Kaizen

Mini-Mentors

A teaching and learning practice I saw on my travels was that of PINs (Passion, Interest, Needs) and so as part of my Kaizen Joe suggested that I give our version - Mini-Mentor,s a go.

My Kaizen smart goal for the end of the term was to trial this so we can learn from it when (and if) we decide to roll it out on a larger scale.

I still need to get voice from the Mentees, but here it is so far;

ERO appraisal Pie Chart

Following on from the leadership course where this appraisal pie chart was shown and talked about as a great (and now necessary) appraisal tool, I thought I would add it to my blog so I can find it easily and unpack it over the school holidays!

Leadership Course - inital thoughts

A great day. Has left me with more questions and wonderings than I had before and a rather extensive list of books I want to read and so have ordered!

My first wondering is a question based on our BPP’s - what is my Why for leadership? - Why do I want to be a leader? Why will others follow me / be inspired by me?

My initial thoughts stem from the Leadership Challenge book and go back to my 3Ps presentation last year - having a clear Purpose, being able to inspire People and bringing my Passion.

This isn’t enough though as there is no clear Why - I need to make sure I have a clear Purpose, that there is Clarity around this purpose, that others will feel a sense of Belonging, and I need to develop Credibility.

Credibility is something I ponder over as I’m not as experienced a teacher as all others at SPS so why would they follow me - this is why I need a really clear why - to give others a reason to believe in me.

Thinking around my Purpose for leadership and words that come to mind;

Collaboration, progress, innovation, challenge the status-quo, new ideas, fresh thinking.

Term 2 Reflection

It was a busy term, that's for sure! Lots going on with the arrival of Amy and temporary departure of Rachel, and lots of CL comments.

My trip to Auckland and the visits to the 3 amazing schools I went to has given me permission to try things a little differently (not that I needed permission but it has helped seeing how others teach in a similar space).

Maths, I now teach much shorter lessons with a really clear purpose. I have one group for 10 minutes then send them off to do a "practise it" whilst I see another group for "learn it" then when group 2 go off to their"practise it" I have group one back. Admittedly I only tried this for 2 weeks, but I was much more able to quickly see the misconceptions and put them right before a child would have to rigorously unlearn something to re-learn it. My next step is to find a way of recording these observations as my memory is not what it was and unless I have it written down I will have no idea!
My current idea is to have a little table stuck on the bottom of the modelling page that I can tick or comment in. Hopefully this will then morph into something on my plan but i'm finding it quicker to write notes than type them.

Literacy and Concept (Lit-Con!),whilst it was really full-on last term, being the factory worker, churning through the groups, I do feel that the children achieved a lot with the design for learning Amy and I had. Reading a book over 2 days gave the children confidence and so the progress from some last term was phenomenal. Some children who have been "of concern" for the last 2 years no longer have that label. While they may still need support to ensure this level of progress continues it has been great to have those positive conversations with the family.
To prevent the factory line feel of literacy, which Roanna and I had, and the massive amount of time spent by our teaching partners in setting up the rest of the programme, we have had a re-think as to how we structure our design for learning.
Following on from something I saw in Auckland, where they set up the whole day rather than just maths, or just literacy, we are going to set the day up with the learning priorities and other learning tasks (avoiding happy, busy, good!). This will mean that the learning should be seamless for the students, in terms of not having a specific maths or reading time - the whole day is all about learning across the curriculum. Alongside this we have split the day into 4 blocks and 3 of us will be running workshops with 1 (Kiwi) looking after the others, ensuring priorities are being completed. The end goal would be to have the Kiwi targeting specific children to support their learning needs. This is an example of how this may work!

		Monday		Tuesday		Wednesday		Thursday		Friday
		July 31		August 1		August 2		August 3		August 4
				Skiing		Joe meeting til 9:20				Leadership release
	Notes	PL Meeting - 3.30 - 5 pm
	8.55 - 9.10	Assembly				Magic Carpet - Rachel		Magic Carpet - Tetli		Magic Carpet - Roanna- Joe Kaizen meeting with Tetli
Block 1	9:10 - 9:30					DAT RT TC JB	Kiwi RD	DAT RD TC JB	Kiwi RT
	9:30 - 10:10	Mentor group / PE								DAT TC RD RT	Kiwi JB
	10.10 - 10.30	Morning Tea
	10.30 - 10.40	Read and Feed				Read and Feed
Block 2	10.40 - 11:35	DAT JB RD RT	Kiwi TC			DAT TC JB RD	Kiwi RT	DAT RT TC JB	Kiwi RD	Concept? Split so 45 minutes about myths and 45 minutes on performance?
Block 3	11:35 - 12:30	DAT TC JB RD	Kiwi RT			DAT RT TC RD	Kiwi JB	DAT JB RD RT	Kiwi TC
	12:20	Reflection				Reflection
	12.25 - 1:30	Lunch Duty
	1.30 - 1:45	Mentor groups, news, book etc				Mentor groups, news, book etc
Block 4	1:45 - 2:15	DAT RT TC JB	Kiwi RD			DAT JB RD RT	Kiwi TC	DAT RT TC RD	Kiwi JB	Empathy
	2:15 - 2:40									Assembly
	2:40-2:55	Tidy and Celebrations - Golden Fistpump				Tidy and Celebrations - Golden Fistpump

Auckland Adventure

Our Stonefields visit to Auckland was fantastic and it was good to see how other schools similarly built develop their culture, run their programme and the processes they have implemented to ensure student engagement, interest and their childrens' progression.

I was able to stay in Auckland and go to another 2 schools - also with flexible learning environments and spend a day in each, chatting to the mentors and children and picking their brains as to what they do / have tried that engages and motivates the children.

Needless to say my head was spinning. Add to that the Play Based Learning course on Saturday which was run by Longworth Education and i've come away with many wonderings.

My day spent synthesising what I learnt has been very valuable and below is a scan of my notes. As I am a bit of a muller-overer I'm sure that over the next set of holidays and in to the new term I will keep revisiting my notes and pulling out the information as and when I need it.

As Reid from HPS said;

Kaizen and the 3 weekly checkin

I’m really enjoying the Kaizen process and having a short term goal around my goal which Joe and I then look at every 3 weeks.

My focus this year is linked to my one sentence job description - Engage to Ignite, with my short term goals being around engagement and the part that choice plays in this.

Having time to observe in the habitat has also been useful and means that as a team we can make sure our learners are all supported. When you set up a learning activity you don’t always get a chance to review it so being able to observe each other means that we can give and get feedback to improve our efficacy.

Also having a really clear focus means that my one sentence job description is linked to my kaizen so the direction my learning needs to take is clear.

This is also linking to my Auckland trip - Stonefields, Hobsonville Point and the Learning through Play course. It’s great having things fit together, have a real purpose and get clarity.

Kaizen Goal 2017

Current and Desired Realities 2017

This is my current and desired realities based on where I felt I was towards the end of term 1, and what I want to achieve this year based on last year's kaizen.

SPS Teacher Criteria 2017

This year we are looking at our Kaizen using SOLO so we can clearly see our next steps.

Here is mine;