Celebrating success - What do the results say and WHY?

I have been very fortunate this year to work with an incredible teacher and amazing Year 7 & 8 students at Panmure Bridge School.

The opportunity to observe and work alongside these amazing individuals has renewed my passion for teaching and learning. 

Robyn Anderson and I have had many conversations about the needs of her students and the comprehensive ways she has of supporting her students who have very many diverse needs. I really appreciate the opportunity to share ideas, problem-solve, bounce ideas around, work with her students, carry out additional assessments and most importantly to have the opportunity to be Robyn's critical friend.
I totally agree with Robyn Critical friends are awesome!

Today I celebrate the progress her students have made under her guidance.

Robyn has adapted her programme throughout the year to meet the needs of her students.

She has listened to her student's opinions and consider their interests when recrafting her class programme.

I believe the progress made by these students is a direct result of the explicit acts of teaching  Robyn carries out every day.

Regular strategies I have seen in place daily in her classroom

• Recapping learning from previous days or lessons and makes clear links to other curriculum areas
• Checks in with her students regularly to check their understanding of vocabulary and content.
• Regularly involves the students in the decision making about their own learning 
• Constantly reminding students of their learning goals and how they can demonstrate their understanding.
• Reinforced the focus/goal including asking students to share their goals in multiple ways.
• Actively Models the learning.
• Guides and scaffolds the students towards their next step goal with appropriate strategies and support.
• Gets the students to share with a partner their ideas and new learning to reinforce concepts and vocabulary.

But: while these strategies are impressive and I believe they have had a significant impact on learning it is the other important things she does daily that I believe have had an even greater impact -

• Builds a positive relationship with her students - these students know she cares and wants the best opportunity for them.
• Has very clear boundaries around expectation and class rules and culture.
• Checks in with her students daily and is aware of significant events in their life that could have a detrimental impact on the students day eg social and environmental facts that we know can be very extreme in our community.

Explicit acts of teaching and positive relationships make the biggest difference.

This has been a wonderful learning journey for the Teachers and the students!

Wellbeing Strategy

Ministry focus on Wellbeing.

I attended the Inclusive Education Seminar where Dr David Wales National Director Learning Support Ministry of Education discussed the Learning Support Directions.

David presented the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy.

Resources and Initiatives available to support student well being.

Additional resources

Wellbeing tools

Student wellbeing

Wellbeing ERO

Positive Behaviour for learning

Using Physical restraint in schools.

Student view of the own learning.

While working with many students across the Manaiakalani schools I have noticed many of the students are very critical of themselves and their own ability.
They seem to give up quickly and believe before they have even started that the task is going to be too hard.

When reading Karen Ferguson blog post about her students self-talking and the possible impact this could be having on your students, it made me revisit this possible challenge for our students. 

We need to get our students to rewrite the messages in their heads so that they are not giving up or being negative about their abilities and their learning.

I think the Stonefields school Learning pit helps students understand that learning can be hard and that is ok! But we need to be determined and positive and keep going.
The visual representation of the Learning pit works well and students in our Sommerville Satellite class at Stonfields now understand these concepts when matched to a visual and situation.

These learning qualities are so important for all our students. We all know learning is challenging and sometimes we just want to give up! We need to show students how to be Self Aware, and determined. Self Efficacy needs to be a skill we gift our students.