Sally Avern's Professional Journey

Rumaki = Immersion The plan for Park Estate School: TEACHERS Beginning in a week, have rumaki for the fist 5 mins of morning tea everyday.  (starting with baby steps).  For those 5 mins we will have to try and ONLY use te reo. That means if we can't say it- we need to try and work out how. GOAL: To have everyone using some te reo in conversation during kai te wa at P.E.S.  Giving it a go being the focus. Not fluent or perfect, but to remove the fear of trying. REWARDS: There will be biscuits available during rumaki time in the staffroom. Once rumaki is over, the biscuits disappear- hopefully this will entice some attendance- f we need to extend it to 10 mins, great. RESOURCES :  I have already made some labels/ sentences I know we will be needing to start with, then soon we can add/change them as we get better.  I will also bring in the phrase book. BUY IN: Hopefully the staff at P.E.S value the identity and language of our Maori tamariki enoug...

It takes 1 generation to lose a language and 3 to get it back. The secret to revitalisation is intergenerational language use.  (As a school teacher, what is my role in this step?- to assist the students to be more comfortable to use and learn it- they might be generation number 1?) MY JOURNEY- Focus on yourself and build from there. Support system: teachers and students at school. 25 year goal: have my students confidently speaking bilingually. TE REO MEANS TO ME- future of the students identity marker toanga identity revival UNESCO standards for judging a languages level of use: all of them come out as close to extinction. The language will never be 'lost' because it is written down- but it will be extinct soon if we can't get more than 2% of Nz using it. Just Korero More, just use what we have: DO NOT WORRY ABOUT PARTICLES OR SCREWING UP- Just give it a go. 5 Key elements of Language Planning: 1:Value --> give it Mana, what is your group in to? How...

Week 25 During Week 1, I shared the action plan with leaders at my school and my students. Week 2 I collected baseline data from my class in terms of giving and receiving feedback, as well as qualitative information on their writing skills. Since Week 1 the classroom culture has been built around supporting learning, as well as the vocab that is necessary for feedback facilitation (what is SC etc).  Week 3 saw the collaborative teacher construction of the format for feedback and the introduction of this format to two groups of students separately. I have not shared my intentions yet with whanau as planned, it is within my job description already that I track data and record lessons for my practice. The only reason I saw to share with these people to have more critical eyes on my teaching and learning.  I do believe in building a supportive learning environment and including parents. Consequently, as Ann Milne suggests, to gain the trust and respect of my...

What is happening? I am trying very hard to make kaupapa and Māori knowledge important in my classroom. I incorporate a whakatauki in our learning to integrate into our reading program and to underpin our class culture. We use kupu, nga tau, and the students and I try hard to weave both reo and kaupapa into our teaching and learning. Part of this though is thinking about whose knowledge is important, and thinking of my students as cultural beings. Not just as Māori, but as members of our community. Dr Anne Milne, asks, is their cultural identity embedded into every aspect of the school day, no matter the subject, etc? It needs to be "modelled by those in leadership roles". In my class I am in a leadership role, and I am trying to embed cultural identity into everything.  But I am on the outside. I want to use more opportunities to find out and learn. There is one incredibly obvious step I can take, although it could be perhaps seen as a 'token' effort. I need to...

Here is my Literature Review: Implications of Peer Feedback Information gathered through a recent survey revealed whanau want; more homework for students, easier communication between school and home about day to day learning, as well as more visible learning intentions and artefacts. The main concern for our community leaders (principals, head teachers and facilitators of the Manaiakalani program) is raising achievement across all curriculum areas. Our staff indicated that improved quality of work over time needed to be addressed also. The Manaaiakalani program assists our community in facilitating 1:1 chromebooks in the senior school. In order to meet these needs I propose looking into using peer feedback on blogs to increase writing achievement. Personally,  writing has historically been the hardest thing to teach and starting here will help boost achievement the most, then we will be able to take these reviewing skills across the curric...