Year 9 Sos: Student voice survey results for Term 1

At the end of each term, I send out a survey to all of the year 9 classes to gather some insight into how the learning for the term has gone for them.  We had 30 responses across the year 9 cohort.

My response to the graphs:

Question 1 seems fair in that 80% is at least 3 of the 4 students in the classes seem to enjoy learning in Social Studies.  My biggest concern is around question two on whether students are feeling valued in their class.  I wanted to ask this question because it important for me to know and think that they feel valued.  On reflection, what I needed to do was to define ‘feeling valued’.  For example, being heard, having a voice, seeing yourself in the learning etc, all of the things that research and good practice promotes.

3.  What is ONE interesting thing that you learnt about in this topic, that you didn't know before?

• Intervening Obstacles people had to go through just to live their lives normally
• That the racism was actually very extreme. 
• that dawn raids affected heaps of elder people and our ancestors from the pacific islands
• I learnt that Nee Zealand was a very valued country even back then in the 1970s being regarded as the land of milk and honey.
• I've learnt about the dawn raids, and in my previous school I've never learnt about that.
• not really anything because I learnt about this in intermediate
• Police would arrest Pasific people even if they did nothing or just do little things like swearing on the streets , but mainly people would get arrested if they were overstayers.
• That pacific islanders would called New Zealand the 'land of milk and honey'.

4. What are TWO things that you enjoyed learning about in this topic?

• Learning about the Pacific History and being able to communicate with others on my opinion or ideas.
• It was interesting to see after a long time the government finally apologised for their actions in the past. I also thought that the things we had to do was explained in a simple way so I could understand what we are learning about.
• That there might be some possibilities that one of my Ancestors were to blame for unemployment. And the fact that I got to learn more about polynesians, as a Polynesian. 
• I have enjoyed just overall learning about migration and how it affects people. I have also enjoyed learning about the Dawn Raids as well.
• The history and what a dawn raider is
• Learning new things & Getting to share my knowledge with people at home
• That I got to know more about serious things that have happened way back ago 
• I enjoyed learning the past and learning about having different opinions 

5.   Have there been any BARRIERS to your learning?

15 of the 30 said there were NO barriers to their learning.  The ones that did said it was mainly distractions from friends, being sick.  2 said not having as netbook, noisy class, double periods being too long, 2 said they have difficulty in understanding the work. 

6.  What is one thing that you would like the teacher to know when it comes to your learning?  

• I don't focus to well
• I like to work in groups to get to know my classmates opinions and thoughts
• I like to share my ideas with a peer or two
• I like to work by myself
• That I will finish the work on the First day.
• I am not the best at spelling
• i not really good with speaking in front of the classroom or working with people i don't usually work with.

My response to questions 3 - 6:

It was really interesting to read how students responded to the questions provided and I learnt some key points such as the term 'milk and honey' being a phrase that kids had just learnt.  

Next steps:  

At the start of next term, I will be sharing the results with staff and students and using the information 

Project Rise Community co-design day: An invitation to redesign our facilities.

This week, I was invited to take part in a co-design workshop to review and discuss one of the 3 key aspects of the Project RISE initiative (for more info click here)

I choose facilities because I have been at the school for over 20 years and the last time I remember seeing a new build was probably back in 2006 when the EP6 block was opened.

Although I wished our whole staff could have participated, I felt blessed to be at a table with a wide range of our T.C staff, both new and old, Maori and Pasifika, male and female as well as 4 ex-students and double the blessing we had Rev Joel with us too!  We were able to brainstorm some creative ideas and it was a really cool session where we able to designed our dream ideal space.

Rev Joel, James and Ruiha practising for the big presentation

At the end of the day, each group had to stand up and present to the whole workshop.  We called ourselves ‘Le Puha’ and all the Tongans in the room had a giggle when Rev said our name.  Our design was so well received, we even made the newsletter.  I can’t wait to see where the journey goes from here.

Our team made the front page!

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #4b: The Dawn Raids skill building

After learning the content around the Dawn Raids, we looked at how we could apply our learnings in an essay.  To do this, I wanted to reinforce the importance of planning to write and to use what they've learnt in a logical way.  In the past, I haven't spent too much time scaffolding the context in such a way, as I've felt as year 9's, kids might get overwhelmed with the structuring of an essay and get bored so I've tended to stick with telling them what they need to write about and not so much on how to write about what they need to write about (if that makes sense).  I've realised the more time I invest now in teaching them how to write an essay, the less time it would take when they get to senior school.

PART TWO:

Learn … the skill of essay writing

We started the skills lessons by brainstorming everything we knew and had learnt about the Dawn Raids.  I allowed students to add to the board if they remembered something later on.  This took about 15 minutes to do.

We created themes and decided that these would become our paragraphs and then we put them into a chronological order of when they had occurred happened.  

Then I went through how to write a good essay by breaking down the question and using the T.E.X model for the paragraphs and a hamburger model for the essay that they know.

Then for each theme, there were at least 3 key points which essentially gave them 3 points to write about.  I tried to create a flow chart of the process below using a students example (link to work here).  These 3 points turned into small T.E.X paragraphs.

Create… the essay.

After building the blocks, students then created the essay. 

Reflection

For those who stuck it out, they did really well, there were some really extraordinary essays.  But I probably gave them too much to do and to think about which meant I lost a couple of kids along the way.  Many kids started, but didn't finish which is something I need to look it more closely.  I'm going to revisit this model during the year, as I've learnt again, that less is definitely more with regards to how to structure an essay.

T.C Staff PLD #2: Presenting Pasifika student voice to support the Tapasā

As part of our Langa Ako initiative, our Pasifika initative were given the opportunity to run a PLD session with our staff during one of the newly acquired staff PLD Mondays. 

Link to PLD

Last year, we surveyed 100+ Pasifika students from across the school.  Here are the stats of who they were:

We asked them a few questions, the first one being ‘What does success look like as a Tamaki student?’.  The biggest indicator was NCEA and achieving success at 45% and over 70% believing it was academic success.

The next question was ‘What does success look like as Pasifika student’ and the results showed the opposite, that students believed that being successful related to culture values and identity.

The question was put to staff.  How can we use what we know to support successful outcomes for our Pasifika kids?

Staff discussed in their groups how they felt about the data and what it meant to them and were shared this ppt to contribute their answers.

Reflection:  

We touched on barriers to learning but ran out of time to go further into the information.  Regardless of this, I felt positive that we could share our survey results and learnings with our staff as it is relevant to us and our journey.   We also launched our website which was a good way to share our story with those who are new. Our aim is to equip all teachers of Pasifika learners with the tools and strategies to support our learners.  

I just wanted a photo on the podium (I prefer to be behind the scenes!)

T.C Sos Dept #6: Effective Online Learning Environments PLD

Today our department took part in a PLD that supports the Hybrid Teaching and Learning model our school has taken on this term.  It was good to revisit the nuts and bolts of this type of teaching and learning as we could always find new and innovative ways to engage our learners.  We revisited the SAMR model which helped us to that we were already doing and think about some new ways of doing the old stuff differently.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #4a: The Dawn Raids Content

In year 9 Social Studies, I decided to introduce learning about the Dawn Raids as part of our migration unit.  In the past, I have left it for the seniors to learn about but I felt it was a good example of an ‘intervening obstacle’ that made life difficult for Pacific migrant groups in the 70’s.  It also allowed us to explore the social actions that led to the apology by the Government.  This part of the unit took 8 periods to teach, including learning how to write a good dawn raids essay.  I have divided this blogpost into two parts: The Content and the skill building.

PART ONE: 

Learn…the content

Through a series of in-depth lessons about the Dawn Raids.

We started by revisiting our 7 key concepts and making links to the 'intervening obstacles' created by the Dawn Raids'. 

We then explored the social action and the lead up to the apology.

 

Create…a presentation to show your understanding (individually and in groups)

Students worked in groups to discuss and create a powerpoint to show their understanding of dawn raids to New Zealand history.

Individually, students then created a document that allowed them to further explore the dawn raids and how a group of people presented a petition to parliament that caused the government to apologise. 

Share…a blogpost

Students wrote about their thoughts and views around the Dawn Raids and why they thought it was important to learn about.

Reflection

I tried to use a variety of mediums to capture and engage students through videos and discussions about how people were feeling at the time.  I think my kids enjoyed these more than me trying to teach and talk them through the events of the time.  We pointed out vocab and words we weren't familiar with reinforced them throughout the teaching so that kids would become more and more familiar with them.  Engagement wise, I felt the kids enjoyed the lessons.

Linking to my inquiry

Creating contexts that kids would want to learn about.

Year 9 Social Studies: The importance of Pepeha

To get to know my kids and for them to get to know each other, I asked to create and recite their pepeha in front of their peers.  I shared mine first and provided a template for them to create theirs.  I have 2 year 9 classes and one class really embraced the exercise whilst my other one, not so much.  I hope that by the end of the year, 2 things happen:  they know their pepeha off by heart and they are confident in presenting in front of their classmates.