Sally Avern's Professional Journey

What is happening? Using quick writes and fluency for my writing target students is great, but what can I do that will see more accelerated progress in all of my target students across the 3 subjects. If I look critically at what I am currently doing. It is nothing. I am trying some things. But it is not targeted and not enough.  I am seeing shift in my students based on data but I need to push them.  So: what can I do? Writing: Making sure I am sticking to my plan from my TAI. Ensure I am using the quick writes that work for the needs of my students. The quick sentence practice to get fluency at the stage is where they are at. (See TAI for this). Maths: To meet the needs of my target maths learners I am going to do 15 mins of SPRING into Maths for them at the start of every lesson.  While the other students are doing their warm up. I can do SPRING. It is a wonderful resource that is proven to boost learning in the area needed. So why am I not using it?  Th...

I have gone back to the beginning of the Inquiry cycle. The oral language activities have been working to help the students to understand the content at a deeper level and contribute to the lessons in a more interactive way. Now I need to work out what is next. I looked at their work and found my next 'Big Bang'. Soldier Brooklyn Stephone Maile Wiremu     Bronson What is happening? The students are now planning with many details and using those plans to organise sentences into paragraphs most of the time. By using quick writes and simple structured activities, I tested this out. They found the use of structure and vocabulary very easy, as well as articulating their ideas within a group and coming up with ideas. These students are able to generate ideas and build up a plan that will help them write. They are learning the different structures of things. Something that they all lack to varying degrees is the ability to consistently create sen...