Our year 9 sustainability day!!

On Wednesday 15th February, our year 9's took part in a 'Sustainability Day' a day that students would take part in workshops and discussions over the importance of sustainability!

Before the day could happen, there was a little bit of planning behind the scenes, which I will detail below.

My initial thoughts were that it would be a day that our kids could be immersed in and essentially we could hook them into wanting to learn about sustainability and why it is important in our community, starting with why it was important to our school.

I invited our year 13 leaders, prefects and house captains to be part of the day as I felt they could help our year 9's feel more comfortable in the big wide world of high school and to remind our year 9's who our leaders were.  I briefed them last week about the day and asked them to remember how they felt when they started at our school.  The prefects were excited to be part of the day and I assigned to them to specific tutor classes.

Coming to a new school with new faces is always hard and I felt that a way to make them feel like they belonged to our school was to plant their 'seeds' into the ground, our school ground.  I asked our principal Soana if we could buy seeds that they could symbolically plant so they felt part of the school.  So last week, off I went with Wally, our school kaumatua to Bunnings to buy seeds so that each of our year 9's could plant something on our sustainability day.  Then I wondered how could we distribute all these seeds to our kids and Karen Ferguson came up with a great idea to wrap a few seeds up into tissue paper then tuck them into the back of lanyards that I'd created for each year 9 student (a mean production line was created 2 nights ago whereby staff stayed behind after school to wrap and tuck seeds for our kids!)

The sustainability day began with our year 13's being briefed on their roles and responsibilities as leaders of a year 9 class.  They were given the lanyards, then told of the days programme.  When the bell went for the beginning of the day and as year 9 students arrived into the auditorium, the prefects took them to their allocated tutor class seats.

Our principal explained the importance of being part of the Tamaki family followed by our head girl Jarna Parsons and our head boy Saia Tukuafu encouraging our year 9's to give everything a go.

Principal Soana talks to our year 9's

Our head boy Saia Tukuafu and head girl Jarna Parsons address our year 9's.

Our kaumatua Wally Noble began the journey at the marae and described the importance of the marae  to the school and how our kids are part of the tangata whenua and to respect the marae and all of its mana.

Kaumatua Wally Noble explaining the meaning of our marae

Nanny Barb showed the students the garden with all of its herbs and vegetables and Russell Dunn took the kids for a tour of our school rain garden and looked at the housing developments across our school fields.  These were other aspects of sustainability that were topics that students could choose a projects in their social studies classes.

Alby Tu'uga Stevenson who is one of our English teachers slash year 9 dean slash tutor for the Samoan group, used his multiple hats to teach all of the year 9's a simple Samoan sasa - this was a mean feat and definitely a highlight for the day.  A number of teachers became judges and our year 9's saw them in a different light too!

Mr Tu'uga Stevenson teaching the year 9's a sasa.

At the end of the day, we invited our kids to blog about their experiences, their fears and their thoughts.  They were then treated to a speech by one of our success stories Alvina Pau'uvale who shared her journey from a young year 9 student sitting in the auditorium, wondering how to solve the about problems around her to a recognised academic in her chosen field of Science and how she overcame her fear of starting at Tamaki.

This day for me was a huge challenge in having to think about all the different groups involved and especially the planning behind it.   I hoped that the students could learn about the importance of sustainability and in a sense use the school and what was around them, to experience it first hand.

Here's the link to the sustainability day site.

Initial planning at our department meeting for our integrated unit

There are four teachers in our social studies department who are teaching at least one year 9 class this year.  We come from two extremes of teaching experience - there are two of us who have been teaching social studies at Tamaki for at least 10 years and the other two teachers are brand new beginning teachers who have joined our department at the beginning of this year.  It makes for an exciting mix of new and old!

During our first department meeting, we discussed a unit that I'd put together over Christmas and asked for feedback and thoughts at our second meeting.  I was excited to see input from everyone who could see we needed more ideas, engagement and lessons that would motivate student interest and ownership.

The introductory lessons allowed students to imagine they were Moana and travelling to a new country, but needed to remember how to protect where they'd come from.  Part of the reason for this was to get to know our kids and to allow them to share who they are and where they come from with the teacher and with the class.

An important part of social studies is understanding concepts so much of the unit centres around defining, identify and describe key concepts like identity, traditions, culture and change.  It was important to understand what our kids knew about these concepts, then build on their understanding with lots of relatable examples and at the same time, trying to get know who the kids were in our classroom.  

The link to the unit is here.

Day 2: Full on Thursday!

It's now Friday because yesterday it was so full on, I didn't get to blog...not that I didn't want to, I just couldn't get my fingers on the keyboard I was so buggered!

Period 1 was our project leaders meeting and although we are a small group, we feel we are leaders of change in our school.  It is an empowering position to be in.  We set our goals for the years and I explained to them how the weeks would look once the kids projects started and when they needed to check in with the kids - Tuesday's for the physical check in and Thursday's for our blogging checks.

Period 2, I met my gorgeous year 9's - ohhh the joy of seeing their lovely faces!  

I met my huge level 3 sos class by doing an experiment with them.  I left them waiting outside for 5 minutes to ensure they got there on time.  Two boys were waiting near the door, but I explicitly said only the girls could come in.  I ignored the boys who were whispering 'oh miss', the girls just smiled or joked at them as they walked past them into the class.  As i locked them out, I told the girls that I was the president of the class and I will choose who was allowed in class and today I don't want the boys because they are too distracting.  Some of the girls applauded, others laughed but the majority just stared at me, kind of glassie eyed.  After 5 minutes, they realised I wasn't joking and a few commented saying 'miss it's hot outside, can they come in?' or 'it's not funny now miss'.  I then asked them 'shall I let them in' and many said 'nahhhh', but one of two exclaimed 'oh these two are alright, they're not like normal boys'.  I then opened the door and the girls watched the two boys walking in with their heads down, saying 'sad miss'.  I then asked them how they felt.  One of the boys Junior said 'normal' then everyone laughed but the other boy Ben, said he felt stink and left out.  I then told them that what I did is much like what is happening in a country that wouldn't let certain people in because they were different.  That started our conversation over the new America, a great way to hook them in!  I hope they come back!

After school was our first COL's meeting which I was really excited about the opportunity to network with staff in our cluster.  Russell plied us lollies, rockmelon & cans of coke to sweeten the afternoon and boy did we need it!  Being a COL is so exciting and I left feeling supported and ready to take on the world!

Day 1: Where did it go? Wed 1st Feb (late post)

Day one of school has gone - blinked and missed it!

My to do list that I sorted last night at 11pm was:

• Complete new year 9 welcome letter for the dean and SLT (check - well received)
• Book car in for damage repair (check - 2 weeks from Tuesday)
• Check on new departments members to see if they're ok (both have not quit, tyj)
• Sort out furniture from departed MDTA Geo teacher Caleb to new room
• Put posters up in my room (interior decorator needed)
• pay late tax returns re IRD
• book English resource room for meetings without the HOD's knowledge (yes!)

The staffroom can be deceptive at times.  If you sit on the couches, you invite the odd wanderer who wants to share their woes and life stories, sometimes jumping you when you least expect it, trapping you with their spell - it's like you don't want to look but you can't help but stare!  Other times, you can find a corner for whole day, that warns ppl out 'leave me the alone, I have stuff to do!' and no one bothers you.  To me, I feel a sense of connection when I'm there, with people of all types and their busi-ness, their sense of duty or un-duty to the slackers.   I feel part of the big picture, the big vision that our staff want to be a part of but that we sometimes mask itwith busi-ness and excuses.

I pretty much smiled at everyone I saw today, I couldn't help it.  I knew there was a feeling of apprehension, the smell of excitement and getting on with the job.  Today me and another colleague debated, deliberated, de-constructed and defamed every thought that we had to do with the our inquiries and our purpose at the school in the staffroom - we even missed interval, we were so in to it!!  Sometimes, we got lost in the momentum that time flies...but hey that's school life!

Back to school for our teachers only day

Travelling to work today, I was both excited and apprehensive as to what the new year would hold for us staff.  This would be my 18th year of driving to Tamaki College, which is almost (well nearly but not quite) half my life!  Although the roads are all too familiar, it felt like I was starting a new chapter today, one of a renewed enthusiasm and passion that over recent years has been lost a bit in the hum drum of familiarity and complacency.

I greeted old staff like family, making small talk and sharing sighs of lovely holidays had - my catch phrase was 'I was horizontal most of the time', which I thought was funny at first but then sounded a little suspect the more I thought about it.  Seeing the glow in everyones face was refreshing and when I think about the end of last year, I weirdly think of a huge sun bed that everyone escaped to for 6 weeks and that we won't see again til December.

I see big smily faces and ones that look thoroughly engaged in conversation - ahhh the new staff.  There's 11 of them in total this year and as most of them introduce themselves, they echo 'I will need help'...and I think 'you've come to the right place'.  As an old staff member, I feel it's our responsibility to support our newbies - the new and the old, guiding each other through the Tamaki College journey.

I have 2 new members of my department who are both beginning teachers and are taking on senior classes.  I know they felt overwhelmed with information overload today (as to be expected) but being the motherly figure style leader that I am, I will wrap them up, guide them with as much as I can, then let them fly, fly, fly...much like I would with our kids.

My inquiry this year is partly based on making smoother transitions for our year 9's (I want to call them babies, but I know they'd hate that) or young people.  We struggled for a whole term last year to settle them down and this year I want to work towards ways of engaging them more in their learning and wanting to be at school.  Research shows that they come equipped with skills and expectations that we at the college aren't quite meeting and I feel it's our responsibility to find out how to make it better for them and for us!

At our staff meeting, I presented these (and other) facts to our staff, to give them insight into how our babies would be feeling when they start tomorrow.  Overall, our day went well.

Tomorrow our year's 9 and 13's start school together and meet our staff - the new and the old, guiding each other through the Tamaki College journey.

Manaiakalani Orientation Day - my first blog!

This is my first blog for the year, 2017...wait, hold up, it's my first blog EVERRRR!

I wanted to start blogging regularly and properly as a teacher within the Manaiakalani family seeing as the learners in front of me are expected to blog so here I am, giving it ago.

A bit of background about myself.  I have been teaching at Tamaki College for (wait for it) over 17 years!! What a journey it has been.  If I had to write a novel for every adventure I'd had whilst at Tamaki, I'd be a millionaire (that's saying people would by my books of course).  The teaching journey has been exciting and being part of the shift from paper and pen to one to one digital teaching and learning has been like taking a rocky pathway and slowly smoothing the way.

This year, I will be one of 4 Community of Learner (CoLs) 'within schools' teachers at our school, who will work alongside our staff with various programmes and initiatives.  As part of the CoL's, we needed to attend the Manaiakalani orientation day which gave us an overview of the programme.  To be honest I needed a refresher and as Dorothy said 'what do you say when someone asks you what is all of this Manaiakalani programme about??' (side thought: why not get all of our staff to have a day like this at the beginning of the year?).

After the first session talking about the WHO we are, I was amazed at the amount of people and groups invested in the programme, invested in us!  It made me realise how important of all this was especially for our kids.  The rest of day was really refreshing and it was awesome to hear all of the exciting stuff that goes on behind the scenes too, the opportunities that staff have available and the ability to create connections in and between schools.  Bring on 2017!!!

(The naughty ones always sit at the back!)

Teaching as Inquiry 2017

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning.

In 2017 for my inquiry I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge 

#2. Lift the achievement for boys' writing years 1 - 10

The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2017 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

 CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect