Communication- How well are you doing?

Reading @Stephen Lethbridge  really touch me as a mum. His post on communication and connecting with parents especially new parents to the school just showed how much he realised parents matter but also it’s the small things.

As teachers we all know communication is important but I sometimes think we forget how vital it is. I am guilty of this and it wasn’t until my own son started to attend school, I realised how little communication we as teacher can sometimes give. Yes, I understand we need to get our own children to be more self-reliant and learn to share information but it doesn’t always work that way.

My son is your typical boy when it comes to communicating. Unless he had art or pe all I hear about is what he and his friends did on the playground. Yet my daughter would give you a rundown of the complete day, who said what, who got into trouble, what the teachers said and everything in-between!

I work fulltime and therefore can’t do the drop off or pick up like other mums can. It wasn’t until my son started school that I realised how much ‘informal’ conversation I missed out on. It’s those informal, spur of the moment chats that can tell a parent a lot more sometimes than a three way conference can because it is very personal.

I have been lucky that my child minders daughter has also been in the same class, so I have allowed her to talk on my behalf. Check-up, show interest and basically become his second mum. It made me feel connected.

Yes, the school does email and three way conferences but they are not the same. Emails can be read in a completely different way to how they were intended, three way conferences although I like them, squeeze in too much of the ‘formal’ information and not enough of the ‘informal’ . And even though I could email his teacher I felt I was the one emailing asking for updates more than the teacher was.

Obviously this got me thinking. As a parent if this is how I felt, what do my parents think of me as a teacher? When you teach year 5/6 you tend not to see the parents at all. Our school opts not to do teacher emails for various reason therefore I had to think of alternative ways to communicate informally.

Luckily the students had diaries which became more line of communication. I had working mums and dads who I rarely saw and I wanted to make sure that they kept up to date about their child. The success they were having. So every Friday, I would write a comment in everyone diary. No diary a piece of paper. I wanted them to know how much I valued them as parents but also how much I enjoyed their child in my class. Just one little thing they had done that week that as their teacher I was proud of and could share with their parents.

I also made sure that the first time I meet them or communicated to them was on a positive rather than a negative. I didn’t want parents to feel that every time they meet me, received a note or phone call it was a negative rather than a positive.

Having moved to year 3/4, I am learning even more how important it is to communicate. Mums just need it (I am sure dads do to). This year I have no diaries, so I need to think of other ways to communicate to every parent. Share with them how wonderful their child is and all the success they are having. As I said at the beginning it’s the little things that matter.

I am still thinking about how I can keep that ‘informal’ communication regular so that parents feel connected and have that connection. Ideas are floating about but at least I know tomorrow all my students will take home a little note just to let parents know something special I have noticed about their child.

Communication

Bit late with day 3 of writing as Tuesday turned out to be a very busy day! Second day into work and already it seems that the mountain of work that is needed doing has escalated. It’s all in a good way but I do begin to wonder how I will fit it all in.

Yesterday we spent two hours in a team meeting planning for next week and discussing how we were going to work as a team, move towards more MLP’s, ensure the students came first and what we were planning to do benefited OUR children in OUR school.

It was a great meeting but boy did I feel that my head was about to explode with ideas, questions, queries, wonderings among many things. I have to admit, I work with a great team of teachers. We are very fortunate that we seem to be all on the same path and when ideas are expressed or suggestions made, they are valued even if they don’t work.

This is important as without this open communication and respect working in a team could be very difficult. Personality wise we are very different and we need to respect that. We have worked hard to ensure that we know and understand how everyone operates. I know this is something I have to be aware of as I can get over zealous about ideas and can sometimes forget that I am not the only one that may have idea.

I have already been aware of myself in these situations and have been mindful of how I respond and react to suggestions and ideas. I actually have caught myself stopping and taking a step back. Reassessing what I normally would think and asking myself whether this is the best solution.

Although it was a long meeting with ideas flying left, right and centre I left feeling positive that we had made all the right decisions for OUR students and what would be best for them.

#day3

Growth Mind Set- A question I can't answer

When I started to write this I was thinking along the lines of explaining what both meant and how it related to me. As this was also a challenge as part of #edchatNZ to blog about Mind Set a few other teachers have already given great definitions and explanations that I felt I would just be repeating (here. and here) Then it got me thinking. Why is it in some situations we can easily move from a fixed to a growth mind set, even when the challenge or situation could be beyond our expertise or comfort?

And is frustration, stubbornness, annoyance (a lot of those negative words which to be honest are also positives) a fixed mind set or is it important to have to develop your growth mind set?

I use my son for example. For Mr 6 loves the skate board park. We have spent most of the holidays down their ‘hanging’ out. He watches with awe as the teenage boys do trick after trick on their scooters or skateboards and spends hours later reminiscing how wonderful they were. This set off his determination to be able to do what they can do.

So he spends time watching and then gives it a go. Of course many of the moves they can do are beyond him and this is where frustration set in. The scooter is flung onto the ground with the usual chorus of ‘I can’t do it’. Yet, as much as he is frustrated and annoyed, he still gets back up and tries again and again and again. At one point he spent over an hour just trying to perfect one move.

People talk about Growth Mind set as reflecting and looking at different ways to approach the task. While fixed Mind Set will only see it one way and not make any changes or decide that they can’t do it.

What got me was how determined he was to succeed with this task. Even though it took him ages and there were the occasional tears, a few grazes and a lot of sweat he would not give up. Once he achieved the first ‘trick’ he didn’t give in but moved onto the next challenge. To the point in the space of three weeks he had achieved everything he hadn’t been able to do at the start.

Now if you gave him the task of writing a story it would be a whole different ball game. He would give up straight away. So why does Mr 6 have such a different mind-set to this?

Yes, I know everyone has fixed and growth mind sets but even at the start Mr 6 struggled and found all the tricks extremely hard. But what was it about that particular task that made him persevere? He was as stubborn, annoyed and frustrated at the skateboard park as he is with writing. Yet, he never stopped trying and wouldn’t give up.

 What changes in him where he thinks he can achieve it that doesn’t when it comes to writing? And I wonder how many other children are like this?

Day 2 of 28 days of writing.

28 days of writing.

Most people do a Feb Fast and give up something instead I am taking on something?

So I weighed up the pros and cons of doing this 28 day writing task. And although I am writing this and have obviously published it, I have yet to sign up (I will though). I blog in my head, my thoughts always sound great there. I wish they would invent something (maybe they have already) that would just type up my thoughts for me. Yes, I know I could record them as I thought them but then that would interrupt the flow and writing them down would as well. I have some serious hard core conversations in my head!

This is how I came to realise that I probably could easily do this 28 day blog as I am allowed to write about anything and I have the best incentive ever- my new team. Every day this week is going to be a learning curve and we will be stumbling through a week of collaboration between 5 teachers and 110 year 3/4 students. So there is bound to be something to write about. Plus I can always reflect about my day and how I coped with the fact I am now working with smaller human beings and I’m still not sure I have adjusted to that!

My head space also still has to write about growth mind set and our two days of professional development we had which for the first time I can say was enjoyable and hands down won over 2014’s ones.

Day one done and dusted.

The Questions Have Started

I am working a little backwards with the next few blogs as I am very keen to post about my Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) as well as the PD we had on Collaborating and growth/fixed mind set. I am just waiting to get a few slides and links which I hope will explain it a bit more clearly than I possibly could.

 I have reflected already how this year is going to work. Already it seems strange as usually I would have a class room all set up, displays to help with the students thinking scattered around the room, planning for at least the first 3 weeks completed and just a general sense of  a room ready to greet the students.

However this is not the case. I am working in a team with 4 other teachers and my ‘classroom’ is merely my homeroom for my class to have registration taken. I don’t own the walls therefore can’t splash all my own things on it –yet.

I am loving this, it is right up my alley and doesn’t faze me one bit (this will become apparent when I blog about the HBDI) but what is hard is all five of us agreeing about how we will do and go about things. We are a great team and I think we will work fabulously together but we are also individuals who have different ideas and interpretations about how things may work.

What has been great is out principal has been using what we will be using with the children- Our Graduate programme and our first one is Team Player. This is something we have to do in order for success to happen and for our students to be successful.

I won’t lie it’s daunting as I know I am someone who has a million and one ideas and sometimes get carried away with excitement. Very much like a child right before Christmas! But I do know I have to restrain this side of me and listen (which can be hard for me) rather than talk!

Already we are thinking how we will work with nearly 120 students and four classrooms (we have two rooms that could easily fit two classes in and have doors that lead into each). We know we need to utilise the space we have to best suit the students and our teaching. So far we have a few ideas but setting them in stone is hard.

Today I began thinking;

Some students need to be read to everyday others once a week. How will this rotation work? Where will they go? Is it easier for students or teachers to move around?

What about maths? How can we get away from interchange?

Would utilising the two bigger rooms as ‘independent’ working rooms with teacher/s facilitating work?

Could the others be used as group rooms? If so how would we work this?

How will we work collaborative learning so that we are successful? At the moment everyone have a very different definition of this.

Movement- How will this work?

I know in the next few weeks my questions will be answered but there is a lot to ponder over.

What does 2015 hold for me?

You can tell when teachers are back working while on holiday as Twitter once again is filled with their blogs. A lot have been reflecting about 2014 and what they want to see in 2015.

A lot happened for me in 2014 and I have tried to get onto the ‘blog train’ and reflect about all the changes that have been taking place. But for me it is all about 2015!

I am moving away from my comfort zone completely. Yes, I am making a change which I am excited about and at the same time terrified. Not only that, but the school is also making a lot of changes which I am super excited to be part of.

So what am I going to be doing?

I am going to be teaching year 3/4 students. The last time I did this was over 12 years ago and in the UK. For me this change is important. I need to be able to confidently say I can teach a range of year groups and have a solid understanding of them as individuals and how they fit into the New Zealand curriculum. I love teaching older children and enjoy the banter and conversations you can have with them. They are also a lot more independent! So I am slightly worried about how I will cope with younger students. Moving from year 5/6 is a big leap but I'm sticking with the idea of ‘what my year 5/6 students could do, so can these 3/4 students’ (It just may take a little more scaffolding and time).

The other change is that we are going to be working in teams rather than having our own individual class that we would teach throughout the day in our single cell rooms. I’ll still have a group of about 25 students that I will over sea for pastoral care but it won’t be like last year where I only taught those children and they were ‘my class’.

Our year 3/4 intake is big (over 100 students) therefore we have four classrooms but 5 home-bases (we have yet to work out a name for this) as two classes are going to be in one room. My concern is the odd number and how this might work. Collaboration between 5 teachers could be interesting as well as movement of over 100 students around the classes and school.

 Part of me wonders if we will break off into two groups and have 2 teachers together and the other 3 as a team.  I also wonder if we should have made a separate year 4 class with two teachers while the other 3 taught year 3. At the moment we are still trying to work this all out.

We have a tentative timetable and what we might see happening each day. Thursday seems to be the day where we will see every single student in our team (that we have called Arohanui) through the rotation of subjects we are doing. I am excited about whom I am working with and having worked this way before, I know that communication is the key. We all have expertise in different subject areas which is great but we also have our own ideas as to how a MLE could be run so we are going to have to tread carefully.

Still I have a few concerns. Maths is one of them. At the moment we are grouping students by ability and each teaching a group of students in a classroom. To me this is still what we have always done. I am not a big fan of ability setting and while in the UK we moved away from this and I enjoyed teaching mixed ability. We are trialling mixed ability lesson on Thursday which is what I will be taking (all classes during our rotation day) so hopefully we can branch out if this is successful. Also how will we work this? I guess this is when I jump onto Twitter and get help from my PLN to come up with ideas.

I like change. I have always taught different topics and chopped and changed the way I teach things every year. I am looking forward to this and I know there will be a lot of hurdles we are going to have to overcome. Questions will be raised and hopefully solutions will be found.

 As we are still set up as single cell classes (some walls will be cut through but not for a while) it will be interesting to see how this work. We are lucky that two of our classrooms are big; hence we can fit up to 50 (maybe) into the one room. So I hope that we utilise this as much as we can.

The biggest thing for me is how will we teach the students so that we are moving away from the traditional way of teaching?

This year, I hope to try and blog about what is happening to me as a teacher as I grapple with year 3 and 4 students and the changes taking place in our school.

Reflection TIme

As we embrace 2015 I want to reflect on 2014 and how it went for me. Term Three, 2014 signified a whole year of teaching in NZ which also meant I could apply to become fully registered again!

I have to admit, I had a wonderful class of year 5/6 and having taught for a while now, I have to admit they are up there as one of the best classes I have ever had.

When I look back at the first day and how they were I would have never expected by the end of term 4 the majority of them would have grown in confidence and develop skills to become independent learners. They were a fantastic class to ‘experiment’ all my new ideas with as they seemed to enjoy taking on a challenge as much as I did.

What I learnt the most is things take time and one big change can be better than a million of small ones.

 I started in Term 2 with a lot of the ideas I had gathered from other teachers off Twitter, through their blogs or from my own readings and research. I will admit I was so excited to be able to ‘change’ a lot of what I was doing, I probably went in a little too fast. I had to remind myself that most of these students were used to a very different way of teaching and learning but I also had parents to contend with. Boy, did it take a while. I have to admit I had my doubts at times. I’m impatient and I have high expectations of myself so I thought by Term 3 it would be perfect!

Looking back now, there were a lot of very small changes happening to each individual student. It wasn’t until I had relief teachers in the room and through their comments I began to see this. From then on, I sat back (now and then), watched and listened to the students during lesson time and this really did inform me a lot!

Communication was the key.

Whatever I changed or did differently in class it was important to also keep my parents informed and explain my reasoning. This worked ok. I would send a letter home, write in certain student’s diaries and also communicate via our class page so they could access information at home. We are yet to trial allowing parents to email us personally and there were times I wish I had been able to do this. Also, I wish I had ‘opened’ up the classroom each term so parents could have had the chance to visit and ask questions. One idea could have been having an open evening in week two of every term so parents could come and find out about what was happening.

Also communication with my class was important. Each term we reflected on what worked and what didn’t. As well as what did they want to do differently? They articulated their thoughts and ideas so well even to the point they would talk to each other to find answers or solutions.

What I found interesting was how sometimes what I thought they would like, they didn’t. Two things that really surprised me were; they didn’t like sitting on the floor even with cushions and they were not a fan of low tables.

Realisation

I had to accept and realise that not all my students would get there- ‘yet’. There were still those who needed more of a structured timetable and others who were able to plan their whole week independently. To be honest that was ok with me as I had seen the small changes in them and knew they would get there just it would take a little longer.

The best moments were seeing the changes in my students who relied on mum and dad a lot in the first term. Some were now even planning their whole day independently and had made huge leaps and bounds academically.