Personal Goals-2015

Goal 1: 

To successfully implement PB4L ideas at Porritt. 

Rationale for Goal:

At Porritt there is a need to reflect on our children's behaviour, both positive and negative, and develop approaches that are consistent, fair and equitable and make Porritt School a safe place for all.

What do I want to achieve:

• Consistency in our approaches to children's behaviour
• Clear guidelines for behaviour at Porritt School

Support:

• PB4L professional development throughout the year
• The Porritt PB4L team
• Previous PD in Incredible Years

Reflection:

Term 1

So far a PB4L team has been assembled and are meeting regularly. Our first task has been to engage with the community around the idea of reinvigorating a whanau group and to that end a survey has been sent out. The team have also focused on gathering data around our school's systems. This includes surveys of all staff and a SET done by our partner school, Marewa. Once collected all the data will be analysed and then we will move forward into formulating a school wide plan for PB4L.

Term 2

A lot of work done by the team this term both in working with staff to increase their understanding and knowledge of PB4L  as well as starting to develop our own PB4L vision. This has included looking at developing our Matrix of behavioural expectations which is well along the way and reflects Porritt Pride while also leading to specific teaching of behaviours. There has been work on developing our incident reporting form as well as making some changes to our reward systems. We have also engaged with whanau with a succesful evening and plan to hold another in Term 3. Our teachers are becoming more comfortable with PB4L and are having more input into it as we begin to develop more resources. We can feel happy about how we are going on this PB4L journey

Goal 2:

To incorporate rich learning tasks and more problem solving into my maths teaching.

Rationale for Goal:

Children learn better from authentic tasks.

What do I want to achieve:

More problem solving and rich tasks in my maths programme

Support:

School wide Maths PD
Maths Symposium in April

Reflection:

Term 1

At present little has come from the Maths PD apart from 1 observation and some gathering of school wide data. More to come in Term 2.

Term 2

There is a general direction if you like coming from the visits by our facilitators over the term that is focussed on developing "Talk Moves" that allow the children to express their ideas and thinking in maths. The demonstration by Sam was valuable and showed how it can work. My next step is to use these more frequently in  my maths lessons so that it becomes an integral part of what I do. 

Goal 3:

To continue to explore ways of using the I Pad in the classroom to enhance learning and to provide support for other teachers in this area.

Rationale for Goal:

Tablet/ I Pad technology is ubiquitous and all pervasive in today's society. It can provide opportunities for children to enhance their learning.

What do I want to achieve:

Children throughout the school using I Pads as part of their normal day to help with their learning.

Support:

Visits to other schools
U Learn conference

Reflection:

Term 1

It has taken a while to get the IPads set up along with a system for pushing out and managing apps. Now that this has happened we are ready to start using them in the classroom. Having 7 IPads for the class means managing them so that the children get the best use out of them. At the moment the main app I am using is Book Creator as it allows the children to create books easily with text/photos/drawings and sound, and can easily be used in any curriculum area. Here is an example I will use and adapt for use in maths.The children have managed to quickly gain knowledge on how to create using this app and are able to help each other with it. Also using Pic Collage along with some other letter writing apps as well as Doodle Buddy for creating drawings. So far there have been no barriers for their use and the children are becoming very adept in the way they use them.

Term 2

Now that the children are confident using the iPads we are moving along nicely using them to enhance their learning. Some examples:

This is a video made initially in Book Creator and converted to a movie to show an understanding of the letter W and the sound it makes. Children took photos and added voice.

This video also made the same way shows children;s understanding of adding with 5.

Something I am beginning to explore is the use of the voice recorder for various situations. One of my students misses out words (usually pronouns)  in her writing due to her ESOL background. By recording the sentence she needs she can continually replay it and ensure all the words are there in the sentence. The voice recorder could also work as a fluency enhancer by getting the children to record themselves reading their guided reading texts and listening back to see how fluent they are. Something I will be using next term.