2017 Attestation

Attestation for Matt Liley Otonga School 2017

By Angela Donlon Year 1 Team Leader

Date:    28.2.17            Teacher: Matt Liley
Professional Standards Attestation
1	Classroom Environment	Sign	Comments
	Safety factors addressed	Y	all children have labelled cubbies and spaces for belongings.  The lost property peg is a brilliant idea.
	Room and cloak bay organised	Y	clear walkways
	Provision for a range of learning modalities	Y
	Learning intentions displayed	Y
	Children’s work displayed to reflect learning	Y
	Teacher- generated charts and models	Y	modelling books used to record learning.
	Relevant Timetable, monitors, rosters, daily reminders visible	Y	all timetables and relevant reference charts displayed on wall in office.
	Children’s  work dated and marked	Y	dated by teacher
	Accessibility of needed learning resources	Y	areas all well labelled and children have access to all equipment required for learning
2	Classroom Management
	Children on task	Y	great working buzz in the classroom, all children working in groups and settled teacher able to be fully involved with the instructional group.
	Noise level appropriate to task	Y	IY prompts from children to friends ‘“nside voice guys”
	Effective classroom routines	Y	amazing interaction with the children a very nice tone in the class, the respectful relationships between the teacher and children and their peers is great to see and hear, thank you!
	Activities appropriate to learning intentions	Y	at time of visit it was literacy focus reading rotations with handwriting, big books, library and HFW work.  Teacher doing guided reading with groups.
	Positive classroom relationships	Y	YES! your obvious passion and enjoyment teaching in thei level is so refreshing Matt!
	Respectful class tone	Y
	Management of support staff as needed
3	Official Documentation
	Reliever information displayed/updated	Y	reliever folder all up dated the information for relievers all stored in central blue folder.
4	Planning and Assessment
	Planning linked to school strategic plan/targets	Y	collaborative planning with paired teacher shared weekly planning overview then individual reading planning.
	Children working at appropriate levels	Y
	Planning evident for groups and IEPs as needed
	Identification and planning for target needs (S.N/GT)	Y	targetted children are noted in planning
	Assessment folders, drives, blogs maintained	Y
	Reading graph for tracked children established	Y	Individual tracking of every child monthly and plotted on monthly graphs
	Evidence of feedback and feed forward
	Evidence of self and peer assessment & next learning steps
	Children can explain their learning and progress	Y
	Catering to a range of learning styles	Y
	Data available	Y	all data readily available

5	Technology
	Devices being used appropriately in class	Y	i-pads used in rotations,
	Evidence of use of inquiry tools
6	Professional Knowledge
	Demonstrates sound knowledge of curriculum	Y
	Commitment shown to ongoing learning	Y
	Provision for bicultural and multi cultural awareness	Y
	Reflective practices evident	Y
7	Communication
	Effective communication with students and their families	Y
	Effective communication with colleagues	Y
8	Support for and Cooperation with Colleagues
	Beginning: cooperate and seek support from colleagues
	Fully Registered: Developing leadership in curriculum across the school and in extra curricular areas within their team	Y	Project team member - Enviro team, (power rangers) Maori - opted to join this porject team as wanting to upskill
	Experienced: providing mentoring and leadership school-wide
9	Contribution to School
	Beginning: Participate in the wider life of the school
	Fully Registered: Facilitate a team or school-wide activity	Y	Solar power with the power rangers.
	Experienced: Demonstrate a commitment to the wider profession
Signature:                                   Signature:

Matt,

Thank you for allowing me to come into your classroom today. I am delighted with how you have embraced the move into the Year 1 team.  it has to be noted that moving from teaching in the Year 5 and 6 level to teaching year 1 requires more than a shift in curriculum level focus but there is so much more to consider, the dependence of Year 1 children, their needs and wants are vastly different.  You have a very positive, realistic approach and attitude.  It has been wonderful to see how you interact with the children and their families in the mornings and after school, I had been telling you for years that you needed to be teaching in  the junior school and it is just wonderful to see how invigorated you seem to be.  The pairing of yourself and kathleen has been a great match.  You have been enthusiastic about all the ‘new’ learning with Numicon maths, PMP, Incredible Years PD, Entry testing, monthly reading tracking, Yolanda Soryl phonics, Annie Ant handwriting etc…

Please be assured that your team of colleagues are here to support you, answer any questions and if there is any way you require help I am always available.

Angela Donlon

Linda Woon 7:56 AM Yesterday

Resolve

Congratulations on being brave enough to take this huge stride in going from senior school to New Entrants. Whether you stay at that level r not, the learning from being with Kathleen will put you in great stead.

Junior Whanau Picnic

Junior Whanau Picnic was a really great opportunity to meet parents at the start of the year in an informal setting.

Numicon

The junior team is embarking on the Numicon maths teaching programme. It is an English system based around the manipulation and visualisation of shapes. I'm very interested in the results.

First part of 2017 Attestation by team leader Angela Donlon

Time:  9:40-10:30

Observation Notes:  Reading with the teacher, 1 group doing handwriting in books, 1 group doing clay modelling in the classroom and then other groups in shared space with teacher and activities as well.  Noise level working buzz, the teacher is able to focus solely on the reading group she is working with as the other groups are engaged and know what their job is.  Shared space has teacher at jelly bean table with a guided reading group, one group at table doing handwriting, and another group with blocks.  The shared space has a library area set up for quiet reading.  The working groups are all aware of their roles. 

Discussion Notes:  Matt Liley has moved into teaching this year level after many years teaching in senior school.  He has embraced this challenge with such positivity he has a very pleasant manner with the children.  Great questioning with guided reading group, building in vocab and allowing for time to answer, prediction and also he is feeding in new language, and reviewing CAPs in the group sessions.  During this observation all the children were very good at managing themselves with independent rotation activities, routines are set and well established this is vital as means the teacher is uninterrupted with instructional groups. Puzzles, Handwriting, Teacher.  Each teacher seems to have 3 reading groups each.  Transition times smooth and children are able to move to the next activity without prompting.  All children are assigned numbers for books so all systems are being followed.  Teacher proximal praise, good redirection of one child who was taking a little longer to move to next task, used redirection in positive tone and child responded immediately. 

William behaviour and learning

6 Year nets coming up Hannah,Aleigha,Tamati, Danica,James and Sienna concern as got 8 weeks to get these children to green.  (Summer effect) even though book sets, sight words and homework books and spoke to parents. May get to blue but not hit green. 

Oscar, Aamir, Ari,James,Issac, Alicia,Foster, Royce and William are close watch for behaviour

Significant number ESOL Gege, Cassandra, Aurora, Aamir,Emmie, Sienna as they speak Africans at home,

The teachers use the shared space so they can split for reading instruction, shared book, phonics, maths and writing.  This means management of noise and space is well organised.  The classroom is very organised all storage is labelled so all children can manage resources.  A large mat space is set up in the classroom for all whole class mat times and learning.   

Sharp Reading Professional Development

Sharp Reading Professional Development

At the beginning of Term 3 myself and Paulien Gray attended a workshop looking at the Sharp Reading programme. Both of us had been using some of their reading resources and really liked the content. The stories and articles were 'child-friendly' and levelled well for ability.
Sharp Reading is a very structured programme focusing on short intensive guided reading sessions with small groups. The Sharp Reading process is based around very systematic routines designed to give the students ample time and practice to embed good reading practices. The workshop day was very intensive and practical, with the goal of giving us the initial skills to introduce it at as soon as we got back to class. My initial thoughts were positive. I had been looking for more structure and direction in my reading programme and this appeared to give this in spades! The only misgivings I had were the time pressures it entailed and the extension of my more able readers.
I rearranged my reading groups so I had 5 groups of 6 rather than 4 groups of 8 and began at the beginning of Term 3.

Thoughts

• As expected I loved the structure of the programme. It made planning much simpler because I always knew what my next steps were.
• The majority of the children enjoyed it. This was especially the case with the less able readers. After discussion with them it appears that they liked knowing the structure of the lesson and what was going to happen. Because of it's repetitive nature they got better at the skills required and subsequently became more confident.
• The Sharp stories and articles I used were very engaging for the children and there is beginning to be a wide variety to choose from. 
• The idea of children verbalising  ITTM ( I think this means ...) after each sentence (or paragraph) was repetitive but you could really see the progress in how well the children were analysing and understanding what they were reading, as they were reading. 
• The expected timeframe was difficult to achieve. Often we got a bit side tracked and this led to a group missing out on their session occasionally.
• My more able readers became a bit bored with the repetitive process, however the use of ITTM still showed me that they did often lack fundamental understanding of what they were reading. 

Future

• If carrying on with Year 5/6 students I would definitely continue with the programme.  It would be interesting to see the progress after a full teaching year.
• I would look more closely at Stages 4 and 5 of the programme which deal with critical thinking, for my more able readers.
• As I am working with Year ones in 2017, I am very curious to see how the programme approaches decoding in its structure. This is covered in Stages 1 and 2. I will attempt to implement this during the year. 

Proportional Reasoning Professional Development

Attended a Proportional Reasoning PD session at Mokoia Intermediate on Tuesday. Ratios and proportions is probably the maths area I am least confident in teaching so i was looking forward to it. Unfortunately I was a bit underwhelmed. I was hoping for a systematic approach to teaching with lots of practical ideas. What we got was really just a range of problems to solve and a brief talk about each. It didn't help that the internet wasn't working but still disappointing.