Keeping Up with Mrs Faalili

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...