Blogpost #1: Student Inquiry Foci for 2023...

This year my Inquiry has a main focus & a sub-focus. How this will turn out is still quite blurry but I do know my purpose.

My main focus is on the Reading Practice Intensive (RPI) where my role is to mentor 2 teachers in my team. I want to inquire into the shift in our Reading Programme and if the changes made will produce an increase in student engagement and achievement.

My sub-focus is a collaborative one with fellow CoL teachers (Dorothy Apelu, Robyn Anderson, Dianne Fisi'iahi & Amy Tofa) and looking at how we could limit the language hurdles faced in Y8-9 High School transition #WordConsciousness.

I am hoping that through RPI and the changes my team have implemented and will continue to make in our Reading Programme this year, a vocabulary list or bank of words could be generated (in collab with other CoL Kaiako), to assist our Y8 kids with their transition into Y9.

So far this year, my team and I have been working in the school hall in an MLE. We have about 72 kids and 3 teachers working in 1 space. It's been an interesting, yet positive experience. With both teachers in my team taking the RPI intensive, it only makes sense that we all follow this approach. We work quite collaboratively and plan this way too. We have implemented the reading task-board idea into our programme, it's very multi-modal, and we have teacher workbooks - this is to help us track learner progress, keep record of their levels, strengths & weaknesses and make further teacher notes about the child's learning throughout the year.

Through talanoa with my team, we identified spelling to be a weakness amongst our team. All students bring different understandings and practises to the conception of spelling. We were recommended a book called 'The Code'. Fortunately we have an expert teacher in our RT Lit team whose followed this spelling programme thoroughly in her practice. Upon rich discussion with Kate, she advised that we have the student sit the test so we can identify the appropriate rules they need to be taught. Good thing is, the rule comes with a particular spelling list. These are just one of the changes we're taking on board for 2023, to ensure our deliverance of Reading and the shift in our programme, proves to be a productive one.

Next steps:

• Have the students sit 'The Code' spelling test
• Have Kate or Amanda from RT Lit, come in to model how to teach particular 'spelling rules'
• Meet with the CoL collab teachers to further work on our inquiries and what to do this year to help with Y8-9 High School transition
• Continue to mentor my 2 RPI mentee teachers

Bursts & Bubbles 2022

 Malo ‘e lelei, my name is Christine Tupou-Fonua.

My Inquiry focus for 2022 is: 

TEACHER & STUDENT WELL-BEING - HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE ACHIEVEMENT, ENGAGEMENT & ENJOYMENT?

What was happening for my learners?

• The speaking frame we are provided asks us to inquire into the learners. I inquired into my teacher practice, and what changes I should make to positively impact student learning.

• The beginning of the year was rough. We transitioned from face-to-face teaching and learning, to virtual learning and then to hybrid learning.

• My thoughts were: Is this another new norm? How are the students feeling? What about the teachers and staff? Some voiced they were nervous, excited, anxious. Some just wanted to come back to the classroom. 

What evidence do I have to support this?

• To name a few : Teacher, Student & Voice, Assessment Data, Student attendance summary, staff attendance and my own recollections of talanoa with teachers within my school and across the cluster.

• From this I was able to analyse the findings, and identify some common key concepts that were evidently important in students and teacher well being. 

• These key concepts included: Well-Being, Collaboration, Adaptability, Empathy and Patience. 

• The process also highlighted important factors that included “Relationships, Mental-Health and Resilience”, to name just some.

What changes did I make?

• The planning of this intervention was co-constructed by my team of teachers and our Y7&8 students. It was practical, authentic and culturally relevant to all.

• It involved changes in Teacher Practice, driven by student agency and the primary importance of Well-Being.

• It included weekly sessions of talanoa for students and teachers, collaborative planning, cross-group teaching for the learning areas, flexible learning spaces, Multi-modal resources and culturally authentic learning experiences. 

• It improved interpersonal interactions and relationships between teachers & students, enhanced empathy, collaboration and adaptability throughout the school.

• This holistic approach has actually enhanced delivery of the academic outcome and attendance for our Senior students this year. 

Some literature that helped me along the way were:

• Tapasa, Ka Hikitia & Tataiako Cultural Competencies Framework

• Scholarly articles on Teacher Well-Being

• Pasifika methodologies

• Scholarly articles on student agency, assessments & Teacher Practice

The hardest things for me to change was:

• Myself. Changing my mindset from what we considered important to teach - to something more in-depth and powerful, a way of practice to motivate and engage learners, students and colleagues, to promote their own agency.

My wonderings?

• How do I ensure that my practice uplifts and prepares my fellow kaiako, kahui ako, whanau and communities for the challenges of today and tomorrow?

Blogpost #10: Aspects of the intervention...

 Collaboration!

Here's a video of my Team Tui Tongan Language Week arts collaboration. Students were given the choice to choose out of 3 options - Tapa Making, Fan Making and Lose Making (Tongan accessories). The 3 teachers in my team taught the above option for a week long and produced some amazing artefacts.

This video shows what the students created during a fun week of authentic learning with cultural relevance to most of the students. Non-Tongan students also voiced that learning about Tonga and it's culture makes them want to learn more about their own culture and others, because they enjoy the new knowledge, the cultural food, the performances and more.

#StudentAgency #Collaboration 

Blogpost #9 - Monitoring of new approaches continued

My Journey with this Inquiry so far...

This years inquiry was very complex! I struggled to think of what else I could further inquire into based on evidence of student learning. Let's be honest, the beginning of 2022 was unprecedented...yet again. Schools went into Hybrid Learning as students and staff fell victim to covid, again.

I was one of the few who struggled all year round with my health. I had finished with Covid BUT some of its symptoms chose to stay with me much longer than I'd anticipated. I was "diagnosed" with Long covid and I coughed for months on end. 

I started to think to myself "I am unwell, I've missed school quite a bit, some of my students attendance has dropped also (due to covid & the flu), what am I to do to ensure these kids are still learning and I am doing my job?" For the last couple of years,  Teacher "Well-being" plummeted. One of the major consequences of covid-19 in educational settings has been the transition from face-to-face instruction to home learning and now hybrid learning, in order to maintain teaching and learning quality standards.

Studies have shown an increase in stress and burnout in school teachers (Pellerone, 2021). Teaching staff are not coming back to what was considered a "normal" teaching environment. I therefore decided to refine my inquiry and focus it on Teacher & Student Well-Being - How does it influence achievement, engagement & enjoyment?

My intervention looks at how we can ensure our teacher practice involves practical strategies that improves interpersonal interactions. These include emotional intelligence, empathy, assertiveness, compassion etc, which can influence socio-emotional classroom environment and improve relationships between teachers, staff & students, eventually leading to an environment that fosters accelerated achievement, engagement and enjoyment of learning,

Changes were made in my usual "way of Teaching". The depth of collaboration and flexible learning spaces became a new normal at school and both teacher and student relationships soared. Our team took on the pedagogy of cross-grouping between the 3 classes in my team. Maths & Literacy were taught at the same time, and students would move to their designated classrooms with different teacher for the learning areas.

When teaching Maths & Literacy, we took on a Reciprocal Teaching approach and fostered Multi-Modal resources in our planning. We would often start each week with a school Karakia, then we'd meet as a Team to go through our learning for the week. We'd often start our meetings with an inspirational video, sharing the message that reinforces our PB4L focus for the week, along with some mindfulness sessions.

 The students also requested the weekly meetings because they were front-loaded with information on what was to come. Our teaching assistants were also present and liked knowing in advance, what the week ahead looked like.

The changes we made to our practice helped put teachers and students at ease. No panic, no stress if a teacher was down, because the learning content was the same across the syndicate. Anyhow, I will continue to share evidence of how my inquiry intervention has helped both teacher & student (occupational) well-being and it's impacts on the learning this year.

Intervention in progress...

Reference:

Pellerone, M. (2021). Self-perceived instructional competence, self-efficacy and burnout during the covid-19 pandemic: a study of a group of Italian school teachers. Eur. J. Invest. Health Psychol. Educ. 11, 496–512. doi: 10.3390/ejihpe11020035

Blogpost #8 - Evidence about the monitoring of YOUR implementation

 Evidence: Some evidence I have about the intervention and how it's going:

• Cross-Group Teaching: At the end of Term 3, my team decided (with the input of the students) to cross-group teach in Term 4. Reason being, we followed cross-group teaching in Term 1, during the time of Hybrid learning and we found it very productive. We went back to single cell classes for Terms 2 & 3 because we needed some normality back in our routines and expectations. Because this term is crazy and super busy, we thought we'd go back to cross-grouping and flexible learning spaces.

Below is how our groups look like for Reading/Writing. In these level specific groups, we break them up into smaller flexible groups and use those groups for our guided sessions. We use the Murray Gadd 'thumbs-up' approach. "Thumbs up if you understand, thumbs to the side if you need support and thumbs down if you have no clue what to do". We found our students to be honest and use integrity and there is no shame if your thumb is to the side or down. Through teacher observation, we did notice those who would *hide in the corner* and we make time to conference with them too.

• Collaborative Planning: In my team, we plan collaboratively. We're a close knit team with different strengths and we utilise those strengths to the best of our classroom programme. Ronil would plan our Maths/Science, Mary would plan our Art/Inquiry learning and I'd plan Reading & Writing. Evidence is available on my learning site GTS Room 11 and also on Mary and Ronil's class sites.

• Teacher Observation: Through constant teacher observation, I noticed how the bond and relationship between Teacher/student and student/student manifested into something positive and empowering. Because of how the year started, my focus was on "Occupational Well-Being of the Teacher and how this impacted the students' learning". Having flexible learning spaces and cross-grouping really helped with ensuring the teacher did not have "teacher guilt" if they had to stay home due to having flu like symptoms. Reliever shortages was also an issue and often the classes would be split. But because of collaborative planning, even when we were a teacher down, the learning continued because planning was accessible online and they knew what the students were learning.

• Student Engagement - Because the learners were able to work alongside their friends from other classrooms and continue to develop the relationship in the team throughout the year, Team Tui became united in everything we did. Often the attendance award would go to our team because we found attendance and punctuality to improve. The termly overview was often shared with students at the end of each term to give them a heads-up into what next term would look like. Students voiced they wanted to learn more about history and science so we turned that into practice. Manaiakalani voiced 'Extended Discussion' as a focus for reading, so we approached RTLB support for Reciprocal Teaching and we ran with this programme for Reading. Books were selected by students and according to their interests and Inquiry topics. School trips were intentional and were planned according to the learning of the term. Sharing of student learning included mini exhibitions at the end of each topic, Team presentations and whanau involvement. 

• Attendance - According to our Principal, our Year 8 students have had the highest % of attendance in the whole school. (Graph to be shared shortly)