Asking for help.

Do you as a teacher do this?

Do you feel confident to do it without being judged? We expect our students to always ask for help or advice but as teachers are we role modelling this enough in ourselves?

I will admit, I ask for help but only with those I feel will give me constructive feedback that will help me. And sometimes it's not just those who I teach with, more often I will ask my PLN and head to Twitter to find my answers.

One area that I have learnt to ask for a lot of help is Reading. After spending a year with year 2/3's I began to see a whole range of readers and what worked for one didn't necessarily work for others. I was lucky enough to work alongside two teachers who were trained in Reading Recovery.

I used their expertise a lot and was for ever asking questions and pondering about how I was going to 'move students on' who were 'well below' or 'below' according to national Standards. I actually learnt a lot from both of them. There was so much I hadn't thought about and a lot of skills they used for Reading Recovery that I had never seen that were ideal for my students. I have continued to utilize their expertise even though I am now teaching in the senior area.

Recently I asked our Reading Recovery Teacher if they could give me some feedback about two of my students. I was stuck. I couldn't see how I was going to make changes if previous teachers couldn't. I had exhausted all the strategies and ideas that in the past I have used and in my reflections I wasn't seeing progress.

I didn't see it as failure, I saw it as wanting the best for my student and asking someone with more expertise than myself in this area.

Proud Achievers

This term our schools disposition is Proud Achievers.

After a chat with the class we decided that this term is WAY to busy to squeeze in our Stem Challenges. Therefore we talked about how to link our next disposition 'Proud Achievers' to this terms work.

We talked about setting goals and how we could set some for the term. However once we discussed it more, the majority of the class felt that as we set goals at the beginning of the year it seemed like we were repeating ourselves again. Plus a lot of them also felt this was too easy for them as year 5/6's. Obviously last terms Effective Communicators got them thinking!

They identified that this disposition links a lot to EVERYTHING they do and could easily be achieved. Therefore we began discussing how we could link more of our subjects together to achieve this. We looked at our topics and what we were learning in each area. From that the students began to see links. They saw that our Myth writing could easily be made into plays and performed. They saw that our 'textiles' then could be fabric and we could make puppets to perform our myths.

Therefore this term they are working in groups to re write a Maori myth, then making their own puppets to perform their myths.

It's been wonderful to have the students take ownership on their own learning and where they want to go with it.

Sign Language Week.

When you have a child in your class that's first language is Sign, you try as hard as you can to integrate as much sign as you can into everyday class life. This has been my goal this year along with more Te-Reo. Although my student is hearing, both parents are deaf. I have wanted to learn as much as I can so that when I meet them at parent interviews I can at least greet them and 'try' to communicate a few things about their son.

It's been interesting for me as Sign doesn't fall under ESOL (correct me if I am wrong) because he was born in NZ yet English is his second language. Which begs me to question what is there for children (who hear) of deaf parents? L is quite capable but there are noticeable differences in his phonics, blends and vocabulary. 

An example of this was when he sat the Star test at the beginning of the year. He was looking at the picture of the parachute and he was stuck. His comment to me was, I know what it is but I don't know the word. I asked him to sign what he thought it was and he did! 

Spelling is also the other noticeable difference!  

We started this year learning sign and following the lesson plans from Thumbs Up which is on the TKI site. Although designed to be used for years 7-8 I found it quite easy to use and so did the class. It may have been because we had an expert in the class therefore we could be easily corrected.

What was great, was that I stopped being the teacher and instead was the learner. The class saw that I was also learning and making mistakes. Boy did I make mistakes! L has been a great teacher and as a class we have embraced his knowledge. Sign Language Week was one of those times. 

I challenged the class to record (on Seesaw) a few phrases about themselves. As we had completed Unit 1 of Thumbs Up they were told they had to challenge themselves! They worked in pairs and also used the NZSL online dictionary.

The class had a blast! It was also lovely to embrace someone else language.


Millie and Mihana

Aidan 

The wonderful thing also was with the help of Seesaw I was able to share the students work with all their parents. I was able to also write a special 'Thank you' to L's mum and share with her how amazing L had been in teaching the whole class.