Website

Over the summer break and first couple of weeks of term. I completely re-did the school website. I had initially planned to just get the old one up to date and then maintain it, but found it was not user friendly at all. So, I created a new one from scratch using the Wix Website Editor. I asked staff what they thought was important to have on the site and went from there. It didn't take as long as I had thought it would, and I so far I have been able to keep it up to date by allowing half an hour or so, a couple of times a week. The challenges will be making sure staff remember to let me know about things that are happening that need to be on there.  So far the feedback from colleagues and parents has been very positive.

www.turakiprimaryschool.nz

Getting Cracking

So it's week 5 and the class is beginning to tick along fairly smoothly. The students are doing reading, writing and maths instruction most days and swimming every afternoon. We have a great bunch of kids with heaps of enthusiasm and plenty of skills already. They have picked up rotations and routines easily and are working pretty well in all areas. There are a few social issues but even these are beginning to sort themselves out. The way Tara and I are working together this year is different. Currently we are kind of taking lead roles in different areas to help with workload and just getting things running smoothly. We have been to see Rototuna Primary's writing programme again this term and have purchased the subscription to the SEED Learning website. This has given us lots of ideas to try for our writing programme including phonological and spelling teaching. As I reflect on ideas for this years goals I am immediately drawn to a couple of areas where I think I could improve.
1) Using clear, explicit child friendly learning goals that the child understands and can reflect on
2) Consistently teaching phonological awareness in order to support reading and writing
3) Consistently build Oral Language to support reading and writing
4) Increase the use of Te Reo and Tikanga within the classroom

Of these, two are specific to literacy teaching while two are across all curriculum areas. Points 2 and 3 are areas of my practise that I feel need to be improved to support the literacy teaching programme although I do not have a lot of evidence to suggest that there is a real need for an increase in these areas. The first point is something that has been discussed regularly as a staff and I always have trouble with making it fit in my classroom with junior students. I think this is something I would like to try harder to explore this year. Finally, the fourth point is due to noticing a smaller amount of evidence in this area from last year's appraisal.

So therefore, I think I will have 2 curriculum wide goals, to...

• Use clear, explicit, child friendly learning goals that students understand and can reflect on.
• Increase the use of Te Reo and Tikanga within the classroom.

New year

The year has started really well. We have a lovely class with 9 new students started already. 7 are brand new to school with 2 coming in from other schools. They all have some good knowledge already. They can all write their names and have some knowledge about numbers. They are settling into routines well which has meant reading and maths groups are now running well. We are currently having one teacher teaching groups and one roaming to support independent activities.