Interestingly, when I’ve spoken to the students in Year 6 lately, they’ve told me that they have lots of control in the classroom. I can’t say I agree, though they may well have plenty of control compared to previous years at school. So, to give both myself and the kids in my class a better idea of who had … Continue reading »
It is interesting to ask students what successful learners do – you always get students who say the secret to success is to concentrate hard or work hard. I agree this is important, but is there more to a really great learner than that? I wanted to pose this question to the students in my class to … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to attend ICOT in January and got some great ideas and food for thought. One such idea that grew as the conference went on was to create a wall of skills and tools I thought the students needed to be great learners. The idea was to add skills/tools as the year proceeded and … Continue reading »
This year, the Year 6 syndicate started off the term with an intense focus on learning. We have focused on the following ideas: What successful learners do. What switches us on and off learning. What meaningful learning is. (Useful, get a sense of accomplishment out of it, enjoyable, interesting and … 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 »
I was lucky enough to be taken along to the International Conference on Thinking (ICOT) held in Wellington over the summer holidays. I say lucky as there were so many inspiring minds there, both in the education field and beyond, from New Zealand and overseas, from higher education as well as practitioners. I was humbled to hear … 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 »
The Year 6 students did an interesting experiment today, for our unit on government systems and human rights. We arbitrarily split the kids into ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’ then outlined the different rights (or lack there-of) each group were to have for the day. It was definitely unfair and lacking in equality, the idea being that … Continue reading »
