Keeping Up with Mrs Faalili

Bursts, Bubbles and Beer Presentation 

 High School Week  What is it? High School Week is an initiative created and designed to support our students to be mentally prepared for high school. This is a week dedicated to resilience, movement around the school, reading timetables, completing school work and homework, ultimately being ready for learning.  Why are we doing it?  We have a duty in preparing our year 8s for high school and this is important to us. As busy and chocka as Term 4, I know that one will give time and energy into things that are important. This week will help us show our Year 8s, who are going to high school next year, a glimpse into what it is like to move from class to class, teacher to teacher. What it's like to carry bags and gear around the school. What it's like to do homework etc.  When are we doing it?  This will happen in Term 4 - week tbc. Who is involved?  With the make up of our school, we usually have our year 5-8 students participating in this. While some may...

With my inquiry into supporting our Year 8 learners in a successful transition into high school, we do not currently have a program that effectively helps this. My intervention focusses on supporting our year 8s to transition successfully into high school next year. This intervention is called ' High School Term '. While aimed at our Year 8s, part of this will include the years 5-7 as well. This will be an opportunity for our younger students to start mentally preparing themselves for education in high school. This intervention will focus on preparing Year 8s for high school by: - Connecting with current Year 9s at Tamaki College for a Q & A session with our current Year 8s - Connecting with whānau and following up 2023 enrolments - Meeting with Year 8s weekly for 45 minutes with a focus on specific elements of high school. This will be structured but also provide our Year 8s with an opportunity to ask questions and provide suggestions for what they would like to focus ...

The domino effect  A causal chain is like the domino effect, if I make one change then I hope the rest will follow, you push the first domino over and the rest just topple down afterwards The focus of my inquiry is  How can I support my Year 8 students transition into Year 9 and achieve success? What changes in my teaching practice are going to lead to this change  Professional readings and research Collecting & analysing data - Observing what is currently happening in our setting that supports the transition for our Year 8 learners Observing Year 9 habits and movements Student Voice - worries and concerns for our Year 8s heading into Year 9, tips and advice from Year 9s for our Year 8s End of Year data for current year 9s. This will be compared to this year's end of year data. Use the comparative data to identify patterns and students who achieved accelerated progress.  Start the conversations of high school now! Don't wait for term 4.  Be proactive in Y...

Reading Practice Intensive Day 1 (Teacher hat on)  Today has been a great way to reflect on my own understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme. The benefits of having a common practice reading model is that it creates a space for consistency to grow and happen, but also to identify areas of development and support that may possibly be needed for teachers within our school. So, how can we build a common practice reading model that is consistent across our school so that it serves our readers and creates a community of tauira who love to read? R - Recognise A - Amplify T - Turbo charge Recognise - Data shows that there is a consistent pattern around the teaching of reading and that the needs of our children aren't being met or amplified. The great thing is we identify and recognise this as an area that needs our attention and therefore now, can focus and inquire into the teaching and learning of reading and build a community of readers.  Ampl...

  Meeting Type Meeting to visit another ASCoL and talk transition programmes Motivation My inquiry this year for ASCoL is looking into establishing a transition program into high school. Not having one established previously, I am exploring and looking into schools that have successful transitition programmes to help me create and establish one for our learners. So What? I am WAAAYYYY behind in terms of my inquiry. Key Takeaways • Don't limit myself to just working with Tamaki College. Look into other feeder schools and identify what knowledge, habits, awareness do our students need to know to help them start off the Year 9 year with a BANG! • Relationships relationships relationships. Start building relationships with these schools. Get in there and get to know staff, students and Year 12 students that could potentially be mentors for next lot of year 9 students • One stop shop HUB for our staff (and possibly other schools) that will help inform and support teachers of Year 8s. • ...

Transitioning to high school involves more additions and changes to curriculum and the structure of learning. This journey of learning has higher stakes - the impact of academic and assessment achievement on future plans. There are a number of studies conducted in New Zealand that highlight the importance of transitions in supporting student achievement and success.  While reading the following pieces, the biggest reflection I've come realise that I'd been putting this huge focus and emphasis on support our students and whānau in getting our learners prepared for high school but our schools play an important part as well. Transitions shouldn't be seen as just enrolling into high school or a one off event where students spend part of the day at a high school. No. Our transition programme should be weaved throughout and is a process that takes time. As a school we have a responsibility in setting up our Year 8s for a successful start to high school. Student-teacher relationsh...

Stock take   As a part of my data collection - I have put out a google form (as mentioned in a previous post) and wanted to get an idea of where parents are sending their children next year. This survey was pushed out last month and didn't get much traction and therefore decided to leave it open and remind again through our school app.  Currently 19 responses which is a big jump from when I first pushed out google form. - From this collection of information, Glendowie College has the highest percentage. Of our current year 8s, only 2 families are in-zone for this school.  -Observational data at local high school. Here, I observed and followed Year 9 students around their classes. I wanted to look at some baseline data of movements between classes to see if there were any barriers. Also collected some student voice to get their insights on how the year had started with them.  Three measures that I can use pre and post to compare the success of this transition support...

It's always been an interesting thing to me - the idea of transitioning into another space and the time and effort or lack thereof that we put into these things to set us up for success. Transitioning into spaces is an ongoing thing in life and through this inquiry and process, I aim to identify and address some of these barriers for our learners, whānau, and school in supporting them to transition into high school and explore ways of setting them up for success.  Findings  - It's currently May and although we are only the fifth month into the year, I've started talking about high school options for 2023 and the responses I've had from our students is that 'high school is ages away Miss. Too early to start talking about it'.  - After sending out a google form to our Year 8 whānau and students, only 7 parents out of the 31 responded. Because of the low intake, I also sent this out to our students and 11 of these students completed this. What I wanted to find out...

My preliminary findings as of May 2022  • At Glen Taylor School, we have 31 Year 8 students.  • 13 of these students have a connection to Tamaki College by way of a sibling or family tie (parent/aunt/uncle/nana/papa work at Tamaki college). • 5 of our students are currently living out of the Tamaki College Enrolment Zone which means 26 of our students are guaranteed a spot at Tamaki College (see image below for zone)  • 6 of our students who live within the Tamaki College zone have a connection to either Selwyn or Glendowie by way of a sibling currently or previously attending the school. • Tamaki College doesn't seem to be the first choice for many of our students or families. Of the 25 students I asked, 20 were in zone for Tamaki College but only 3 were able to confidently say that they are definitely going to Tamaki College. The other 20 students weren't sure where they were going but they were able to say that Tamaki College isn't their first choice. Schools like Glen...

We're now sitting in the end of May and thinking back on the past month here is the break down of what I've done so far .... - Asking people that I know if they have transition programmes currently operating in their schools.  - Setting up school visits. The firs one we had set up was with a school in the North Shore. They are a primary (Y0-6) and although they aren't Year 8, I wanted to explore the principles that they have. What has worked. How they've made changes to fit their school and whanau. I'm more interested in what hasn't worked either.  - Setting up school visit with Tamaki College to understand what Year 9 teachers want our students to head into high school with (behaviours, learning). I'm also keen to get in and observe behaviours of year 9s, how they transition, patterns etc to help build a picture of what is currently happening. This is set up to happen in the next couple weeks.  - I'm currently exploring the best ways to communicate and ...

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools. Currently, we do not have a transition program that supports our Year 8s transitioning into Tamaki College or any high school at that. In the past, our Year 8s have gone down to Tamaki College for one day in term 4 as a way of helping them prepare for when they are Year 9, the following year.  At Glen Taylor School, in the past we have run 'High School Week' - an initiative that I introduced in 2015 to help support our learners, mainly our year 8s in preparing themselves for high school. The purpose of this is to help them get their head around the movement between classes, teachers, timetabling and being prepared for learning. Things like, knowing where your classes at, taking the right material (e.g. pencil, maths book) to the right class, establishing relationships with different teachers etc. Due to covid, we haven't run H...

 After our PLG on Thursday and the chance to talk with other CoL teachers from across the cluster, there is a need within my own school as well as across the cluster for a transition programme that supports our whanau and tamariki who are moving from Year 8 into Year 9 at Tamaki College.  There are a couple of reasons as to why this has been my selected focus for the year - There is currently no transition programme within my school that supports this transition - There is currently no transition programme within our cluster that supports this transition into Tamaki - Tamaki isn't always the first choice high school for our families and a lot of our children end up here because they miss out on out of zone schools due to not enrolling on time.  - This helps build and strengthen the relationship between us and the family as well as supporting them as they start to move over to Tamaki College.  - I spent time in Term 4 last year online support families through the appl...

 As we are nearing the end of a chaotic term 1, we start to think about and plan for term 2. After having put myself and support out there into the wider Kahui Ako, our Year 7&8 team leader reached out asking for support in planning for term 2. In order to support them better, I asked them to send through specific questions and wonderings about term 2 planning and collect some student voice about what they want to learn about - student agency.  It started first with unpacking some of the questions they had about our school-wide key concept and understandings. Digital Identity - what does this mean? What's the difference between digital identities and cyber smart? How can we teach our key understandings - In my shoes, best foot forward, walking together, mark your legacy. What topics do we teach this through?  Once collecting all this, I was able to frame my thinking so that I could  It started with clarifying digital identities and the difference between that and...

After talks with our leadership team and fellow CoL colleagues, I have narrowed down my challenge of student learning for this year to this;  How can I successfully engage and support our whanau and Year 8 learners in the transitioning into high school next year?  At this point in time, there is no real transition program with local high schools and the only involvement we have with Tamaki College is through our Year 7/8 technology. We know that the first couple of weeks of any school year, particularly that in a new school has the potential to 'make or break' the experience. The end of the year is typically a manic rush in getting Year 8s enrolled at a high school. At school, we tend to talk to students about these conversations that they need to have with their whanau, or we play the waiting game to get them enrolled in a college. At the end of last year, I spent time with whanau online supporting them in a rushed enrollment - and it doesn't have to be like that. I want t...

fale; house fale o'o: a Samoan beach hut When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you wood, you build a house. And that's what we're doing! Together with Dee, a Year 2/3 teacher, we are working together this year to provide an integrated curriculum for her wonderful students. The goal; to build a fale o'o. The purpose; to provide shelter for breaks but also, another cultural element to our school environment. This project requires community input so we are both excited to see this come to life.  Session 1 - talanoa about the what we want and the why. We both know that we want fale for our school. We shared ideas of our past experiences of a fale and shared how we want it to look like and be made. We both agree that we want fale and that we want the students and community to be involved as much as possible. We've been given the green light to make this happen. That's all we needed. It's much harder to build here than it is in Samoa. Lots...

  I think quite often we get a bit scared to dive into these documents that we have sitting in our schools. It's often pushed to the side as other things have importance but seriously, this document needs to be used and time is given to unpack it. In the current times, it may not seem like a priority, but if you have Pasifika learners and families and are struggling to engage with them - pick up this document and get cracking.  Each time I spend time on this I learn something new, have another 'AH HA' moment.  A year ago I attended a  Tapasa Workshop  through Senior Teacher. Together with a colleague we unpacked each turu and identified what we've done in our school that fell into that compentency.  If you're not sure where to start - this is a good place to. Take each turu, one by one and unpack. Identify what you do in your school that is evidence of this. The great thing with this document is that it identifies what it looks like at different phases of y...

 

kuw - 'Keeping Up With' - just like the Kardashians, but this time not the Kardashians, but me,  Poto Faalili.  So, with that said, welcome to ... KEEPING UP WITH MRS FAALILI Welcome to 2022! It is most likely going to be another year of uncertainties, working from home for a bit but nonetheless, a year full of learning, reflecting, failing, growing, and supporting each other.