The decision to leave teaching....A year in review

My year in review this year, takes me a little away from the classroom but surprisingly has not taken me far from education.

After a rather emotional and rollercoaster start to 2016 in the classroom I made the difficult decision to leave the safety of teaching and jump out into the world boots first, to try something else.

I always was someone who liked to try new things, staying in teaching into my 12th year was something of a milestone for myself and it was time to move on, I knew it in my heart.

So I wrote to my board and was approved to stop teaching at the end of term 1. The feelings were very mixed. I had no job...no idea what work I would do...I had no idea of what was next for me....

It wasn't long after my teaching door began to close, that a new door opened for me. Before I had packed up and left the classroom I was fortunate to come into contact with a little company called Bridging the Gap. Bridging the Gap provide IT Pd to ...wouldn't you know it... Schools!

This seemed like a perfect fit for me, and as 2016 rolled on, I found myself really enjoying this new roll, and seeing schools from a different point of view.

My learning in education did not stop with me leaving the classroom but has continued to grow through the professional discussions held day in and day out, around the assessment and analysis of data schools are collecting, Around what to collect, when and why. I enjoy having the ability to help people negotiate the implementation of digital tools in their schools, and help design systems than work for different individuals.

My adventure outside the classroom has only just begun, I wonder what 2017 holds in store.

Confidence and Purpose

Today I met Andrew Patterson in an online video and enjoyed his inspiration.

His main discussion was around building confidence first and creating experiences for children which make their desires in life seem like real possibilities.

He is inspiring as he loves disruption and having a go, trying big ideas, things that arent easy but are possible.

How can I create confidence in my students, and how can I bring more experiences based in the real world - not just the world they are born into - but the possibilities that their are in the real world, in the future world, into my students lives?

The Place of the New (old) NZC

This week I was introduced to a rather long but relevant study by Wayne Freeth around the Reconceptualising of Leadership through the Revised NZ Curriculum.

Now the new curriculum has been in place a few years now, I personally have worked with this new curriculum for twice as long as I worked under the last one. But in reading this study I was once again reminded of the forward thinking that went into its concept. Thinking that has been somewhat forgetten.

Years ago when the NZC came back our school ran with it. We embraced change and looked at a new curriculum map for our school. We accepted the future focused themes, added our own communities values, and embraced the key competencies as important... And then got on with teaching units based on themes just like always. We simply headed the themes with the FF headings and tagged terms with a values and KC, like they are taught once a year and thats it.

Looking back, and looking at how our schools adoption of the NZC has developed since then, it seems we stopped thinking about the possibilities that had been opened up to us.

Reading this document reminded me of the importance of the few pages at the front of the NZC, the pages that seperate the skills learning from the competenices for life.
It is time to get back to looking at what the students need in skills AND competencies and working from them up towards the NZC objectives, rather than leadership picking topics they want our kids to do...

Its time to focus on knowledge as the verb... rather than knowledge as disconnected fragments of nouns.

What is our shared understanding of what a student in our school should be when they leave...

Is it only what they have attained academically that is valued - what about what they have become as  a human...

What is Educations purpose?

Week two of Mindlab asks questions around the purpose of education.

What is the purpose?

What drives the purpose?

And how do we know we are creating opportunities for kids to be successful in their education?

We started by discussing an interesting venn diagram on the purpose of education which contained three circles.
1. Education as a means to give qualifications
2. Education as a means to socialise to customs and traditions
3. Education as a means to create subjective thinking (autonomous).
We debated the size of each part and discussed how currently the size of each changes from ECE to Higher education: where socialisation is the focus in ECE and Qualifications the focus of higher education.
We seemed to agree that subjective thinking was taught least in our schools, and that the norms, cultures and traditions our schools are teaching can be very upper, middle class European based. I wondered about the advanced social adaptablility of children these days as they move easily between the culture and traditions of home, to school, to friend groups, to online relationships, multiple family homes etc.


We looked at the 21 century learning Rubrics which cover the 6 important skills that 21st Century education needs to be teaching.
 collaboration
 knowledge construction
 self-regulation
 real-world problem-solving and innovation
 the use of ICT for learning
 skilled communication

Our videos show the steps of success towards achieving each of these skills.

Thanks to Neil, Kersty, Kath - Mindlab Rotorua

Thanks to Vanessa, Shaun, Aimee, Andrea - Mindlab Rotorua

Thanks to Clare, Graham, Brigitte, Liz, Marnel - Mindlab Rotorua


I will have to add the other skills videos created tonight, later, due to uploading issues.

Te Rangihakahaka

Let the storytelling begin...
Last term we participated in Te Rangihakahaka, a professional development program to help Rotorua teachers become more familiar with and connected to the stories of Rotorua. During our Marae stay at Ohinemutu we learned and reheard the stories of Tamatekapua, Ngatiroirangi, Ihenga, Rangitihi and more.
I understood the value in these stories as a way to connect to this place I grew up in - Rotorua, and decided that the best way to confirm my own learning was to pass it on as soon as possible.


This week I became a storyteller - not a
story reader - but a storyteller. I had had a go at telling Tamatekapuas story a week earlier, but had needed to keep checking the sequence of events and charaters names, but this time the story flowed. I was able to tell it freely with the best storytelling vocabulary that I could muster.
The reaction was great. The kids were transfixed.


My goal for the children was to introduce some of the major characters in Te Arawa history, and for them to take ownership of the stories so that they are, in turn, able to retell them. For this we have begun a few steps.
1. The kids drew or wrote as they listened to the story (backwards planning).
2. We retold the story orally in a group as a chain - each person telling the next part.
3. We wrote the story for ourselves so we could refer back to it if we forgot.

I hope to take it a step further later in the year and have the children retell these stories through multimedia for future generations.
The children really have enjoyed this first story and are engaged in their writing. I have yet to read the quality of this retell but I have seen an increased engagement in particular in a few of the Maori boys (J-R and S-R), writing screeds and screeds, and showing a strength in recalling what happened.

I hope the next story gets a similar audience.

What is knowledge?

Epistemology, ontology, axiology, rationalism and empiricism...
Boy, have I been obtaining knowledge this week, including practising all my reading skills to infer meaning of new words from the sentences around them. It has been a while since I last read academic articles.
Mindlab Rotorua has begun with the small topic of

What is Knowledge? 

and

What is the purpose of education?

Not such easy questions to answer but great questions to discuss with the open-minded forward thinking participants of Mindlab.

So what did we discover?  

Video by Neil, Kath, Bevan, Anne and Kirsty.
  Our flowing river is representative of how knowledge is created and evolves over time. Our knowledge is always expanding, it can head in certain directions, change direction, bend and curve. Knowledge can become unused and drift into the small  distributaries that break off the river. Along the rivers journey are the things that influence our knowledge and that our knowledge influences. Our knowledge is influenced by our time and place, by our beliefs and values, by our environment (our place in the world). Our knowledge collects facts, ideas and skills, as it flows. Some are caught up in the flow, others swept to the sides of the river. As our river of knowledge grows it can be used and applied to create more in the world, just as the river helps create the forests growing along its sides.

Knowledge flows and grows!

 

 

So what is the purpose of education then, if not to impart knowledge? Knowledge is so much more than school. Education happens regardless of time or place, but (we discussed) that its purpose is influenced by time and place. The purpose of formal education in western society, many years past, was elitist, it was only for 'certain' people, to keep them in power. Then it was to produce mass workers who knew enough to follow instructions and do as they were told to man the many factories. Now we want to create active members of society, contributers, innovators, citizens. And whats more - we are unsure what the society that they will be members of is even going to be like...

 

 How do I see this 'new' purpose of education in my class...

 

I attempt to create a community of learning. A place where we all can make decisions about  where we work and who we work with. Where everyone can be considered a holder of knowledge, and I promote children to seek knowledge from each other. Where we celebrate together, have opportunities to collaborate together, and time to share our strengths and passions with the group. I challenge children to take responsibility, to debate, to agree and disagree, and to feel they each have an important part to play in our learning journeys. School is no longer about sitting in one spot, producing the same work as the person next to you, listening without responding, accepting without questioning, doing without thinking ... Transformation is required.

Day 15- Name 5 strengths you have as an educator

Obviously keeping to this blogging challenge is NOT one of my strengths, after a stall at day 6. But I will try to get back on the horse and try to catch up a few of the missed posts over the next few days.

Today topic is to talk about my own teaching strengths. I'm thinking this question might be a little challenging but here goes...

1. I am a quick learner which means as an educator I am able to quickly pick up new learning, whether it be an assessment tool, a new curriculum, a new programme. I feel I am able to learn about these new things quickly and  independently and then work out the best way to implement this in my class.

2. I am able to make links to prior learning for the children. I find during topics I am always seeing ways that new learning is connecting to the old, and helping children to see how learning is connected.

3. I am adaptable. I am able to judge the moment and make changes to better suit the children's readiness at any given time. I am also adaptable to changes in school wide timetables, they don't throw our class programme, we will carry on with something else we planned to do.

4. I am a risk taker. I am not afraid to try something new. I like to explore ideas with the children in my class, to get them involved in what we are doing between 9am and 3pm. I have brought e-portfolios into my school, explored my own version of Daily 5 and wrote a picture book with 6 yr olds.

5. I am a learner. It is almost an obsession with me, but I love learning. I am always researching things I can do with my home, with my class, management ideas, reading programmes, new technologies, passion projects... Anything that peeks my interest.

Wow...I did it. I found 5 things I think help me to be a good educator.

How time Flies...

A year came and went... and now I find myself suddenly in 2015. Last year was a great year. I was fortunate to be allowed to teach a new entrant class. It was a year of awesome learning.


- Team teaching taught me that two is better than one. Teaching together with an experienced new entrant teacher made my transition to this age group seemless. I was able to build on my teaching philosophy with a likeminded peer, who instilled in me her knowledge and belief in the value of play. We complimented each other with our teaching strengths, and had an amazing time.


- Five years olds taught be about the power of the human brain. Boy, do five year olds learn a lot in just 10 months of school. I feel all teachers should feel the success you feel as a teacher when these little sponges suck up all the information you can put out there. I can't wait to see how these children grow through out all their years at school.


- My inquiry in Maths taught me that five year olds can go beyond what is expected of them. By focusing on remembering an using basic facts, my five year olds we able to start thinking in patterns, and using information they knew to solve problems. Very exciting. I am hoping to test my ideas of skipping past counting on, by promoting use of facts straight from the start, again this year with my year 3 maths class.


- My colleagues taught me that teachers are resilient, risk takers, who are modelling these traits to their classes. I was very pleased to hear that all the year 5/6 teachers(my team I had just left) were willing to throw their hats in and have a go at using GAFE for the first time with their students, and manage individual student blogs. The learning curve was enormous for some... but they made it through with each others support, and said they would never go back.


- I taught myself that teaching can still take a backseat to life. Through having another teacher to share paperwork and teaching with I found I got my weekends back. With two of us working hard Monday to Friday I was finally able to use my weekends for rest. This year I have looked carefully at what helped us to achieve this last year, and am attempting to implement efficient was of meeting teacher paperwork, so I can continue having my weekends to myself this year.


So that's my wrap for 2014.


let the adventures of 2015 begin...

A year in Review

2013 came and went - in the blink of an eye - as can often happen when you are teaching. It was a big year of learning for me, and ended in a ton of new developments.

It was my 3rd year teaching year 5/6 class, my 2nd year trying daily 5 for my reading program, the second year having no desks, my 3rd year trying e-portfolios, my 1st year defining what an e-learning class meant to my school, my 1st year of planning online, and my 9th year of teaching, and was full of moments to remember...

Best moment - Camp
Having the opportunity to go on school camp for the second time was great. We had a neat bunch of kids, and seeing some of the children, I taught as 6 year olds who are now as 10 yr olds, in this context was great. It was almost like camping with family.

Saddest moment - Year 6 leavers
Watching one of my year 6 students - that I'd just given an award for class spirit - walking out of the achievement assembly, through the guard of honour, with tears streaming down her face.... says it all.

Happiest moments - Seeing kids succeed
When you can sit back in your class and look around at happy, hard working children. The ones with dyslexia who just keep striving, the poor spellers who love to write, the intelligent kid working at their passion, the figiter settling to a task, the shy kid reading a book to 180 people. Great moments.

Funniest moment - R and the pole
Kids do do and say the darnedest things. I have never laughed as much as when a poor lad in my class literally walked into a pole as we walked down the road to a show at the nearby high school. While I know it isn't polite to laugh at hurt children... he thought it was so funny that he recreated it for a special comedy episode on our school TV show.

Greatest success - The girls
I had a group of 5 Maori girls in my class. Each had come from a different class, each had no other friends in this class, but they found each other and became great friends. The success came around them maintaining this friendship and learning how to deal effectively with disputes, keeping everyone feeling a sense of belonging. We had many lunchtime meetings, initiated  by one of the girls, so they could talk problems through. By the end of the year, they could do this almost independently, and learned to let things go, to forgive and to smile.

Greatest challenge - Leading e-learning classes
Leading this great group of teachers that offered to try e-portfolios with their classes, was a great challenge. I wasn't sure where I stood for this. I was their equal, I didn't have all the answers, I wasn't convinced of how e-portfolios fit, how even I was going to make the best use of the e-learning tools we had been given. But I tried my best to guide them with what I did know, to challenge their thinking occasionally, and to help us all understand the power in e-learning.

Greatest failure - ABTV
Our school TV show. While I know its not great to talk about things as failure, this was definitely a flop this year. With no assemblies to air it, then no core group to run it...it became a nit of a shambles and just didn't happen. Something to work on next year.

Scariest moment - Meeting my class for 2014
This was the day I actually had to face the 5 yr olds (or near 5 year olds) that I would be teaching in New entrants next year... ARGH... nothing like a bit of fear to make you feel alive...

But that's another post.

Tataiako

The Tataiako document shares the guiding principals of teaching and learning with Māori children. Recently the staff at my school were introduced officially to this document and taken on a short personal reflection around how we are already adhering to these principals in our own classrooms, and where we might go next. We looked at what our students and whanau were saying about their experiences, and their expectations of school. We must all be paddling in the same direction to row our waka, so it was a timely reminder to us all to consider the variety of teaching and learning approaches we use.

We have a growing Māori roll. 9 years ago we were only something like 4% Maori, whereas in 2013 we seem closer to 30%. That is a huge difference, and does not account for our Māori descendants who are not registered as Māori on the school roll.

I myself have 9 out of 27 students with Māori ancestry this year.  So what does this all mean for me?

I have always been mindful that many Māori students can be whakama about their learning, and not always likely to directly ask for help. They often prefer learning together - from and with their peers. For a classroom teacher this is always hard to balance. How do I know they contributed at all? How can I assess what they know as an individual? But for our Māori children I have facilitated experiences where they can work collectively, and have many different grouping types I have used at different times. During inquiry this year I facilitated multi-levelled pairs, so less able children could feel successful with an able partner and used collective responsibility for sharing back for accountability, we are able to buddy read and buddy write at times during the day, and we also work often in peer and teacher chosen groups. It has been great to see my Māori girls, this year, shine during these times and be so enthusiastic about what they are learning.

One of the best  Tataiako reminders for me was around building relationships. This is important with all children, but is vital with our Māori learners. It helps to build your mana as a teacher to show you are interested in and care about them and their lives. It builds trust and respect, and it is very easy at the beginning of the year with so many new things, and crowded curriculums, to forget to take the time to do this well. As I reflect back on this year I know this is an area I could have done better.

Next year I will focus on how I can take the time to talk with each student 1:1, especially my Māori and Pacifica students. To ask about their whanau, their whakapapa, their lives. I think it is definitely worth taking a little longer at the beginning of the year to create these connections, and then the job is simply to maintain them throughout the year. 

My second goal for the coming months/ year is to use more Māori contexts. I was reminded of this the other day in maths. I was writing problems for the children to solve. All the names I used were the anglicised ones like Bob, John, Sue. So instead I threw in an Aroha and a Tane. What was scary for me, was how unnatural it felt. Definitely a place I can work on. To use more Māori names, places, settings, themes so my Māori children can feel more valued in the teaching and learning world.
What is it you do (or need to work on) when considering your Maori learners?

Teachers are awesome!

Today I was lucky to be able to spend some time in school, but not my own school. Today I travelled and had the opportunity to visit with Tauriko and Tahatai coast schools in the lovely Bay of Plenty. What fantastic welcomes we had. The purpose of our trip today was to look into next steps for our own schools e-learning journey, and these schools didn't fail in providing us with inspiration and ideas to ponder moving forward.

We saw versions of BYOD working at various class levels from year 3 to year 8, we saw paid in digital 1-1 classes, and open BYOD classes, we heard children explain why BYOD helped their learning, and we experienced a variety of e-learning in action. Fabulous.

My takeaways...

- the problem of the haves and have nots is always lessened by more devises in the school, regardless of paid in, or BYOD systems, more devises just means more access for all.

- children take much more pride in their own devices

- children didn't seemed phased over whether they were writing in their books or doing a computer task, and interchanged between these two things easily.

- having a bank of similar creation tools meant children gained higher output rates due to familiarity with the tool.

- digital/ e-learning/ computer classes, they all still use books. Children often choose whether to write digitally or on paper, or this can be balanced by the teacher alternating.

- the focus is always on what we are learning, and will the tool support or extend this learning or not.

- the focus is on students choosing when to use digital tools, blended with some tasks created to increase particular skill sets needed.

- google apps for education has great potential.

- google sites an option for e-portfolios.

My wonderings...

- Am I becoming more convinced of the 1-1 model and its potential?

- Could charging our children be an option at our school? Would it increase the importance of e-learning in the school?

- How is our school insuring staff are all moving own their journeys? See Taurikos teacher e-competences.

- Am I now more convinced that BYOD could be an option for me next year?

Where is your school in its e-learning journey?

 Are you on a BYOD path?

How does you school do it?

The Informational Divide

Time to upgrade?

We live in the information era. With the advent of multiple devises of Internet connectivity, and the saturation of social media, we are in a time where nobody can be a dummy any more. The answers, ideas, or information required is often just a few taps away. I feel this is becoming very evident in education.

Teaching is changing. Staff rooms resound with talk of 21st century learning ( or blended learning, or personalised learning, or e-learning, or digital learning, or passion projects, etc). Even the language of education is changing. How does everyone keep up?

You have to be connected!

It's becoming quite simply a must do. Teachers who want to be in the know, who want to keep moving and developing, need to be in the know. And the easiest way to get in the know - get connected.

Whether your knowledge funnel is twitter, Facebook, the VLN, your schools Ning, Pinterest, Tumblr, or any of the other masses of feeds where people are talking - educators need to think seriously about connecting to one. Pick the education topics that interest you, and follow. It may mean a few extra emails a week - but for the extra 10 minutes it takes to flick through them, and follow up or discard, you will always find a gem. A little snippet of information, an idea, a comment that lights something inside for you, or helps you to understand what Mr S was talking about in the staff room.

We have spoken for years about the digital divide between the digital natives and the digital dinosaurs, but now it's more than that. The divide used to be about use of devices and confidence with them, now it's becoming a divide in knowledge around how education is changing with the devices.

How do we support those teachers who are starting to feel like they don't speak the language of education anymore? Who are feeling overwhelmed with expectations beyond their knowledge. 

Everyone around them is moving faster and faster... We need to try and get them on board... Get them connected.

I'd love to know if anyone has any ideas around a great feed, that would work for this. Like a beginners  forum in the VLN. 

Teaching Independence

As I read around all that is being discussed in the cybersphere of education – personalised learning, passion projects, e-learning, e-portfolio, and Daily 5 – the prominent thing they all seem to foster is independence and I think that is great.

It is great in theory and with a lot of hard work, I am beginning to think that it can be great in practise too. I have taught year 5/6 for 3 years now and each year I expect (and if I’m being honest, allow) a little more independence from the children. And I don’t mean independence in tying their shoes, or remembering their meetings, or picking up after themselves, but independence in their learning. 

Being able to equip the students with; the belief that they can lead their own learning, the strategies and systems to help them to lead their own learning, and the time in which to practise has not been easy. Balancing control with trust, accountability with flexibility. But slowly, slowly I am starting to see how powerful this can be, and it makes me want to do more.

photo courtesy of tonyduckles on Flickr

From developing an independent reading programme linked closely to Daily 5, I am now developing a writing equivalent, which is starting off much more positively than I expected. It hasn’t been easy trusting the children to achieve, independent of the teacher, but my class are surprising me in small steps. The key seems to be the planning before each session – either written or oral – of what they hope to accomplish in the session, and then at the end a quick reflection as to how they feel it went. We question anyone who has had problems and discuss solutions together. I was even surprised today when one child asked if he should hand his book in (and note I must confess that I don’t often collect writing books in, unless there is something specific I want to mark in depth). My reply “If you would like my feedback, sure”. And at that, 20 books plopped down into a pile at my feet.

Ultimately what I am seeing happen in my classroom, is children taking control. I can step back and really start to guide them. I don’t have to make all their decisions for them anymore, so I have time to talk to them more about what they are choosing to do, what learning they hope to get out of it, and how they feel they are going. I am enjoying their growing independence.

Braving a PLN

Tonight I find myself pondering the catchphrase (of sorts) of "building a PLN (personal learning network)". While many bloggers I cyber stalk probably see this term as old news, it is something that is very much in my headlights at this moment in my teaching journey.

Image from Quadblogging Aotearoa

I have again danced around the Internet, bouncing from blog, to VLN, to blog and back. Inspired from a weekly blog post of Stephanie ( my first teacher blog subscription) I set off on a short jig. I found myself rejoining quad blogging ( the NZ version this time - thanks Barbara Reid for setting this up). I floated briefly through the VLN's quad blogging page, into links about teaching blogging, and then quality commenting... Round and around pages I twirled, until into my mind again jumped the thought- I need to be braver, I need to build my links, my PLN. I need to honour these great educators who can inspire me more in 30 minutes online, than can be achieved 6hrs of a teachers only day

Our current school theme is "Pay it forward", which makes this an opportune time to think about how am I paying it forward to the teaching community. How can I get my contributions out onto the dance floor, so perhaps one day my wee mutterings can be an inspiration to someone else like me who is out enjoying a dance.

So the next challenge for myself - get this blog out there... Be brave, comment more and attach my link....eek

Please excuse the dancing euphemisms, they somehow wrote themselves into the page. :)

Professional development

Professional development is a big part of a teachers responsibilities. It is explicitly one of the registered teacher criteria. Schools like to provide their teachers with opportunities, often involving bring in guests for staff meetings and teacher only days.Principals think hard, and can spend big bucks trying to bring us great minds, to motivate and empower us, or utilise talented staff to lead our growth. This is all good, and I understand the concept that it has to be a best fit for the majority, but what I start to become more frustrated with, is the feeling when one walks away, without a single morsel to take themselves forward. 

I had the great opportunity to participate in a teacher only day recently - even to present.

It was based around ICT and creativity. Awesome. I was ready to be inspired, to see some creativity... Unfortunately for me I spent 6 1/2 hours and came away fairly empty handed. So was left feeling a little disappointed. 

Now this is not to say that other teachers weren't inspired, and had many takeaways. The presenters did share some great things. My problem was a very personal one - being a lead ICT teacher and more prolific online I had seen and heard most of it before, and found myself unchallenged. And I do seem to be one of those children who when unchallenged I am quickly bored.

Next time perhaps I need to negotiate my PD with my principal more. I could easily have spend the day working on the google apps for education online course, or surfing my favourite teacher bloggers, googling daily 5 and other personal goals I am working on this year. I could have led my own learning and come away motivated and moving forward. Shouldn't I be able to drive my own learning as an adult?

If I link this back to my classroom, I have to also keep this in mind. Do I offer this ability to my students. Are they able to negotiate and extend themselves when the classes learning is something they've seen before? How do I build that into the culture of my classroom, so children feel it is OK to request independent  learning?

I will ponder this moving forward. How are my learners having a say in what they are learning?

Supporting the profession

Having a student teacher in the classroom teaches you so much about yourself. Being a role model, everyday, for 8 weeks at a time can sometimes be harder then we think. The pressure to be at the top of your game every day so that you can help them to be the best they can be is tough.

I have the privilege of helping to nurture a student teacher this term, yet at the same time I am still constantly challenging myself to become a better teacher. Trying to balance the two things can be difficult. 

I am wanting to make some changes to class routines, but my student needs to learn the routines so he can take on full control. I am learning to integrate ICT's in an e learning class, but as I'm the learner this is in bits and pieces at the moments, so the structures for my student teacher to follow are not in place yet. I am redefining daily 5 for my classroom, and switching to online planning, so the systems around these two things are not perfect ....yet.

There are so many changes that I am going through I sometimes think my student would be better off in someone else's classroom. Or is there some redemption in the fact that the student teacher can see how change happens in a classroom, and how as the teacher you are the driver of that change which is needed to suit your learners and the world they will be living in?

Online Planning

Planning is my self confessed weakness - along with organisation, but that's another story.

Image thanks to cybrarian77 

Planning takes up time, too much time in my week. For 9 years I have tried template after template, planned in lists, in grids, tried it after school, day by day, month by month. Anyway I have seen or can think of trying to create efficient and effective teaching plans. But still hours of my week disappear in planning that never quite feels right.

This term I am trying digital planning in a shared forum - Google sites. My decision around this is because I have stopped printing all my word processed planning - as it seemed a waste of time printing, and organising into folders, bits of paper, just for my senior teacher to view for attestation. Not good time management.
So on-line I go - into a place others can view in real time with me if necessary - senior teachers, student teachers and relievers... hopefully!
Thanks to the VLN, and TaraTJ's advice and sharing of her trials, it gave me confidence to try Google sites too.

Now my task is to organise this document and transfer last terms planning over in bulk to meet expectations for attestation so far, and to then create a working document for moving forward. Thanks to Tara I have a simple way to get started and will build this from there. Keeping the ultimate goal in mind, which is saving time...  I have some trepidations. But will bravely move forward...

I have high expectations that this form of planning will help me to make some changes in my planning - like moving the time focus to planning each lesson, rather then the scheduling of the lessons. I will be looking at the sequence of lessons over a term for groups rather than week to week or day to day. Then these lessons just fit in as time allows. secondly I want to add a reflective column, with a guiding question to think about. This question will be related to the lesson and the children's attainment/self reflection. This may mean adding to this in the moment...a real challenge for me. But something I know I need to work on, getting this reflection out of my head and onto paper (still don't quite understand why this is, but will try it).

Once this is up and running I may add a link here. Wish me luck.