Teacher Appraisal

How do I prioritise the well-being of the Maori students in my class?  1. Know your Maori learners: Building up rapport and positive relationships with the students at the beginning of the year was very important. This includes getting to know them individually; what they enjoy, their background, how they feel towards their learning, their family etc. It is important to be able to make connections with them and their experiences to be able to support learning and strengthen relationships. Manaakitanga provides common purpose or a bond between teacher and student/whanau.  I have done this by talking to my students about things outside of school and I do this daily with a number of children. Also, at the beginning of the year we did a lot of 'all about me' activities and games so I could get to know the students and they could get to know each other as well. We spent the first four weeks of school focussing on building relationships. 2. Build community connec...

Compare your interactions with students from pre restorative training to post restorative training We have looked at our strengths and weakness activity from directly after this training to review how we are interacting with students since participating in the PB4L training in March. Since having restorative practice training and knowing everyone in the school is on the same page we feel more confident asking for support from ANY staff member rather than those just in the senior leadership team. We are finding that in incidental conversations we are more likely to discuss/mention how behaviours of students are impacting us and how they make us feel. It may not be in an official discussion per say, but made as a comment but we know we are being heard.  When talking our feelings with students, the students (most students) are beginning to realise that we are humans and we have feelings just the same way they do - we are not the robots they sometimes think we are.  ...

Whanau involvement in our students learning takes the form of: Sending home a class letter that outlines the Term's activities. This allows parents/caregivers to be aware of what is happening in class and they can use it to guide meaningful conversations with their children about their learning. Sharing students individual success and participation on the app Seesaw. For the majority of parents who have signed up, they can see photos, videos, and listen to voice recordings from their children. Celebration night, which takes place twice a year, the students are able to share with their whanau in person about their learning. Whanau can look at their books, work and classroom displays. Reports, which are sent home twice a year, informing students of their child's progress and attitude to learning. Weekly assemblies, which is presented by a different class. Parents/caregivers are welcome to attend to celebrate Pride Badges and the Pride Cup awards.

Jungle 2nd and 3rd of July 2019 The school production has been a major learning curve for me. It was always something I loved to do as a student, however, I had no idea how much work really went into it behind the scenes. It was an amazing experience to work alongside one of my colleagues, the parents who helped, members of the St James Theatre, and other members of the community. I feel as though I have spread my web of connections throughout Gore. Under the wing of my colleague, I learnt so much! From costumes to makeup, from lighting to music. My organisation skills have improved as we needed to plan endless meetings and practices coming up to the week of the show. The day of, I was offered the chance to be stage manager and to be honest I was reluctant. But I am so glad I took on another responsibility because it was a great opportunity. I feel as though I gained a lot of self-confidence, not only as a teacher, but as a member of my community and I can say that I wou...

Examples of Restorative Practice: 1. You hear a student swearing in the corridor. Tell the story: "Tell me what's happened." "Why do we need to have this chat?" "What were you thinking when you did that?" "How does that fit with our kawa?" Explore the harm: "Who do you think has been affected?" "In what ways?" "How do you think they feel?" "What could you have done instead?" Repair the harm: "What do you think we need to do to make things right?" "What do people need to hear or see from you?" "Is there anything else you think might help?" "What will 'sorry' look like?" Reach an agreement: "If this happens again, what will you do differently?" 2. You speak to two students wearing hoodies under their jackets. Tell the story: "Why do we need to have this chat?" "How does that fi...

What is your opinion of the PRIDE Values and why? Perseverance, Resilience, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence.  These values underpin a good, moral human being. They are at the base of everything we should be doing as teachers and as role models in society. The values are 'big' words for some of our lower level learners, so they need to be so explicitly and specifically taught so they can fully understand what these values mean and how they can live by them and display them in their day to day life. They need a secure understanding of this by the time they move on from us at the end of year 8. They need to understand how important these words are and how they can demonstrate them in real life.  Not every child has an ingrained background of these values for a variety of different reasons (home life may not reflect these values). So, unless we teach them, they may never have an opportunity to learn from these. And it is so important for them to learn t...

Staff Meetings - Term One Monday 11th February 2019 After looking at the first Principle of Learning, "Learners at the centre", I have established that my planning should be based on the learners needs and interests. Due to a lot of students forming an interest in the topic of war, particularly because of the Treaty of Waitangi, it would be a good focus for this term. However, students will be able to steer their learning and focus on what in particular interests them.  I will be differentiating the learning and being inclusive of all my students. Another part of this is knowing our learners and I feel I have been doing that over the past 3 weeks getting to know their interests, whanau, hobbies, sports and unique things about each of them.  Smart Goals Video The smart goals video is a great way for me to remember to keep my goals simple and achievable. It's perfect when I will be setting goals throughout the year for my Induction and Mentoring programme. Al...

Professional Development Days - January 2019 My first PD at Longford School occurred over the two teacher only days on Monday 28 th January and Tuesday 29 th January.  PLD Timetable Longford Handbook What did I learn? During these two days I was able to get my head around the many different systems used at school in regards to behaviour, schedules, timetables and responsibilities.  My areas of responsibilities consist of the school production, music, drama and social sciences.   We also had the pleasure to hear from Marcus Gough from the Ministry of Education. He spoke to us about relationships, routines and recognition and how these are essential in the classroom.  I learnt that in the first few weeks of school it is important to set up meaningful relationships with the students, establish set routines (through modelling and teaching) and recognise what the children are doing right. Something to keep in mind with the lat...

Induction & Mentoring PLD Tuesday 12th February 2019 Introductory Workshop Our Standards for the Teaching Profession Our Code, Our Standards Support for PCT Mau ki te atu What I learnt? “It is understood that high quality practices will generate naturally occurring evidence that can be used for discussion and analysis. For the purposes of appraisal, it is not expected that teachers would need to identify evidence of individual elaborations: however, the evidence of the quality and quantity of their practice would need to be sufficient to reflect the standard.”  ~ Teacher Standards p.g 18 When it comes to documenting evidence, I learnt that it can come from a range of sources: planning student work photos observations student assessments videos meeting minutes reflective notes Documenting evidence can also be from a range of perspectives, such as, my own, my mentor's, my students, the students' whānau and the wider community. What I wil...