Keeping Up with Mrs Faalili

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...