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 feed

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: ongoing wri

  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 their whānau

  Language Experiences not only motivate our learners to write but it gives them a purpose and helps them to understand why we write. We write for an audience and as a part of a process. As Murry Gadd 2021 supporting research states by engaging language experiences help students see the relevance of writing and can make connections. These experiences help our tamarki to understand what has been asked of them through scaffolding the process of writing. 

There was another round of buzz in the air with our three way Writing Flexi Connects this morning. Learners sharing what Feedback is, how it helps them in their writing, explaining how the success criteria helps us in our learning, and what their next steps are... Recording some student voice: "Feedback is when we give ideas on how we can improve our writing and make it sound better." "I need to work on adding more powerful verbs and juicy words in my writing." "Feedback helps us to make our writing better for the audience." Learners were proud to show day 1 one of their writing to what their writing looks like now.  Parents were so pleased to see the progress and praised their child.  For me I only needed to interject to support learners at times with prompts of 'where to next' in their conversation.  I also helped to summarise the next steps and clarify some ways to support their child's next steps.  Arghhh Lockdown  Although lockdown, I am

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 this process.  Continue to

                                          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 in and a way of moving forward in my Inquiry. The next posts will showcase the progress from here. 

  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 opportunities for sharing te

  Things started to fall into place after our Learner Led Conferences last week.  Earlier in Term One. I connected with parents in regards to setting up a three way connects with whānau, learner and teacher to share feedback on the leaners writing and for learners to articlate their next steps in their writing.  I had a positive response from parents who are keen to participate in a virtual or physical three way connect. I am calling these flexi connects as they can happen during learning time or before or after school.  The work in the meantime is to continue with learning design of giving and receiving feedback in writing.  Recently, members of the Literacy team attended 'Murray Gadd's - 'What makes a great writing programme' May 2021. These statistics resonated.  Murray advises that it is the deliberate acts of teaching  teachers do in the moment. Feedback and feedforward is in the moment. Using Murry Gadd's idea of sharing the success criteria to give feedback a

Reflecting on Term 1's level of student engagement has been high, when I reflect on why it is about the hands on rich in vocabulary writing sessions I am planning in my learning design. For example the pop corn making, cress egg heads, making fairy bread. Creating the play environments to allow learners to exchange information, utilise their oral language skills. This is all helping to raise the level of achievement and gift learners language for their wriring.