Our teacher meeting this week was on the topic of Professionalism. Our guest speaker was Tony Burkin. I thought it was a fantastic session. The one big takeaway I got from this session is that we are professionals. The emphasis is all too often on teaching practice - it is what teacher meetings are made up of and it's what appraisal is made of. Therefore, the perception by default, is that you are a good teacher if you can teach. The perception is only a portion of the whole. It was easy to get caught up in the surface discussion of the session - the things you are allowed to do, the things you probably shouldn't and the things you aren't. Then there was the grey areas like drinking in public and crying. These have caused a lot of discussion amongst the staff and it's interesting to listen to the perspectives. But, there was more to the session, and the nitty gritty really is looking carefully at the code of ethics.
1 - Commitment to Learners 2 - Commitment to Parents/Guardians and Family/Whanau 3 - Commitment to Society 4 - Commitment to the Profession And the four Principles - Autonomy, Justice, Responsible Care, Truth All of these can be broken very easily - missing deadline, not reflecting, making up awesome lessons when you have a scheduled observation, not reading emails, resisting change, poor punctuality, talking behind backs.... etc. The word of the day for me was Truth. I was fortunate to have attended an earlier session with Tony as well that talked about Truth being an indicator of a Growth Mindset. You have to be truthful to yourself and to others. The session has certainly provided me with food for thought, and I'm pleased mostly to be thought of as a professional, but now there is a standard to live up to!
A few weeks back the teachers got together to discuss our Concept focus for 2016. I think it's important to think about why having a concept focus is important. The leadership team could probably add more to this, but I think the importance comes in consistency across the school (children having conversations about their learning with each other) and develops understanding of some quite complex things across a range of 'topics' and across the curriculum through an integrated approach. This year our focus has been 'Change' - which was most appropriate as we embarked on the journey of our foundational year. Change is a huge concept to grasp, and across the two habitats, there has been some variation in the learning for the children. In the end though, it is evident that their understanding has changed a great deal. At our meeting we were presented with a number of Pam Hook's Macroconcepts:
There is a number to choose from and we were able to select next years through a process of defining each one, 'selling' it to others and then voting. However, it's not the children I want to talk about in this post... It dawned on me, that although we, as adults, have understandings of these things - developing our ideas around these is not a silly idea. One that really struck a chord with me is 'Structure'. As I grow and develop as a teacher and leader, I believe my ideas around structure are beginning to change. The group defining structure came up with:
Structure in my head was the traditional model of hierarchy and control. It is only as I begin to understand models of leadership that I can see that although hierarchy remains as a technicality, the relationships, and the elements of the relationships (trust, compassion, etc.) allow structure to be much more complex. As I work through my journey of leadership, I will be keeping some focus on 'Structure' as my personal development in understanding this complex macroconcept. What Big Questions does it leave for me? What is the impact of structure? Where can you find structure? How does structure form? What would happen if we didn't have structure? What causes structure to form? What are the types of structure? Why should we have structure?
I altered it slightly at the end of term one when I had a better idea of things. My goals were: 1 (continued from Term One) Develop a strong understanding of students and their relationships (personal and learning) in Y1-4.
2 Build effective and and interesting literacy practises to engage foundation (emergent) students into reading and writing.
3 Be proactive about interactions with parents
In the middle of the year I wrote about my progress on those goals. And now I get to do the final check off! It's nearly time to complete the appraisal process for the year and so it's a good time to have a think about where I am with my goals.
I've really enjoyed the appraisal process as an on-going event. Not a scramble at the end of the year to check the boxes. It is especially important as being part of the foundational team to keep the culture of reflection and not lose sight of the "climate of possibilities". 1 Develop a strong understanding of students and their relationships (personal and learning) in Y1-4. I have learnt so much about 'junior' teaching this year and I'm grateful for all the professional development opportunities I have had from the experts within the school, and also externally - particularly with literacy. I recall one of the SLT saying at the beginning of the year "you've all had children you've taught at Level One, the only thing that changes is the age." And, it is so true! I've really enjoyed my learning here and I hope I get another chance in the near future to consolidate my new understandings here.
2 Build effective and and interesting literacy practises to engage foundation (emergent) students into reading and writing. This has been a big learning curve here and the biggest thing I've learnt is that I can, and need to, push harder. I've seen massive improvements in my literacy groups and it really has proven that 'if you focus on the learning, learning will happen'.
3 Be proactive about interactions with parents Wow, I'm actually a little bit chuffed with myself on this one. I was a little like this penguin in the video - but once I'd made a 'stumble' and was 'thrown in' I realised it really wasn't so bad. It's scared me for so long and I really don't know why. I've been making an effort to go out of the classroom at least a couple of times a week at the end of the day and mingle with parents. It's really not that scary and it's made necessary conversations so much easier and far less 'eventful'. Toastmasters has also probably helped a little with confidence too.
I defined my job to be: to make learning successful for all students. How did I go on this? I think all students have progressed this year in all areas - including growth in character. I have absolutely done my best job in achieving this with the time, resources and energy I had. Having said that, there is a lot of improvement that can happen from here. I feel like I've had too many focuses, and therefore flitted from one thing to the next. Development in reading has been one of the biggest areas I've focused on and I know a great deal more now, but I wish I knew it all from the start. Writing has been the area of least development for me, and the least satisfaction, yet it was probably one of the ones that I thought I would be more competent at. Maths has been great. I've loved teaching collaboratively all year and having the chance try different things out with my teaching buddy. My struggle is that with so many children I don't feel I know them as well as I would like to in terms of knowledge and strategy ability.
SPS Teacher Criteria and looking forward to 2016 I have also had a look at the teacher criteria I need to meet and reevaluated the progress I have made along the continuum. My appraisal team will be able to see this doc, where I had made judgements at the start of the year of what I was doing. Now I have highlighted my progress for each of the criteria and also my goals for next year. Some of the things I will be working on (one from each area)
communicating confidently, especially in leading difficult conversations
coaching individual children to know their potential as well as to know they're supported in goal setting and action
recording the actions I take from reflections
knowing that children are engaged by the process of learning
using the physical environment to show value to the learning process and children's work
taking on a whole-school leadership role
Many of these things I am kind of doing, but have little evidence to prove it or I'm not doing them to a standard where I feel I can say it's being done.
The first point will be my main goal for 2016. I feel it's a good continuation of my 2015 Desired Reality 3 and applies not only to parents, but to colleagues too.
