make the students detectives.

·      Address students current needs, e.g. spelling, through their writing everyday – next steps. Group common misconceptions for taking groups (Could be at the beginning of a Literacy session).

·      Spelling – SpellWrite and Spelling Under Scrutiny.

·      Tutorials – two groups per day. Can sometimes pull back a group even while all others are writing.

Honeycombs for writing.

·      Snippets of My Summer – I felt, I wondered, I noticed. Wanting students to build up their own writing possibilities (Writer’s Eyes). Creating independence.

·      Children need to come up with their own purposes

·      Three/Four quick pieces and then students choose which to go back to and complete.

·      No explicit LO given but talked about right through.

·      Not genre driven.

·      Often what is not expected is what we are going to learn. E.g. simile in an informative text – Why has the author used this? What effect does it have?

·      It is about getting students to discover (pairs) what you want them to learn.

·      Always check in. Could give overnight for them to think of ideas.

·      Visualisation – Present tense (Where are you? What are you doing?)

·      If you are using narrative you will pick one thing that you will draw out. E.g. the use of dialogue without said.

·      The text often dictates what you are going to do. Lead children to what you are looking for – they will get better at this.

1.  Starting Point

-       Context e.g. summer, UOI, ANZAC (What is it that I want them to know? What AO’s does it link to?)

-       Curriculum (How am I going to use Reading and Writing to access this?)

-       Student Need

2.  What do I want them to do?

- e.g. poem about a sport.

Dr Bill Rogers - Tactical Ignoring: Addressing the issue

Dr Bill Rogers - Ensuring a settled and focused class

Summary Evaluation of PYP in New Zealand

An interesting read.

Reflection - Week 2 Term 1

Week 2 has flown by. I feel that I am starting to get the hang of most of the routines at Berkley.

Most of this week has been spent assessing the students (carrying out a Basic Facts Assessment, IKAN 2, GAP Spelling and also some Gloss Testing). After marking these assessments I am beginning to get a good picture as to where the students are at and can now begin to organise them into teaching groups. Following further assessments in Week 3 I should have a very clear picture and be able to begin planning more to individual student needs.

As far as my classroom environment is concerned I feel that this week I have been able to set clear boundaries for my class in terms of what sort of behaviour and the standard of work that is expected. This is an area that I think I will need to be quite tough on over the next few weeks. The physical environment in my classroom is starts to take shape also. I have now added a display for our UOI1 topic and for the Inquiry Cycle. I am hoping in the next week that I am able to put up the students completed tote-tray labels and writer's frames containing their first piece of published writing. I feel that these things will help the students feel more at home in the classroom as they would have each contributed to a part of it.

An issue that I have come up against is that some of the students are struggling to complete their work within the set time period whilst others are flying through the work so this is something that I need to think about. I need to come up with a strategy to help those who are slightly slower and also a way that students who finish their work early know what to do without having to come to me.

Now that all of the students have their stationery and all of their books are labelled and put into boxes  (to aid with organisation and marking) we will be able to get into some proper Literacy and Numeracy next week. I have arranged for each of the students to have their own Morning Book as in the first week they were hanging about in the morning and found it difficult to settle during roll time. Having a Morning Task for the students to record in their Morning Book each morning means that they have a purpose as soon as the get into the classroom and they know to settle and get on to the set task straight away. We will begin using these books next week and I will then reflect on how they are working.

Every kid needs a champion - Rita Pierson

Inspiration to start off the year.

Reflection Week 1 Term 1 2016

I survived week 1!

It was fantastic to finally meet and get to know my lovely year 7 and 8 students this week after so much preparation and time put into planning and organising my classroom. They seem like a kind and studious group of children so I think that we a going to have a wonderful year together.

This week has been quite a busy and overwhelming week for me. There has been a lot of information to take in and also lots of admin and many forms etc. to collect and give out within class. This has required me to rethink organisation of my classroom environment and also of my daily routine. I have allocated classroom monitors and made wall charts which will hopefully help to cut down on the time that I spend checking children's agenda books at the beginning and the end of each day. It has also been challenging with the children not having their stationery for this first week as it has made it difficult to begin any recorded work.

I have learnt this week that it is important to be flexible and that things can change at any moment. Things that you have planned may get pushed aside by a meeting or another lesson and you may have to teach your planned lesson at another point in time. On the other hand you may have thought that there was an assembly or team game planned and this may fall through at the last minute meaning that you need to have a lesson up your sleeve to be able to teach on the spot. This has shown me how I need to be organised but I also need to be able to be willing to let things carry over to the next day if need be.

I am still coming to grips with the PYP curriculum however I am looking forward to really getting into our first UOI when the children all have their stationery. My team has been very helpful and I have already gained so much knowledge from them in the area of inquiry so I am very thankful that they are there to help me understand this new way of teaching.

I am looking forward to having a more complete week next week and to have more to assess the students in my class so that I am able to establish reading, writing and numeracy groups for the coming weeks. I have already identified a few students within my class that will require some extra guidance (especially in literacy) so I am going to ask my colleagues about specific strategies I can use to best meet the needs of these children and help them to improve.