Intervention so far...

My inquiry this year has been a real test/challenge. Being an AS CoL teacher, you have to ensure that you are on top of the game always.

I started off by talking with our former school principal about what it would look like. With Y8 transition being at the forefront of my inquiry and interweaving literacy throughout. Chris said 'start off with Glen Taylor being your initial school or target group and hopefully reach out to the other schools in the latter half of the year'. 

I must admit, it's been full on and I just haven't had time to involve another school. It was already complicated to work around the dynamics of when the Y9 students would be available, because High School timetable is different to Primary.

So I started with my target group of Y8 students and with the help of Ms George and Mr Stevenson, I created my Y9 mentor group (all 6 students being former students of mine). Created the 'Kau Taki' group (aka The Leaders). The students briefly met in Term 2 but the mentoring sessions didn't start till beginning of Term 3. The purpose of the sessions were to support the Y8 learners with their learning, while preparing them for the realities of college.

Our sessions included:

1. Meet and Greet (mentee and mentor)
2. Working on engaging Critical Thinking Reading/Maths Tasks
3. Q&A session (about High School) between Y8 and Y9
4. Reading Comprehension Tasks
5. Key into Inference Tasks
6. Y8 mentees shadow their Y9 mentors in High-school for 2 blocks
7. Evaluation/Reflection

What I am hoping to achieve from this intervention are:

1. My Y8 students achieve pass their EOY Reading Assessments

2. Y8 students leave GTS being Confident in who they are, Confident in their identity and language

Session #2 and #3 - KAU TAKI Intervention

End of Term 3 and we've completed 3 of our KAU TAKI sessions for my Y8 and Y9 students. It's great to see the students have built a good relationship with one another, they've surpassed the 'awkward' stage and are getting on with the work.

Below we have some images of them working through their 'tasks' together as mentor and mentee. So far we've worked on some Critical Thinking Reading tasks that included - Reebus Puzzles, Riddles & Brain teasers, Sudoku Puzzles, Would you rather questions and we had a Q&A session where our Y8 learners asked our Y9 mentors 10 FAQ about High School.

In today's session, we planned what our 3 sessions next term would look like.

Session #4 - Watching 'Inference' youtube clips and inferring them in pairs.

Session #5 - Y8 mentees shadow our Y9 mentors in High School for the day (if not available, we will look at 1-2 blocks).

Session #6 - Reflect & Evaluate our intervention. Give feedback on what went well and what possible next steps might be to ensure the intervention could be implemented in another school.

Our 'Get to know' you session - Mentor and Mentee

We had our first meet & greet session a couple weeks ago and it was a success. With the students, we decided on holding 6 sessions to run our 'mentoring programme'. 

Session #1 would be a 'Get to know you' session, Session 2-5 will be mentoring session where they would be working on Critical Thinking Reading Tasks, PEP talk for High School and building relationships. Session 6 will be an 'Evaluation/Reflection' session.

In our first session, I provided a Kai (this is traction for our tamariki), and when they finished, they sat as mentor/mentee and shared a talanoa. At the end of their talanoa, they introduced each other to the group and shared some things about one another.

We can't wait to see what our next couple of sessions turn out to be like.

Session #1 for our KAU TAKI mentor group (Intervention)

Preparing for our first mentor session today. Each pair will have a clear file that has a few activities inside. Each activity supports the reading skill of 'Critical Thinking' in fun and engaging ways. To start off, our activity pack this week features:

1. Reebus Puzzles

2. Quick Fire - Would you Rather Questions

3. Sudoku Puzzles

Seeing it is our first mentor session. Why not include activities that are fun and engaging and requires some deep thinking. I was thinking for the next session, mentees will have the opportunity to write up some questions they'd like to ask their mentor about High School.

One of the objectives I'd like to achieve from this intervention is being able to find ways where we (teachers and schools) can support our learners with transitioning from Y8 to Y9. Even through talanoa, bringing awareness, informing our students of what to expect is huge. Why wait for Term 4 to prepare them? When it is something that can be done from the beginning of their Y8 year.

I think also having Y9 students as mentors bring some reality into the equation. Students that are close to them in age and are experiencing what they will soon be going through is a good start.

Causal Chain for my 2024 Intervention

 This years causal chain was a joy to make. I'll be honest, I think I finally have my head around the understanding of my theory of action.

I have included my Inquiry focus/question - some of the outcomes I wish to achieve - my intervention - what my learning will be and what learning I hope the learners achieve - a few measurable outcomes I hope to achieve at the end of the intervention and what it should look like.

Causal Chain 2024