Well it is almost 12 months since I was here and once again I am going to make an effort to be more regular with my blog! This year I have driven a project at my current school and the process and results have been very rewarding. I am so proud of the willingness of the staff to come on this journey.
Two years ago I started introducing to the Kindy team the idea of teaching collaboratively as a way to support differentiation within the programme. We also explored cross-curriculum teaching and learning. Last year the Kindy team put the collegial discussion into practice. We started to explore collaborative teaching and cross curricular learning in the classroom.

The first concept based and cross-curriculum unit the team developed was a weather unit! Unfortunately it was derailed slightly by COVID. However, they did a great job and developed some wonderful resources.  We are about to implement the weather unit again, it will interesting to reflect on the differences between in student understanding and the pedagogy between the two teachings of the unit. Since we started exploring collaborative teaching and cross-curriculum teaching we have visited two schools, one with an inquiry focus and one with collaborative teaching. Both these experiences have been of great value. 
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I am so happy to be part of a team that are willing to run with new ideas, give new ideas the time and effort that developing our practice as teachers always takes, being reflective and being open with their feedback. 

I have been supporting Kindergarten with reading groups and there is a small group of students who are slowly developing their reading and writing skills, that get daily support through a structured programme, but I feel they can gain more with one on one intervention. So I am going to devise a program that targets each students specific needs and is multi sensory. I will do a pre-assessment and review in 5 weeks time. This will also need to be implemented in the prekindergarten programme as their are some students who are struggling to learn their sounds. I am hoping that by intervening now they will be successful next year when they go to Kindergarten. 

Today, after lots of consideration, I applied to NESA to commence my Highly Accomplished Teacher application.Let the journey begin.

It is now 6 months later and I am just getting back to the blog. t has been a busy year, I have done so much learning. As I move forward to the new year, I am looking forward to making my mark on the Early Learning program at my school. This year I have focused on my own programme and although it is not where I want it to be yet, it has changed and we are on the way. Most of the staff are on board and we are moving as a team and that is going to be my big focus for next year, developing a strong team, not only within my own programme but also with Kindergarten. Together we will build a more discovery approach to learning and a less formal learning programme for our youngest learners. It will be another steep learning curve but a rewarding one. We also have the opportunity to develop a building specifically for the Early Learning programme and that will add another dimension to my role and the year ahead. Build the team, develop, experiment and reflect on the programme then plan the environment! I hope that is the right order!!!

A lot has happened since I last posted here. I am now back in Australia, in rural NSW teaching 4 year olds (pre-kindergarten), and coordinating the Early learning team. There are many challenges, but I am enjoying them and the students. I am making a commitment to being more consistent with my digital participation.  

Since my last post I have been busy. Busy learning and busy doing. The big learning curve for me at school has been learning how to develop a team. Due to continual growth the PYP section of the school added 8 new classes this academic year. This created opportunities for staff to move within the school. As a result of staff moving into the primary program,  I employed 14 new  kindergarten staff within a team of 25  and 5 new Fritids staff out of a team of 8. This required a focus on team building both between new class teams and between the old and new staff. The old were happy with the way things were done and it was working well. The new members had new ideas and different ways of doing things and were challenging the status quo, My take away message, spend lots of time on developing relationships, and have staff involved in the process of connecting with new team members, Combinations of people that I thought would work well together have not done so and it has required negotiation and time to get the partnerships working.  People handle change and new ideas in different ways and communication skills in a diverse community are essential to develop with everyone. 

Building teams has required lots of collegial discussion, making explicit the expectations from all staff regarding the curriculum and behaviours as well as developing a shared sense of values between all team members.  It has been challenging and rewarding. As a new leader I am also learning how and when to support. How much is to controlling, how much is to loose and leaves no direction. 

In addition, in my role as PYP Coordinator we also had new members join the primary years team and developing a shared understanding of the PYP is a work in process. Once again it is challenging to balance giving enough information at the time it is of value and most useful to the teachers and not over or under whelming them with untimely information. 

I have been fortunate enough to attend a Dylan Wiliam workshop on assessment. The key concepts that I have brought back to school is an understanding of the importance of quality formative assessment.
Quality formative assessment  requires thought and planning regarding;

1.  Sharing and clarifying the learning intentions so students can link to prior knowledge they have and know the aim of the learning. Through this they are able to reflect on how well they have achieved their goal Ensuring students understand

2. The types of questions that will give infomraiton about the thinking process that got students to their response

3. Providing effective and timely feedback that is useful and usable by the students and moves students learning forward

4. Engaging in discussions that elicits evidence of learning and getting peers involved with supporting or rejecting their peers ideas by justifying their own reasoning.   

5. Encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own learning

When I returned to school I shared my learning with the staff and since then we have continued to reflect on how we can improve our teaching practice through formative assessment directing our teaching. These discussions have encouraged staff to share different formative assessment strategies, those that worked  and those that were no so successful, and is slowing bring quality formative assessment into most teachers daily practice. I am enjoying hearing how different teachers are using this learning in their classrooms and the discussion it is creating.