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...

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...