At the Emerging Leaders Un-conference in the holidays I was lucky to hear Claire Amos discuss her experiences in the Self-Diredcted schools in Canada. A lot of what she discussed was very much secondary focused but one particular idea stuck with me and I decided to see if I could primary school-ify it and see if I could make it work in a … Continue reading »
I’ve been so very slack with my blogging so now that I’m back into it, I have an awful lot to share from the past few weeks. So I thought I’d write a series of posts about all the exciting things that have happened this year. Today: A Survey of Year 6. At the very … Continue reading »
I’ve been asked by a few people lately how I go about conferencing with students. Despite the fact that the word comes up with a wiggly red line when typed into Word, it’s a vital part of my classroom program. It’s much of the difference between well behaved, engaged, self-directed time wasting and ensuring productive … Continue reading »
Well, it’s been a lovely summer holiday so far here in New Zealand but the sun isn’t shining all that much today, so it’s a good day to get back into the swing of things. As I’m sure all teachers do, I have been relishing the long break we are lucky enough to get whilst … Continue reading »
The beginning of next year in the 3 Year 6 classes will start with an intense focus on learning. Building this focus on learning will be integral to the success of the rest of the year. Have a look at our initial plan for what we will do - Year 6 Health Inquiry Plan T1 2013 Continue reading »
Well, it’s that time of year again… report writing time. So there’s been a fair bit of testing going on and the students and I have been having good discussions based on this. We’ve talked about what all their assessments mean the whole way through the year so this is nothing new to them. What is new … Continue reading »
We have had quite a few little chats about the learning dart board idea that came from one of the the students. It’s been interesting as the thoughts of the children have changed and developed over time and it has really shown how they have matured as learners throughout the year.. To begin with, we discussed … Continue reading »
When I want the kids to reflect on their learning really quickly I often say “show me thumbs” (i.e. thumbs up means feeling good, through to thumbs down meaning not feeling confident about something at all). It works well, since it is simple and effective and really easily understood by me. In a glance I can see … Continue reading »
I’m no expert at all on catering for diverse students but a seminar I went to last night got me thinking about the way in which My-learning can work for such students that don’t ‘fit the mould.’ Thinking time Children often need time to think. We know this of course but how often have you … Continue reading »
