Cath's 2015 Teacher Inquiry

As Reading was our PD focus for 2015, my Inquiry involved three target children in Reading.  To see what I have done click on the link below:
Cath's Inquiry 2015 

Team One 2015 Inquiry
As a team we went over our inquiries for 2015.  We discussed what we did and what impact it had on the children.  We put it on a google docs.  Click on the link below to see a summary of our inquiries.

Team One Inquiry Information

Visit To Parkvale School

Prior to going to Longworth Forest we went to visit Parkvale School.  Linda Cheer has worked with some of the staff at Parkvale School so we went to observe Cheryl England and Gail Kelly and see how their programme/environment worked. We then went to see how this looked further up the school.

One key factor in the ladies room was that the children kept on playing for quite a while after the bell went.  The children could go and choose anything around the room. We were also looking at Modern Learning environments and talked to Nicky, the DP who said that they didn't have a lot of money at the time of their alterations so they only bought the whiteboard tops and put them on their existing tables.  I could see a real advantage with having one of these tops at my kidney shaped teaching table so after talking to Stephen I emailed Furnware for a price.
We saw writing which is an intensive programme with a number of teacher aides coming in to help in the class.  They have undergone a lot of work with Murray Gadd.  Things that impacted on me were

• the sense of having a moveable display board board with goals etc for literacthat children chose their own writing goals now though at the beginning of the year the teacher did this
• a must- do board of activities
• the furniture including tables with whiteboard tops
• the time dedicated to play at the beginning of the day,
• WIP Work in Progress Signs
• incorporating all the groups's goals in her story modelling book.

Visit to Longworth Forest School

Longworth Forest is situated on a 1.6 hectare lifestyle block boasting a forest of 250 trees. It is run by Linda Cheer, a teacher with 30 years teaching experience, who believes in play based learning. Three days a week, a group of keen learners, clad in gumboots, discover, explore and play in The Forest. Assisted Discovery Learning is part of daily life. The school is limited to 6 children who are 5 or 6 years old.  You can read about her school at Longworth Forest Weekly blog and her personal journey at Linda's Journey

See also the article in the latest gazette  Education Through Play 

For me I can see benefits in play based learning although the Longworth School is not practical for us as there are only 6 children.  We can however make more use of our "forest" up on top field.  I definitely think that children coming from ECE need to have more play in their day.  At South we are now running discovery days  fortnightly which is more often than in the past.  We have changed the format of these so they are not as organised as they used to be, allowing the children to be self managing. These mornings certainly focus on the key competencies.   

Christine Braid - Foundations for Literacy

Key Points:

Phonemic and Phonological awareness- starts with hearing syllables in words then onset rime, then phonemes (hardest). 

• Dyslexic children have trouble with the phoneme level.   
• Children need to learn their letters, words and print concepts.
• Vocab - the larger a child's vocab,  the more likely they are to be a good reader and vocab helps them to understand the story.
• Interactive Read Alouds - analytic talk - good to read books across a theme.
• Use of picture books to teach inferring. Given suggested titles and demonstrated how to do this
• Good to read books across common theme to build up vocab. -currently doing this with books around Rugby stories
• Suggested that we read the story book three times.

Teaching Fractions

Our team is currently beginning a study on fractions.  At our team meeting today I shared some relevant information that I had gained from the  Te Toi Tupu Fractional Thinking workshops last term.  I talked about

• the MOE Book 7 : Teaching Fractions, Decimals and Percentages p2-3 key ideas
• IAE  Educational Practices Series-22 Teaching Fractions -relevant points

See Team 1 Meeting Minutes


As a result of attending these course I have changed how I started off my fraction unit.  I have started off by introducing fair shares rather than looking at half of a region and then half of a set.

Lytton Street Visit

On Wednesday the 7th of October I went to Lytton Street to hear Denise Ansleigh speak. Denise is an award winning teacher from Australia, who recently attended a Reggio Emilia Study Group in Northern Italy and who has incorporated principles of that into her own teaching.  She shared her approach to education, her inspiration and made connections to both the Reggio Emilia and Kathy Walker approaches to education, focusing on the atelier of nature,  She shared some practical examples of classroom practice and shared images of the "imaginarium."

After listening to Denise's presentation we had a question and answer time and a general chat.  I was interested in the Kathy Walker approach and then asked if it was possible to visit Te Tipu which is the New Entrant class based on this approach.  I talked a lot to the teachers about their programme  and would like to find out more about the Kathy Walker approach. We have ordered her book "Play Matters," so we can find out the thinking/background behind her approach.

Below are some photos from Te Tipu Suite.

SMART Teaching Strategies

Some of the children in my Class were having trouble putting in full stops and capital letters in the right places.  Stephen, my principal, was in the classroom and gave me a reading that suggested a strategy which I have been trialling.  I have also traced the reading back to
SMART Teaching Strategies: Explicit Teaching:Activities To Support The Strategy - Activity 1-Punctuation Comparison and Activity 2 Sentence Champions.  I have trialled Activity One with my class once a week for last term and will continue to do so this term.
Click on the link below to read the reading.   Punctuation - SMART Teaching Strategies

 An Interactive Game To Practise Adding Correct Punctuation

Reggio Emilia and Pen Green

Tonight I attended Encounters with Reggio Emilia (Italy) & Pen Green (UK) presented by Chrissy Lepper.

The first part of her talk was about Reggio Emilia which is a place in the North of Italy.  Reggio Emilia is founded on the rights of the child. There are 3 key thrusts of this.
These are:

1. Participation -equal voice, equal status -sharing power
2. Democracy - with responsibility
3. Citizenship - the child is viewed as a citizen with rights from an early age.

The second, and smaller part of the talk, was about Pen Green Centre which is a centre for children and their families. This is a community approach where teachers and families have equal status.  Parents ideas are included in an authentic way not just in a token way.  Parents are also trained in this approach. This fits in with Ministry's current thinking of agency and self- efficacy. 

Demonstration Reading Lesson

As part of our reading PD with Janine Remnant we were asked for a volunteer to do a lesson in front of the other four teachers in our team.  I volunteered to take the lesson for the others to observe and then discuss. Click on the link to see the lesson plan and feedback from Janine Remnant, Professional Learning Facilitator |Supporting a Shift in Learning, Massey University

Cath's Lesson Plan and Feedback

Professional Reading Blog

Professional Reading Blog


As  I read articles or readings that are pertinent to teaching and my classroom, these will be put into my professional reading log. Follow the above link to see these readings.

Maths PD and Planning

At our staff meeting today we had PD on what we will do for our below children.  First of all we brainstormed all the activities that we could incorporate into our classroom programmes to help these children. We looked at effective pedagogy and chose three possible areas of focus.  As a team we decided on one to focus on - this was to be specific with our goals and relate these to everyday life. Here is our plan.

Incredible Years For Teachers

This year the New entrant teacher and myself are attending the Incredible Years for Teachers Programme which aims to support teachers to confidently manage the challenging behaviours some children exhibit in the classroom environment and to increase children’s social, emotional and academic skills. Mary Chudleigh is my group leader for the duration of the course and has visited me regularly.  

Teacher Inquiry

My Teacher Inquiry started as Maths for two boys but in Early March I found  that  a group of my boys were really struggling in Literacy and Maths so my focus changed  while still incorporating what I had learnt/instigated through Maths. During term 2 I saw the need to focus on the children’s behaviour as I felt it was necessary to focus on this so learning could occur so behaviour became another real focus.  This year I have been reflecting more than ever because of the nature of my class which has 15 boys and only 4 girls( 3 now).  Hence I decided to rename my inquiry as Motivating Students To Learn so as to encompass all  of the above areas .
To see my full Teacher Inquiry go to Cath's Teacher Inquiry 2014