Saturday 2 May 2015

So simple yet so effective


Term Two started with a change in teacher, change in classrooms and a slight accident. Because of changes that occurred at the end of term two, one of our team members moved up to the senior school therefore we employed a new teacher. This meant that we had to switch two classrooms around (and teachers) to support the changes we had made. Then our team leader had a slight accident that (at the moment) will see her out for four weeks.

So it has been a busy two weeks for me!

When I last posted I wasn’t sure how I would feel about term 2 and doing exactly the same as we had in term one. However, slightly small changes have seen me feel a little more comfortable.

With is being 100 years since Gallipoli, we decided to start term two with a mini Anzac Day unit. What came out of this was we ALL decided to do the same planning throughout the team rather than the spilt planning of two ‘power’ teams. That meant we ALL used the same big book (Dawn Parade), taught the same writing and completed the same art ideas. Now before you think-  exactly the same? We structured it so that we used the same resources but we still had the freedom to teach it in a way we liked rather than feeling like synchronised  swimmers.

What this meant was when I got my own class back, I could refer back to resources like the big book, or the clip we used for writing and they knew what I was talking about. To me it flowed more and I felt more connected with my own class. We also were ALL talking about the same things throughout the team and no matter if we were in homerooms or literacy we were ALL on the same page.

As a team, we all enjoyed this and therefore decided to continue this for the next two weeks. Our Topic this term is ‘Fizz, Bang, Pop’ with a science focus (which I love as I personally feel we do not teach enough of it in the primary sector).  Therefore we found a book that would tie into our topic and are also uses this as the basis of our Topic work in the afternoon. We will also been incorporating our maths into this as well.

It doesn’t answer all my concerns but we are making changes that I personally feel are positive ones. Because we mix and change the students throughout the team rather than just between two classes, us ALL teaching the same things makes more sense.

We will see what the next two weeks bring but I am feeling a lot more positive about how term two is shaping out.

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