End of year reflection - Inquiry 2024

As we come to the end of the year I have reflected on another very interesting year in my professional learning. 

I began the year with a focus on Numeracy with my class of Year 2's I share with Ms Squires. I had some big ideas as it was the first time I had taught Mathematics in many years due to having had a focus on small literacy groups. 

I began therefor with JAM data and a big question; How do I best build retention of facts and support children to apply these in multiple contexts? This stemmed from what I believed was a lack of understanding around maths concepts; Did the children know what they were trying to find out? What was the best strategy to use? What facts did they know that would help them with the problem?

I began with JAM data and moved swiftly into Reading data with the exciting news I was to begin BSLA training mid year. I would be enrolled in the University of Canterbury Micro-credentials course. This course supports teachers to understand the research behind the approach and help them scaffold changes to their teaching practise.  

So at the start of term 3, I changed my inquiry focus to match my new role as the BSLA teacher for small groups. I am now focused solely on teaching the Better Structured Literacy Approach (BSLA) with two classes, Rooms 11 and 13, as well as teaching the Taumata in Room 23.

This is just the start of my learning on the structured literacy journey but I can already see the changes in my students confidence, their growth in understanding of how to apply their knowledge of spelling patterns and phonics to their reading.

Teaching as Inquiry 2024

This year, as well as taking my small literacy groups, I am also back in a Year 2 class team teaching with Ms Squires in Room 23. I am teaching Maths to the whole class and will be undertaking the BSLA training in Term 3. I am really looking forward to learning this approach to literacy and seeing what benefits it can have for both my class and my literacy groups.

I am excited to see what the intervention can achieve over the ten weeks in terms of improvement in both areas of reading and writing for both my small groups and my Taumata group in Room 23.

Teacher Inquiry 2024

This year my area of focus for Inquiry is Mathematics.  This is the first year in many years that I have taught Mathematics in the classroom and I am excited about this new focus.

I have chosen to focus on a small group of six students, two male and five female. These students have all had one full year at school and are working around Early Level1 for their Additive Strategies.

My initial data for this group has been gathered from their JAM test taken in Term 4 last year. The data tells me what they have achieved on Level one of the curriculum. What I need to discover next is what they understand about maths concepts and the strategies they have been taught. This I believe is the key for this group of students.

My inquiry question; How do I best build retention of facts and support children to apply these in multiple contexts? stems from what I believe is a lack of understanding around maths concepts; Do the children know what they are trying to find out? What is the best strategy to use? What facts do they know that will help them with the problem?

My first step is to find out just what they understand about Math concepts!

Teacher Only Day Refelction

We began our Teacher Only Day by taking a look at the data collected across the cluster on reading, maths, and writing.  After breaking into small groups we looked closely at which student groups had made progress, acceleration, showed a shift and those that had gaps. 

The highlight of this very interesting and informative teacher only day with our Manaiakalani colleagues was the Little Mad Scientists Create workshop hosted by the very clever and talented teachers from Glen Taylor School. This was divided into three areas; the Living World, the Material World and the Physical World. We broke into three groups and did a hands on Create activity promoting young children's fine motor skills, creativity, cognitive development and language accumulation. They used provocations to promote student interest and then provided a range of hands on activities for us to participate in reminiscent of early childhood activities that are well set up and structured so children can learn by doing. 

End of year reflection.

Quick 60 uses Nonfiction content and therefore the programme caters well for the ESOL children’s needs.
Nonfiction texts offer topics that tie in with their personal interests and give them a broader vocabulary base. There is plenty of room for discussion and the comprehension elements of this programme mean that the children are engaging in thinking around the context and have many opportunities to acquire new vocabulary in a carefully scaffolded manner.

As part of my inquiry this year I looked at how I could improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts, in reading using language acquisition. I adapted my tasks to enhance learning, enable access and improve comprehension. I used specific teaching prompts, encouraging the use of rich vocabulary and conversational oral language to strengthen comprehension by introducing follow up conversations to my lessons.

At the start of each lesson I have the children repeatedly read their known books to help them become familiar with text and develop fluency. After reading their new book to me they then do tasks that develop skills in looking for information in their text and answering both inferential and literal questions.

I hope to work more in this area next year as I saw good results from the children who improved in their EOY Running Record results as well as in their comprehension.

 

Target group mid year spotlight

 How are we going?

I started the year very excited about picking up my Inquiry focus from the previous year, this was meant to be the tidy year! No more lockdowns to interrupt the learning, better attendance, and better health! So far the only part of this that has happened is the lack of lockdowns.  

Poor attendance and health have been a huge obstacle for both myself and my students. Two bouts of COVID, an injury and frequently needing to be an emergency cover for other staff members has meant my programme has not been consistent at all. 

However, despite all this, the children have made fantastic gains! Discussing their progress both in class and on the programme with their class teachers has been very positive. The challenges we are all facing are the same but the children are making wonderful gains.

The graph shows the gains made between February and May. It shows that all children have made gains, the green bar showing the reading level gain is very exciting! Two of my focus children left before May.

Inquiry 2022

 My 2022 Inquiry Focus:

Using the Quick 60 programme, specific teaching prompts, and the use of oral language to strengthen comprehension, will I see a significant improvement in scores for both Running Record levels and comprehension question scores for the identified students?

The Manaiakalani CoL Achievement Challenge that I am basing my inquiry around is;

Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts