Reflecting on goals

As we are halfway through the year it's a good time to reflect on how my goals are going. 

• Use clear, explicit, child friendly learning goals that students understand and can reflect on.

So far I have made big progress on the student learning goals. The students now have learning goal sheets for reading, writing, maths, handwriting and spelling. These have been working really well, particularly in writing and maths. The students have some choice about what their next goal is and enjoy seeing the progress they are making. They get an AROHA for every goal achieved. The students are then grouped by similar goals. The groups are incredibly flexible and often change weekly. Some of the challenges are making sure to allow time to tick off achieved goals, particularly maths as we get the students to  prove they can achieve the goal individually. We try to timetable this in to our week but when students are away it can mean they miss out. Writing, handwriting and spelling goals get ticked off as they go. The reading goals haven't been being kept on top of as well as they are in the students reading diaries and if they have left them at home/lost them then things get out of date quickly. 

One of the other challenges with the goal sheets is having different teachers in and out of them room.

• Increase the use of Te Reo and Tikanga within the classroom.

I am becoming more and more confident with my knowledge of Te Reo and Tikanga with my he papa tikanga paper and my increased dedication to using Te Reo. One of the big things I have been trying is to do more waiata with the students. I have found youtube videos of many of the waiata the kids sing at kapahaka. I think this will encourage more of our students to get involved in kapahaka next year as they will already know some of the waiata. It also supports those who are in kapahaka by giving them extra practise. I am using Te Reo in the classroom daily for many simple instructions and am continuing to develop this. In the most recent module of He Papa Tikanga I have learnt a lot about powhiri and the reasons being the protocols. It has helped me to also understand more about the culture in general.