Term 2 Roundup

Kia ora,

How re-affirmimg to get such wonderful feedback from the Education Review Office team from their recent audit of our school. In particular, it was great to hear that our students are very much engaged in learning as highlighted by their ability to describe what they already know and then what they need to do to learn more. It is also highlighted but the excitement they show in their voices when communicating their thoughts and ideas.

Their understanding and practical application of the Inquiry Intersection is an integral part of the motivation and engagement that they are showing for learning with much of what they are doing clearly understood and self driven. The teachers are now beginning to truly take on the role of facilitators of learning where they guide our children into their own learning pathways rather than direct them into areas they believe are more appropriate.

My stocktake would suggest that a concentration on more in depth questioning may enhance the process even further. The development of deeper questions based on SOLO taxonomy is a direction I feel we need to take. Beyond this, I also feel we still need to do something more with what we discover.

Kia kaha whanau

Inquiry intersection for room3

This term has been a very good one for Room 3 as the topic has allowed us as a class to move around the intersection and talk about it as we now have separate walls for each off road. This actual physical space has made the intersection mean more to the children and I will use the same idea next term. However, I will need to find more wall space as it is very cramped this term with such an interesting and engaging topic.

Room 4 Term 2

This term our focus was to stick to a time table to ensure we completed the entire process. It has not only been beneficial for the children but mainly for myself to keep on track. The children have been especially excited and interested in this terms topic. I am still directing the inquiry and I have found it tough to foucus on one question as the children are always asking more. It has been great to have a libray full of books to do with the topic because I have been able to direct the children to those books to find answers to their other questions. This has worked well. We have also used writing as a way of exploring other questions. Our focus has been on rain, clouds, and thunder storms and I have found that because the children already had a great knowledge base to start from that we have been able to ask deeper questions and find truley new information.

Survivor!

Room 5 has been rocking with inquiry this term. We have really looked at the intersection and the kids seem to have a greater knowledge of where we have been, where we are at and where we are going. Our focus has once again been on questioning skills mostly as the children are still not quite there with the 'ask' part of our model. Having the work presented on the wall has been very effective as the children often refer to each section of the process and can discuss what has been going on. Adding the science component and working with the rest of the Junior School has been fantastic. The children have enjoyed finding information through scientific investigation and this has lent itself very nicely to explanation writing which is what we are working on for story writing. We have been using SOLO to assess ourselves as we go through the intersection and it seems to be working as a class. I am not sure if the kids fully understand SOLO yet so will still need to keep working on this each term. Next term i would like to focus mostly on Understand as it is probably an area of the model we haven't looked at in depth. I am very proud of what Room 5 has achieved this term and can't wait to see how this continues as the year goes on. Rock on Room 5!!!