New Role: Across Schools COL Teacher 2024

 Talofa lava everyone!

Last year I decided to apply for one of the across schools COL roles and was fortunate enough to be successful. So this year I am excited to inquire into my own teaching practice and cater towards the needs of my new students this year. But I am also quite keen to get around to other schools and see how I may be of use or pick up new learning that can be used in my Y7/8 class and team of teachers at Pt England.

Last year in my application, I was really passionate about pursuing Maths for Years 7-8 learners and bridging the ever widening gap as they move up in the school. However,  we've had a cluster wide look at our data through Ed Potential and I feel there could be some changes in terms of my focus area for the year. Watch this space as I have more korero with fellow COL teachers and school leaders to see where my main focus will be for the year.

Otherwise, I am excited to start this new role and meet more teachers across our cluster. If there is anything Year 7-8 related, TESSOL related, or you are needing a sound board for ideas around our Manaiakalani teaching pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share, please book any of us across teachers in and we can pop in to visit you.

I look forward to meeting you all and the challenges this year.

Tofa ma ia manuia.

Toolkits: Pasifika Language Weeks

 Despite a very hectic week, I am so glad I made time to join Andrea Telea's toolkits about Pasifika Language weeks in schools on Tuesday afternoon. It was such a great time to talk Pasifika, and what it means for us as Pacific Educators, teaching Pasefika children.

We were able to share what we have implemented so far in our schools for language weeks and paint a picture for what this looks like. It was also refreshing to hear from Anne from Homai and Jesse from Kedgley Intermediate for some ideas we could start up in our school as well. 

My takeaways from this toolkit were the Pasifika books Andrea shared with hard data about our different ethnic groups and the maintenance of the language happening so far in NZ. The Tapasā I had already had some experience working through with our teachers at Pt England but the other 2: The Pacific Languages Strategy and The Leo Moana Survey Report were of interest to me as someone passionate about retaining language and teaching english to second language learners. 

Thank you Andrea for the opportunity to connect and Manaiakalani for having these toolkits available.

Digital Fluency Intensive #1

I have been looking forward to my chance to join the DFI course and finally I've made it in cohort #3. An exciting start jam packed with an enormous amount of knowledge, tricks and quick fixes which would all add towards making my teaching life a lot more manageable in our Google world.

We are very fortunate to have quite a packed class in this cohort as it makes for more rich sharing of experiences from novices and experts alike.
Having been at Pt England and therefore part of Manaiakalani for the last 5 years, I was immediately immersed in the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy which has become just what we do as teachers. Something new and interesting I found out today during Dorothy's coverage of the 'Origins of Manaiakalani' was that this was born out of classroom teachers literacy learning cycles and the realisation that we were actually already doing Learning, Creating and Sharing just in smaller settings and maybe using different academic language.

One of the things I really enjoy about DFI so far is the set out/ layout in which the course is delivered I've shared this in my top tips poster below (which is a big achievement in itself as it is made in google docs!). This is using the Deep Diving, Chalk 'n Talk, Explore and Levelling Up model. It definitely felt like all those things and I particularly enjoyed the levelling up so that if we felt up to the challenge, there is still more to be learnt, or we could choose to stay and keep familiarising ourselves with some of the things we've covered already.

My biggest takeaway is the amazing wonders of google docs. One thing I could share with my students come Monday would be the explore button on docs which only give you images that are free and good to use with citations already imbedded.
One thing I will be working on is to do a complete Marie Kondo of my drive so my folders for the last 5 years are more organised.

There is so much more I have picked up and can't wait to revisit. This is also made easy as everything is rewindable and constantly being updated for us. So I've had such an enjoyable 1st session and am looking forward to our next DFI session. I also highly recommend EVERYONE needs to make sure they do this course.

Manaiakalani 'Create' PD

Yesterday our cluster got to experience some create activities as part of our PD. There were many different create workshops from rocket making, to sign language and even line dancing!

I was needing fuel for a Monday so I chose the cooking workshop which was making Vietnamese spring rolls.

This workshop was taken by Akesa Tuipulotu who took us through the steps of making the Vietnamese spring roll, the ingredients and where things can be found on our benches. In the end we filled ourselves up with some prawn filled spring rolls and sizzling mince ones. A thoroughly satisfying workshop.

Manaiakalani Annual Hui - Kahui Ako

As part of the Manaiakalani Annual Hui on Friday, CoL teachers were invited along as part of the poster session at the end of the day. Here we created 'science fair' type display boards about the main parts of our inquiries and made sure it was 'easy to read' and follow for others. Teachers and education facilitators who attended the Hui took part in a bingo game which required them to travel around and take interest in the boards/ screens being displayed. In order to get their card stamped, they had to look for key words in our blogs or boards such as the labels we use as part of our own 'learn, create, share' Manaiakalani Teaching as Inquiry framework.


I really enjoyed myself and while explaining to the various viewers the twists and turns of my inquiry I was also quite surprised to realise new ideas taking form from seeing it all displayed on a board. Some of the feedback I received from people were that they really liked my reflections - documenting not just the good parts but also what didn't work out and what I had to change as a teacher in order for my inquiry to move forward. I would have loved to get around and see more of my fellow CoL teachers and their displays but we sure were kept busy in our Achievement Challenge #4 corner (which was a good thing too!). I will definitely be keeping an eye out for their blog posts to see their displays too! Here are a few snap shots of bingo players leaving messages on my blog.

  

Manaiakalani - Digital Immersion day - Term 3

Today was a good opportunity for us to have some useful learning conversations with other teachers across the cluster. We managed to start planning what our DLO will look like for next term incorporating and promoting cybersmart with our students. Here is an outline of what we came up with.