Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

Considerations for my Inquiry focus in 2022   I am highly passionate about Literacy across all year groups, my Inquiries have certainly helped to upskill and grow in this area. Over the years I have flipped between both Achievement objectives 2 and 3. Raising student achievement in either reading or writing they are both strongly linked. Next year I’d like to continue to inquire into Achievement Objective two (lift achievement for boys in writing). I was on such a great roll creating a momentum building relationships with whānau and their child to improve their writing. I feel I have so many more avenues for effective feedback, while building whānau engagement. This year to build these relationships I created a series of Writing Flexi Connects where the child and I were on one end of the google hangout at school and parents would be on the other end either at work or home. Their child shared what they had been working on, their learning intention and success criteria, what their ...

Proud to be  part of the Manaiakalani Cluster within school Community of Learning, and presenting our our Bursts and Bubbles Celebration. What a year of challenges, opportunity and learning.   Tena koutou Katoua, Ko Anita Taku Ingoa. This is always my favourite part of being a Manaiakalani CoL within school leader, where we come together (virtually this time) sharing learning, feeling proud and privileged to belong to such a rich learning community. COVID has caused disruption to our learning this year, which has meant learners and whānau and have had to quickly had to adjust. It has certainly encouraged me to adapt my learning design. My Inquiry this year has focused on increasing writing achievement for students. I identified writing as my focus when I noticed there were gaps in learners' oral language skills, they had limited vocabulary and therefore lackinging in ideas when writing. To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I collected the following evidence: o...

  Surveying my parents based on the Writing Flexi Connects - Collecting Data For parents the experience has been worth while It’s useful for me to know how I can support my child and what they should be focused on improving. It’s been especially useful over lockdown It was a great opportunity to see my child's writing and hear them understand their next steps in their learning. It is also great to have this chance to regularly touch base with their teacher to see how they are progressing. It’s does work to improve **** writing and give him chance to express his thoughts to describe It creates the connection between school and my child. It keeps the routine almost the same. comments taken from survey Reflecting on how I have made an impact for these learners and their whānau The connects have enabled me as a parent to work with my child and assist in ensuring she in working on the right things. Charlotte’s writing has really improved recently with her using more interesting words in...

Holt! Lockdown August 2021 - is it really a holt or is it a turning point? Although there was a slight pause, made me stop and reflect on how are we going to ensure student engagement and student wellbeing at the forefront. ERO 2021 An upheavel for whānau's lives and our tāmariki, wanting to keep the flow and continue the momentium of success.  I had reached out and to continue our Flexi Connects in Writing. The uptake was welcoming. Here are some shots from our goggle hangout out flexi connects.  Learners proud to show their writing during lockdown. Using the opportunity for a teachable moment on phonics.  Show examples of writing descriptive language for the audience. Continuing to give feedback on how to extend vocabulary. Learner taking agency to use the vocabulary tool and extend their use of descriptive language.  By grabbing the opportunities we can during distance learning and reflecting on what we can adapt the learning doesn't holt, for some learners and th...

I had a go at my first Writing Flexi connects last week. It was great to hear learners talk about what Feedback is and how it can help them in their writing, using the script below. Learners were telling their parents that feedback helps helps us to know what we can improve on in our writing and how we can make it sound better.  Learners pointed out a range of next steps from writing the letters they can hear and working on spelling. Others talked about adding more detail and powerful verbs, using the co-constructed success criteria we developed recently for a narrative.  Flexi Connects in action using Google hangouts. Learners were driving the conversation and talking about their next steps.  Some reflections are: to spread them out more, to make it more organically occur during our writing process.  Work on learners continuing to be assessment capable when teacher and learner are in the hangout.  Learners could wear a feedback lanyard to signal they are in thi...

                                          Looking closer into my interventions... Using the Success Criteria created is creating a way forward for learners to base their feedback and feedforward in their writing. The Stop, recognise and respond moment I am having is let's build our knowledge more about what is a Narrative, pick some familiar narratives apart for learners to use the thinking skills of the Build Knowledge rock from the Learning Process.    Created in conjunction with Sammy Weir (CoL) Involving parents in the feedback process through flexi connects are about to start next week. Parents are booking in their time slots to have a 10 minute connect with their child, teacher and themselves. This is to strengthen whānau engagement and to create assessment capable learners to know their areas to work on in writing and their next steps.  An exciting space to be i...

  In this post I describe the tools/measures/approaches I plan to use and what I am doing differently to make a difference for my writers. This has probably been the hardest blog post to write. Inquiries often have a clear pathway and desired outcomes of what we want to achieve already set in our minds. The challenge is 'What am I doing differently from previously planned outcomes to create shift for my learners'. My Causal Chain diagram clearly describes the Journey of my Inquiry. By outlining the Intended outcomes and how I am going to get there.  My new Intervention describes how I am leveraging the partnerships between home and school to raise student achievement in literacy. Building learners knowledge on the Stonefields School Learning process to make connections to learners writing and raise student achievement.  Co constructing success criteria with learners, so they can base their feedback and feedforward on their writing success.  Creating opportunitie...

  Running the second Reading Together Workshop a real success this year. Whānau appreciate the time and space to share their experiences and learn together how to support their child. I used this opportunity to support a colleague and train them up to run the workshops too. This aligns with our strategic direction of improving whānau engagement. A reflection I have with this is to utilise our Community Centre - Te Pātaka Ako more throughout the term two sessions per day beginning of each Term. Have a follow up help session and feedback session on what is working, what further support is needed. Take it wider in maths and writing, and show how we can extend the home learning through experiences and creating rich language opportunities.  

Learners struggle to know what feedback is why we give feedback and why we receive feedback? In writing this week I tested it out.  Through my learning design I have delved into student voice. What is feedback?  Why do we give feedback?  What do we do with feedback?  Why do we go through this process?  Learners had a scripted format to follow to help then give feedback with a buddy, and use the success criteria to help guide what we were giving feedback on. At the end the noticing by the learners were a majority of us need to give feedback on using full stops at the end of a sentence.  This helps me to frame my next learning sessions on writing ideas in sentences. My goal is to continue this process and weave it into our writing process. I was pleased with the success of this learning, and feel it is the way to move forward for learners to recognise their next steps, and now where they can improve and using the success criteria allows for the how. Now my vi...

I am inquiring into... The effectiveness of feedback and feedforward in writing for learners who will sharing this with their peers and whānau. I will know this when learners can articulate and action their next steps to  raise learner achievement in writing. The diagram visually represents how I am going to map out my year of Inquiry. 

  These writing samples are from my target learners. This is shows the what the evidence is telling us from my previous blog. When looking at the surface and deeper features, we can see that punctuation, spelling and handwriting is a barrier for these learners. Here is the visual of  the data again to show that. These writing samples also show that vocabulary, writing structure and organisation is a barrier or gap in learning for these students. By viewing these samples alongside the data we have leverage with our collaborative inquiry to provide leaners with feedback and feedforward for our children and share this learning with our whānau.