Laying the foundations for learning, laughing, playing and finally…leaving!

It has been a wonderful journey of discovery that has spanned a four year time frame. It doesn’t seem possible that it was four years ago that I began teaching at a brand new school that was created to push every boundary of traditional learning well and truly into the 21st century and beyond! From the humble beginnings of simply 3 open, agile learning spaces with 86 students from Early Stage One through to Stage Three and 16 highly motivated, dedicated staff we have now GROWN to nearly 1000 students from Preschool to Year 9.

I knew this would be an extraordinary opportunity as we entered the new school initially through a window that had been converted into a door…and as our team co-created the school motto ‘Live the Good News’ together with our visions and mission we have ensured that our families and students understood that ‘Learning = Infinite Possibilities’.

St Luke’s nurtures faith-filled, curious children to become creative contributors and innovative problem solvers for a changing world.

Looking back there have been so many highlights and growth both for the school and myself. The staff have become a family that happily welcome new members every year and I often think how lucky I have been to expand my personal and professional skills and abilities. Taking a huge leap into the unknown has challenged me to become more resilient, take risks, build capacity, be innovative and think outside the square to problem solve each and every day.

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  Our school in 2017 with the HUB being built

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  School of Foundations being built in 2018

Every year has enabled growth for the students, staff and of course the building of new and innovative learning spaces…we have learnt that some changes take longer than others (building) while everyone works together to ensure that our student’s needs are not only met but that they have voice and choice in their own learning. Play and well being remain an integral part of the daily learning of all students. It definitely looks different across all the various stages of students and learning spaces but something that 2020 has taught us is to listen more carefully to what the students need to help them focus and do their best learning…brain breaks, learning outside, stop and meditate, self directed learning. Play isn’t just fun, it is a way for our students to develop their critical social skills and build relationships with each other to set them up to be successful in an ever changing world that requires them to be not only innovative but collaborative participants too. What I truly love is seeing how the students utilise the knowledge and skills that they have learnt during their more formalised lessons and then choose to transfer that information into their self directed learning. I’ve included some examples for you to see…just as a side note we use zones of regulations to help us understand our feelings better.

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During my time at St Luke’s I have had the absolute pleasure of teaching Early Stage One, Stage One and taking on the role of Religious Education Inquiry Leader K-4 in 2019 where I have coached and co-taught with many wonderful teachers. These opportunities have enhanced my leadership capacity and teaching skills. Being able to work collaboratively and building strong relational trust with staff has been so inspirational that I have decided to take yet another leap of faith. This next leap sees me moving to a different school as the Religious Educational Coordinator. The students that I teach are struggling a little bit to understand why I am leaving and have been asking me that same question A LOT. Having participated in a workshop led by Anthony Maher has enabled me to understand far better the reasons that I’m leaving…put simply I’m working on “flourishing” as I haven’t yet reached that goal where I can say that I’ve achieved everything I need to allow me to lead the best life possible. I’m taking a step towards meeting my own personal goal of flourishing and reaching out to others.

At St Luke’s I have learnt tremendously, laughed heaps, played and now I’m leaving…this learning community filled with amazing educators, students and families will remain in my heart ALWAYS!!

To finish I wanted to share some memories with you all…this is my community…

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Try, try and never give up..

How many times this year have you just wanted to throw your hands up in the air and shout “I’ve done my best…BUT…” and then you stop and do some reflecting.

This year, thanks to COVID-19 we have seen so many changes and one of the strongest ones is how our students have had to become far more resilient and better problem solvers. They are so tired and it wasn’t until someone pointed out that this is actually the very first term that all students will have attended school for an entire 10 WEEKS…so let’s celebrate their achievements no matter how small.

This term with the continued focus on building reading skills students are far more attuned to their reading goals and can now confidently share what they need to be doing while they are reading to be successful. Due to the coaching provided to build teacher capacity in guided reading sessions students are not just moving up reading levels but are comprehending what they are reading better and the vocabulary is unpacked to enhance the whole reading process. My personal favourite achievement is how the students now understand the importance of reading to a partner to receive feedback about their reading goal. The students really see themselves as “READERS” and will often ask to read whenever they have a free moment!

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This term in Stage One we integrated History, Science and Technology as well as English. This challenged the students to transfer their skills of researching about how a particular technology has changed over time and apply this information into a more formal information report, complete with headings and subheadings – the students were able to choose from cars, computers, music and televisions. But we didn’t stop there….the students then had to work with a partner to code using Scratch Jr to teach others about how their chosen technology had changed. All students have their own unique gifts and talents and while some of our students struggled to work out how to research their technology, with a little bit of help they could apply what they had learnt to their coding project. These students are more than capable when it comes to using the iPads and working out how to create a background, add a character and then add movement together with typed messages and verbal responses. These Scratch projects may not be finished yet but the passion for learning and experimenting displayed by the students has made our joint learning that little bit more exciting. They have learnt not to give up, even when faced with the challenge of trying to work out how to add photos to their program one little boy through his perseverance worked it out and then taught me how he did it. The next step was both of us working together to share the learning with all the other students. I absolutely LOVE those “light bulb” moments and the look of pride on his face was priceless.

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Another small achievement has been how the students are managing themselves within the learning spaces and focusing on working collaboratively in small groups to build relationships (R2 – Understand relationships which is one of our school’s pillars). This connects to our new Religious Education Learning Cycle where we are unpacking and solving the driving question “Why do we belong to communities?” and exploring how we can be inclusive and accepting of others diversity. We began with reading and understanding the Bible story of “Jesus is Baptised” and now we are working together to create a game that will be inclusive and reflect the interests of others. Many of the students recognise that they don’t always listen to everyone in their group and that working in a group can be tricky especially if that group was created by the teacher and not of their own choosing…and so they persevere knowing that their actions and words will help build a strong faith community.

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So we have tried many different things this term including our weekly uploads to Seesaw to share with families their child’s learning together with a star, star wish (2 things they did well and the next step in their learning). YES so many achievements, some are small and some are amazing but they are all steps in the right direction…we are all tired but excited that we NEVER GAVE UP!!

Building on what we know to make things better – guided reading and beyond!

This year our school goal has been to focus on building vocabulary for all students so that they can transfer this knowledge into the language they use every day to communicate with others both in a verbal and non-verbal capacity. What no one ever counted on was the interruption coronavirus would have on our daily lives and ultimately the learning to read and write for many of our students and in particular our most vulnerable ones!

So let’s fast forward to week 5 of term 3 and reflect on what we discovered and how we went about changing the outcomes for both teachers and students alike…

At the beginning of term 3 reading levels were definitely below where they needed to be and students were not progressing through levels. Quite a significant number of students were also not self-correcting which meant they were not truly understanding what they were reading or attending to the print. With these findings our leadership team realised that the best way to move forward would be to observe all teachers implementing guided reading sessions with the students to see how they best could support both teachers and students alike in the journey of learning. For myself this journey became both reflective and rewarding.

REFLECTING…there are times we all get so busy and overloaded that we forget all the aspects that make up a comprehensive guided reading session so having input from a coach who identifies your strengths and the what would be better still adds value to your teaching practice. The coaching was complemented by participating in a stage based targeted professional learning meeting that also provided practical ideas and resources for improving guided reading for our stage one students. So now I move forward with confidence and a toolkit to help me make my guided reading sessions even more powerful and rewarding.

REWARDING…in many different ways, such as students now having better abilities to reread and fix up their mistakes. The self-correct rate is improving with a greater percentage of students having a self-correction rate of at least 1:5 or better. With an emphasis on unpacking vocabulary has meant students make more connections to the books they are reading and prior knowledge is activated before reading. Being able to identify unfamiliar words and phrases that students would struggle with and basically not understand enables students to be more successful with their reading goal and engaging with the book overall. Carefully planning each guided reading session ensures that I’m not only well prepared but have questions prepared both literal and inferential to help me understand whether or not the students are not only reading the book but actually understanding and comprehending it too! Will this mean I need to spend more time on planning the answer is yes…but if we ask students to practise their reading at home and the more they read the better they will become then it’s only fair that we as educators apply that same logic to our ourselves and create better plans that help all of us to be successful.

Another positive outcome has been that students are far more focused on their own particular reading goal and are beginning to share that with their families via Seesaw with a reflection on themselves as readers using the star, star and wish feedback tools (stars are something they did well and a wish is something they would like to improve on). The reflection can be verbal or written and most students are challenging themselves to use the typing tool to create sentences for others to read.

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Are we finished yet? The simple answer is ‘No’ we are still intensively working on our guided reading sessions and completing running records on our most vulnerable readers every week so as to track any changes and impacts on reading levels and self-correction skills of students. We are, however, celebrating the successes so far experienced by our most vulnerable learners due to the changes we have made…

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

by Dr Seuss

COVID19…creating a change and building capacity!

Every year brings changes through learning and growth of oneself and especially the children we work with, however, how much change would take place in such a small amount of time in 2020…mind blowing!!

So what has been so mind blowing you may ask?? It began with a need to quickly organise a method for enabling our students to learn from home where they would be supported by their parents and so began the journey of learning and discovery by teachers, students and their parents alike. Communication was essential and over a period of time took on many different forms. There was a home page set up online for parents to access and as a way to stay connected with our students we as teachers created short videos that not only sent messages but shared ‘read alouds’ and guessing games alike.

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Home learning eventually became connected learning as the realisation that we all still need to stay connected to enable communication to be the most effective. So from the beginning of Term 2 we had all students and families connected via the Seesaw app where they could access activities that had been created and assigned to each student. There was a continued focus on speaking and listening across Mathematics, English, Religion and all other Key Learning Areas. As part of our own learning we took part in workshops that enabled us to have a more thorough understanding of how to utilise and navigate the Seesaw app together with creating instructional videos. To produce these instructional videos we used apps such as ‘Explain Everything’ and ‘Photo Booth’, as well as capturing videos of our computer screens. All of this was a NEW format of communicating with our students and their families and of course in the beginning took a long time to perfect or it could be that I’m too much of a perfectionist, either way it was a true leap of faith into the unknown. Plus who would have thought that at some point I would be having Zoom catch ups with 6 – 7 year olds…this was yet another opportunity to communicate and get to know my students as they learnt from home.

Many of my students loved learning from home while others missed the connections with myself and their friends from school. I certainly missed their faces, conversations and time spent learning together. What was most apparent during this time apart is how much the children loved having time for ‘play’ and self choice. When our students started returning to school for their one day a week I began asking them via our Zoom catch ups what they missed and what they would like included on the days they got to come to school. A lot of them wanted art and craft activities, while others wanted lego and running around outside and PLAY!

So what exactly has changed…

We have built more flexibility into the day through participating in a range of brain breaks and ensured that the students get choices in the afternoon where we have integrated Science/HSIE together with PDH, visual arts and our social skills (relating, managing and working with others) in rotational activities. Then every Friday since returning to school full time, we have had a STEM activity that connects to our theme – “Wizard of Oz” . The students are enjoying the opportunities they have for learning and playing with their friends and activities that are based on both curriculum as well as personal interests…

How have we built capacity?

Another positive outcome for communication has been the student’s ability to use technology to enhance their writing/typing and speaking skills. One student who struggles to record her thinking traditionally by writing has worked out how to use the microphone on the keyboard of the iPad and add a typed sentence to her work. Many other students are now far more confident with typing sentences, taking photos of their learning and uploading them to Seesaw. Every Friday the students share their favourite work they have done throughout the week with their families and explain what they liked and how they could improve next time. This reflective thinking connects to our school focus of building each and every child’s vocabulary and speaking capacity.

Who would have thought that so many positive changes could have evolved from such a difficult time…COVID19…equals an opportunity to CHANGE…now we’re working on…WHERE TO NEXT?????

Have you heard?It’s all about the WORD…

A new year and a slightly different focus…and yes it’s all about the ‘word’, in particular the spoken word!

This year we want to help our students go beyond any limits and build a vibrant capacity for exploring new vocabulary which will enable them to build strong foundations to become“creative contributors and innovative problem solvers for a changing world.” 

We began by delving in deeply to think about when throughout the day we could focus on practising the skills required for active listening and speaking, as well as introducing new vocabulary and not simply during the literacy block! In actual fact when you stop to consider it we are constantly using our language skills everyday across all subjects, when we interact with each other and socialise outside in the playground. At our school we begin each day focusing on a particular social skill based on three of our six pillars  (Witness, Manage and Relate) and in my learning space we have the students working in ‘Tribe groups’. Each tribe has between 4-5 students and every week the students take turns in being the tribe leader, supply manager, communicator and cheer squad. This week we were able to integrate Religion into our tribes as each tribe had to work together to create a poster teaching others everything they knew about Ash Wednesday. As the groups worked on their poster they were reminded of the social skills for this particular week:

• learning to share equipment, furniture and learning spaces.

• make people feel welcome

• Look after my own, others and school property 

It was fascinating watching the students who were able to communicate effectively as well as apply the social skill learning. Then there were other students who although they are good communicators during other learning opportunities guided by the teacher in this particular situation they struggled to share the equipment and communicate their intentions or feelings with each other. At the end of the task all the students who had the communicators job this week stood up and presented their poster to the larger group. This can be challenging for many students especially when they are EALD (English as an Additional Language or Dialect). One of the student’s who couldn’t recall all the information added by another student actually asked them for clarification. The more opportunities these students have to practice their speaking skills then they can incorporate any new vocabulary learnt and have peer modelling as well.

To assist in this journey of discovery our professional learning meetings are incorporating a balance of reading articles, accessing resource books, participating in open discussions amongst colleagues and then sharing of ideas.

Each week we are trialling a new idea in our learning spaces to enhance the development of new vocabulary and being very aware of supporting student voice within the learning spaces. One of the activities I have been using with the students has been a ‘word wheel’ where we identify new words from a text or key concept and then students get to talk with a partner about how they can use them in a sentence. Each student shares their sentence with each other and then I extended on this to have them write it in their literacy books, adding an illustration to match. This matches the saying “If I can think it I can say it, if I can say it I can write and if I can write it then I can read it!” The students have enjoyed choosing which 4 words they would like included in the word wheel daily and eagerly share their new sentence with their partner. Some of the students are working on using 2 words while others are ready for the challenge of using all 4 words in a sentence.

This week we have been using a ‘talking stick’ in a maths warm up where the students have been creating patterns using 2 D shapes. Then within their small group one student holds the talking stick and describes their pattern while the others listen. An anchor chart that the students helped co-create is used as a resource for the students to refer to when using the language of 2D shapes. Every day the students are growing a bank of new words to add to their vocabulary so their limits will be endless!

Next step is transferring this knowledge into the student’s writing…but that’s another Blog! So we’ll keep on exploring and using the power of the WORD!!

Empowering Our Students!

It’s week 5 of Term 4, time to stop and reflect on all the ways that my Stage One students have grown and changed. A word that keeps playing over and over again in my head is “empower” which I then connect to “student voice and choice”. There are many different ways that this is evident within our learning space but one of them is how we begin our mornings, through our social skills program.

This week our social skill has been on showing “Respect for the environment” with a particular focus on our Witness and Relate pillars 
-Share equipment, learning spaces and furniture
-Make people feel welcome when they visit our school
-Look after my own, others and school property

The students are in ‘Tribe Groups’ of up to 5 students and this week I gave them the challenge of thinking about the best way they could show how to ‘share equipment, learning spaces and furniture’ as well being able to ‘look after own, others and school property’. As a whole group we acknowledged that we felt very confident with welcoming others to our school so the decision was made that we would focus on the other two indicators. So instead of myself as the teacher creating activities I thought the students would benefit from, they were given the responsibility to co-create ideas with their tribe members. The students were totally engaged in discussing and problem solving within their tribes to work out the best possible methods to show the Pillars in action. Each tribes communicator then shared their ideas which were recorded on an action plan in preparation for the implementation of these activities by each tribe. The ideas included playing a broad range of board games, dominoes, fishing game and drawing. The next step was for the supply manager to gather all the resources that each tribe needed for their activity. All the students had to agree within their tribes in regards to the activity selected and the space within the room for the learning and play to occur. At no point did I need to intervene as the students took total control of their own learning. What I did do was take some photos so that the students could reflect on what they saw taking place around them. This process takes place across the whole week.

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The next step was for the students to choose which tribe they felt had displayed the best practice around the indicators for the Witness and Relate Pillars and the photos representing these will be added to our Pillar displays. The posters are used by the students to help them make direct connections with their daily learning. What was fantastic was the reasoning that students provided for their choices around the most successful tribe.

You know when something works well because the students take total ownership over their own learning, they are fully engaged and a visiting teacher makes comments on the students capacity to independently manage themselves! All of this shouts “EMPOWERMENT = STUDENT VOICE and CHOICE”…this empowerment hasn’t happened over one week or even one term because we have been working on the student capacity for independent thinking and learning all year! What has become most apparent is that the students obviously enjoy being able to choose that activity they feel connects with the social skill indicators they are currently working on. ‘Play’ for these students is important learning and it enables them to action not only responsibility for sharing equipment, learning spaces and furniture but valuing each other as important contributors to an ever changing world. Every day they are asked to solve problems, some of them small while others can be more challenging. Therefore the more opportunities we provide them with for practising these skills will definitely continue to empower them.

Learning…who, what and why?

As a teacher I know and recognise the importance of learning both for my students and for myself. Knowing this and trying to maintain this can often be two completely different things. WHY you ask? Great question…imagine yourself at the end of a very busy week and you are looking forward to that well earned rest called the “weekend” together with the typical sleep in that is connected to a Saturday morning!

Ah no WAKE UP…you have been given an opportunity to attend an amazing conference that will inspire you and enhance your professional learning. Sounds incredible, right…however at 6:00 am on a Saturday morning I was struggling to keep these thoughts in my mind as all I really wanted to do was sleep. My morning went like this;

Snooze the alarm, at least 2 times, then jump out of bed in a rush knowing that I’ll be late and this will impact on my colleagues with whom I am travelling with. Dash to the meeting place, worry that we won’t get to the venue on time, while CRAVING coffee so I can wake up properly. Eventually arrive at our destination in good time (oh and with some coffee too), a little early in fact, sign in and meet up with the rest of my colleagues who also have opted to improve their learning opportunities. Next we locate our seats, the lights dim….the excitement builds and BAM the realisation of why I’m choosing to be here on a Saturday morning!

I AM A LIFELONG LEARNER…and that simply means we are learning every day whether it be from the students we teach or from other inspiring educators and professional speakers. That day of learning reminded me that we all need to follow up any opportunity granted to us to build on our knowledge base and push beyond the limits of what is comfortable and seek greater clarification for an ever changing world. We expect the students we work with to embrace change and seek new knowledge then we too must follow that same path. There were moments of incredible clarity that stood out for me. The first was the fact that when our students enter the big wide world no-one is going to ask them about their report cards or how well they did in any assessment. What will matter is “the quality of their character and their work”. At my school we have our 6 Pillars of learning that bring to prominence the capabilities to support our students in an ever changing world so that they can seek to solve world problems and therefore make a difference.

The other message that continued throughout the day was the fact that we live in an ever changing world and the need to include our students in this journey of discovery that is authentic and connected for them as learners. We can enhance their learning through inquiry and project based learning. Listen to their questions and allow them time to think and then reflect on what they know and then need to know to solve these problems. When planning an inquiry process we want learning that has purpose, the WHY? The more real it is the clearer it is for our students.

Another important perspective is the need to reflect throughout any project….along the way. Critique the work and ask questions and don’t be afraid to have multiple drafts.

• Make another version based on the feedback and reflections.
• Students need to learn how to give feedback.
• The project is presented to a public audience PUBLIC PRODUCT.

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So although I began the day ‘wondering’ why I needed to wake up early on a Saturday, I finished the day ‘knowing’ just how much I had been inspired to continue to learn and share that enthusiasm with other teachers and most importantly with my amazing students. None of us ever stop learning…

 

Teaching…why?

This term has been busy, enlightening and extremely challenging! So much so that I have found myself reflecting on WHY do I TEACH?…the simple answer is that I love learning and working with children. In a time when I was searching for help it was my students who came to the rescue!

This quote reflects what happened to me during a hectic term of coaching, co-planning, teaching, writing reports and participating in student led conferences…the business of the day to day teaching and the general workload played havoc with my well being.

So how did the children help to heal me?

• Through their eagerness to learn
• Acceptance of each others strengths and weaknesses
• Positive attitudes and always doing their best
• Their gift of laughter and a joy of loving
• Respect for self, others and their environment

During student led conferences, one of my students arrived with a special gift for me…a plant aptly named “Rabbit Ears” (long leaves that felt just like velvet) and with an enormous smile she explained to me all about the plant. Attached was a card with the words “Thank you” and this meant the world to me. It was during many of the student led conferences that I began to realise just why I do teach…watching how confidently the children shared their learning with their parents and with great pride they explained the tasks and how they knew that these indeed were their strengths and areas they would like to continue to work on. Being able to support these students by providing them with opportunities to develop life skills, that they can apply to a variety of situations and assist them in becoming creative contributors and innovative problem solvers for a changing world is WHY I TEACH.

Young children are intuitive and without being asked they seek to help, from a simple hug to an amazing response in a maths task about chance!

At the heart of what I do is the “child” and knowing this builds a better picture of why I continue to strive to improve my skills as a teacher. Teaching is a profession where we never stop learning and part of that learning this term for me has been around my recognition of what caring for my well being entails. Seeking help is a positive solution and being able to identify symptoms is integral to caring for your well being too.

Being part of a collaborative team has been another great factor in my reasoning about why I teach and the fact that they have supported me through a challenging term has helped the healing process. I know that I have high expectations of myself both as an individual and as a professional but that’s who I am….I AM A TEACHER!

 

Inquiry learning in Religious Education from Stage 1 students perspective…

The Bible is missing, where could it have possibly gone!!!!!

And so the investigation began with the students searching the entire school as part of our IGNITE entry event…there were clues for the students to locate and then solve together! I have never seen the students so engaged and excited to solve a problem that related directly to them…

Why do we have a Bible?

This is our driving question that we will unpack over the term, however, back to the unfolding events in Stage 1 White. Following the discovery of the missing Bible we…

• Went on a discovery journey investigating clues that took us around the school both inside and out.
• Discussed what might have happened to our Bible and why we couldn’t find it? Yes that’s right we never found it although we searched high and low and there may have even been a suggestion that other teachers may have taken it – insert shocked expressions here!
• Together we brainstormed why we thought we have a Bible and then with a partner we worked out “what we already know” and “what we need to know” in order to fully investigate our driving question.
• All of this happened in the last week of Term 1 and the reason for this was so I could develop an inquiry program that was based on what students already knew and what they felt they needed to know  in order to answer our question. The diversity in answers and information was incredible with some students having lots of prior knowledge while others wanted to know the number of pages, chapters and what stories there were in the Bible about Jesus and God.
• Our school community only has a 47% population that are from the Catholic Faith while the rest are of other or no religious backgrounds at all. All our Stage 1 students are very interested in our Bible and how it holds messages from God.

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My role involved not only gathering information from the students but looking at our existing “Sharing Our Story” syllabus from Parramatta CEDP and combining units to then create an Inquiry based unit. Challenge accepted and with great excitement I am sharing this journey with my colleagues on Stage One as well as the students.

So Term 2 began in our brand new building, “School of Foundations” and we celebrated that Jesus had risen because our holidays coincided with the celebration of Easter. On entering our brand new learning spaces the students encountered many new surprises including OUR BIBLE! Yes the Bible had returned and so the students had to do some very hard thinking about the connections of it returning in terms of our new building and the celebration of Jesus rising on Easter Sunday…

To enhance and support the students inquiry into why we have a Bible I invited Deacon Tony to visit and share how he uses the Bible in his daily life together with the Faith Community. The students had lots of questions for him… 

The students have been busy exploring all the different parts of the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament and immersing themselves within a variety of stories in preparation for their project where they will be sharing and teaching ES1 about why we have a Bible. They will focus on retelling a particular Bible story of their choice and explaining the message God is teaching us through it. Then they will identify ways we can show our love just like Jesus based on the story they are sharing. So as you can see the students have a specific purpose and audience making their inquiry authentic for themselves because we are all called to share our Faith with others….they are engaged and motivated while exploring the best possible methods for themselves and their group to share their knowledge and thinking with others.

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I can’t wait to see where their projects take them and knowing that they have a voice and choice in their learning allows me to see a student’s perspective. For me personally, I love that we are linking learning across more than one Key Learning Area while challenging each student to find the best possible way to share their knowledge!

 

Running on EMPTY…

At the beginning of the school year students and educators alike all begin with lots of energy and excitement. Then by the end of term we are all tired, in need of rest and recuperation…running on empty. So how does this change occur and WHY?

To attempt to answer this question fully we really need to reflect on what has taken place during the last 11 weeks –

• Fostering Independence

– All students now independently enter our school autonomously so as to foster the capabilities of each individual child and allow them to relate and communicate with others in the school community. This occurred after much preparation, which included sharing articles with families, having open discussions with both students and their parents. This preparation took place over the first couple of weeks and then with support from both staff and parents, the students took a leap of faith and began entering the school by themselves taking on the responsibility of carrying their own bag and organising themselves in readiness for a full day of learning.

-Another change has been the introduction of student diaries from stage 1 upwards. This is to enable students to take on the responsibilities of remembering all the items they require to organise  their own learning and share information between school and home.

• Social Skills

– Every day begins and ends with a reflection on the social skills that we are focusing on for that week and that is connected to our school pillars. Dependent on the social skill and the unique needs of the students the activities could include making posters (paper or digital), viewing stories, having open discussions within small groupings, dramatisations or even unpacking what a particular skill may look like, sound like or even feel like. Students then decide on their own personal goal for that week which is recorded in their diary. Every Friday these goals are reviewed by the students and then cosigned by a teacher to acknowledge the efforts the students have applied during the week.

 

• Opportunities for Learning

-This term has also seen the introduction of ‘Tribes’ where the students gather in small groups to say prayer, reflect on and discuss the weekly social skills. Staff are then able to mark the class rolls while encouraging independence of each individual child who is learning to work cooperatively within a small group with a focus on the pillar of Witness, Managing themselves and Relating to others. The students then changed groupings, often moving to a different learning space in readiness for the literacy or numeracy blocks.

-Since the beginning of the year students and staff have worked hard to get to know each other and build new friendships. There were many new students to St Luke’s Catholic College, as well as those students who moved up to stage 1 at the beginning of the year from ES1.

-Technology; this term students have used iPads, Ozobots (coding), Chrome books to support their learning and share their thinking. Students have taken on the role of ‘teacher’ sharing their skills of expertise in utilising apps on the iPad to enhance learning. ‘Busy’ is a word that comes to mind but doesn’t do actual justice to the valuable learning opportunities that have occurred this term in stage 1.

-In weeks 10 – 11 all the resources had to be reviewed, then packed up and moved to our brand new learning spaces in the newly completed “School of Foundations”.

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The excitement may have become less apparent but the joy of seeing the students grow and become increasingly more independent and capable is a continual element of my teaching day and brings a smile to my face. Energy levels are currently depleted but easily fixed by ensuring that part of the school holidays is spent focused on well being. These holidays are extra special as they include Easter and the gift that God gave to us all, His only Son, Jesus.

I may be running on empty but it was totally worth it…