A Week in my HPSS Life - Friday

🎉🎉The last day of term!🎉🎉
💤💤It's time for sleep...💤💤

There's newborn tired. There's special needs tired. There's teacher at the end of term tired. It's its own special kind of tiredness. Pretty sure we've all seen this doing the rounds on the internet before!

Source: Internet

08:30 - Community Kitchen Table

Gathered in spaces around the building four communities of teachers could be found. I found Tiriwa in the kitchen cooking breakfast - smelled amazing. I found Taheretikitiki sitting in a Porohita on the floor in Delta. My community, Waiarohia was in Kilo, and I don't actually know where Onekiritea were. One thing was the same of almost everyone I saw today - we were all wearing black. An email was sent out yesterday from one of the teachers about wearing black today to make visible the stand against sexual harassment in the work place. In a school usually so full of colour and colourfully-dressed people, it was uncomfortable and unsettling to see so much black.

But that's the point - sexual harassment in any form isn't ok.

#MeTooNZ Tweets

So far this year I have worn orange for Domestic Violence awareness, Teal for athletics day, Green for St. Patrick's day, and black for Sexual Harassment day. I'd better make sure my Pink is ready to go for Bullying Day in May, too.

As for our community meeting, today we discussed what we wanted to do with huis next term, our leader checked in with how everyone was feeling about our Learning to Learn topic, and also checked in to see how we were going with our one-on-ones and logging them into Kamar.

09:00 - Hub Check-in and send off

Birthdays! Two birthdays this morning, happy birthday was sung, and my directive from the hublings for next term is to be more proactive about celebrating birthdays and making a big deal about them. I'm also thinking next term I'm going to move spaces, as I have been eyeing up the lab opposite me for a while...

09:10 - Block 1 - TEENAGE

My Level 2 class today had a set series of tasks to achieve as they prepared a piece of writing for their writing portfolio. The task we are working on at the moment is writing a letter to Chris Hipkins, expressing our views on what should be included in the education reform. I had my idea of what it should look like - however every step of the way at least one student has said "I don't want to do it like this. I think..." and this stoked great discussions as the students had to justify their reasons. These discussions led me into areas of exploration that stirred me as well. One student I was discussing work with had the point that relationships are important in teaching. He said he couldn't find any where where Chris Hipkins was talking about relationship in education. I found this interesting, as when I looked at a range of sources, including his twitter stream and his webpage, I couldn't find any mention of relationship either. It was a cursory glance, but it led me to think about the relevance of omissions - the importance of relationships in education was conspicuous by its (perceived?) absence.

I know the Ministry of Education places a huge importance on Knowing Your Student - so why couldn't I find any evidence today?

10:30 - Morning Tea

10:50 - Block 2 - Office Time

I keep calling it office time, even though I'm not always in the office. Fridays are when I meet with my Foundation co-teacher and today we were planning for first week back next term. In a good way our planning session exposed how white we both are, especially when we invited Whaea to come and help us with our planning! We want to explore pepeha and get each student creating a cuff bracelet out of copper that portrays their own pepeha, using Maori symbols and design. It's going to be so cool! But man - do I know nothing about te toi o Maori!! I used to think I was pretty good - I did a paper on taonga in my Art History Honours...

12:10 - Block 3: DBAD101

The same as yesterday, we separated the students into two groups and gave them focused time to get work of each subject complete.

1:30 - Lunch time: Duty in Taharetikitiki

It's a fairly quiet space, so when one of my students walked past who I needed to have a restorative conversation with, it was easy enough to chat with him as well. What I really like about restorative practice is that students and teachers can both get to a place of calm with behaviours discussed and and solutions put in place. For me, it allows me time to settle myself before I have a conversation with the students. It can be trying, because I like to tell students that they're wrong if they've done something they keep trying to find excuses for their behaviour. I have to breathe - not taking the bait is something that I'm getting better - but there were still a couple of times when breathing didn't quite engage the filter...

2:10 - Block 4: DBAD101

Time for PE outside... with a whole bunch of gannets! I was eating some lunch on the run, and had a pot of beetroot and pomegranate falaffel in one hand and a bag of corn thins in the other. A couple of the students saw this as I walked on the courts, asked what it was, and then asked to try it. I have long known the importance of sharing food in building relationships - but I don't usually share with students! Sharing kai has been discouraged in many situations, and so it isn't my natural response. The first thing that came to mind this time was our presentation on Monday about kai and pasifika cultures. So, I let them share my lunch and eat together.

3:29

"Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy! Have a great holiday!"

3:30

We made it through another term - for me my first term at HPSS.
I might do a first term review later in the holidays.
But for now...

A Week in my HPSS Life - Thursday

I have been duly and wisely informed that my husband will only read my recounts if they're written in the past tense. And then being highly clever, he referred to this pun:

So, for the sake of my husband, I'm going to write the rest of this blog post in past tense. 😀

8:30

We had the second Q3 (level 3) teachers meeting this morning. Thursdays are put aside for learning design  - so curriculum thinking - and the first time we got together we shared what we were doing in each of our classes. This enabled us to make connections with what other subjects were doing, and therefore identify potential crossover.

This morning we focused on footnoting. We established that English and potentially Social Sciences are the two subjects which formally assess referencing, and asked that everyone else did the same thing as us. To do this, English and Social Sciences will need to come together at some point soon and work out what we each need to assess and formulate a plan from there. Just as how the whole school does PEEL paragraphs, and the whole school uses the learning design model, we'll make sure we have a whole-school structure for referencing as well.

Hobsonville Point Secondary School Learning Design Model

8:55 - Hub Time

Quickly checked in with the hublings, talked to them about where they were when they were missing during extended hub yesterday, and sent them off on their day.

9:10 - Block 1: LITHEO

My lovely year 13 class worked away on their first (three) assessment(s). (Brackets because it's one unit of work that we have been doing all term, and I've been able to align three standards to it: connections, oral presentation, and writing portfolio). Working in this way on this unit of feminist theory in literature has been really cool. It did mean that I had to say no to a student who asked to join my class at this stage of the year. When I explained to him how we've been working, he said that it was "how my teacher last year did things too". A quick look at the Kamar screen we were discussing showed me he did Black Civil Rights for his English course last year. I know who that teacher is and I'm stoked to have my practise recognised as being similar to hers. Biggest compliment!

10:30 - Morning Tea: Duty

Wandering up and down the Waiarohia section of corridor is nice this morning. The students and I are getting to know each other more, and I regularly hear "Toni!" being shouted out followed by a wave. Even students I don't know will fall into really relaxed and natural conversation when I wander into their space. It again shows me what an impact building a school on relationships has. 

10:50 - Office Time

Marked a bit, teased a bit, chatted a bit to the teachers either side of me. Told a science teacher that yes, formal writing can be typed, and yes students can use spellcheck in English assignments. Then followed that conversation with one of my all time favourite spell check gimmics:

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

12:10 - Block 3: DBAD101

We split the class in two today to give them 30 minutes of focused English with me and 30 minutes of focused PE with the PE teacher. We needed to make sure that everyone had their work complete before they go on holiday tomorrow. It was great to see that people made use of the time, asked meaningful questions, and that everyone had a chance to feel successful today.

The other thing that was really powerful for me was the way students reacted when other students had difficulties. Students included and encouraged another who was feeling incompetent. They understood when I sat of the floor with this student and practised sentence structures with him. Later in the block when two students were upset and needed support, other students supported them quickly and without fuss. When I needed extra support to help the students, and asked one student to go downstairs and find someone the atmosphere was positive. No shame or ridicule came from the students because they know that adults are here to support them through whatever they're going through. There was no rubbernecking or FOMO running through the class - as soon as everyone knew that their friends were looked after, they got back on with their work. No derailing of the lesson, just a temporary detour.

1:30 - Lunchtime

2:10 - Block 4: KAKAHU

The last lesson of the term with these awesome young people. I was really bothered when one student told me today that he didn't like the class, and didn't understand what was going on. I wish he'd told me sooner. As we sat together, and talked about reading and fashion, we explored different angles and looked for ways that would be meaningful. We talked of motocross, and I was shown photos of injuries that were sustained as a result of crashes. That was when I was able to reshape his perception of what we were doing. His task then became to read stories about motocross accidents and conceptualise what he could do to improve the protective wear and prevent more injuries.

3:30

And then, just like that, Thursday was finished. So too, I hope, is everyone's work...

A Week in My Life at HPSS - Wednesday

8:30

Stories of power loss and stranded teachers - a bit of an exciting start to the day as people were catching up with each other about how they were affected by the storm. Turns out the primary had lost a bit of roof - whoops, didn't notice that this morning when I dropped the kids off! Cold though! I found my toe socks this morning - and wore these with my jandals. :) 

Wednesday morning is PD morning. This morning, two of our LCLs (Learning Community Leaders: Deans, pastoral leaders... I'm not actually sure where they'd fit into the model I'm used to) took us through the Hub curriculum planners. We were given time to look back on our goals from the beginning of the term, and to reflect and evaluate how we were going to go forward next term. I finished two columns, 3 to do. I was surprised at how much I had done - it's easy to get caught up in the day to day and following up with different things that don't end up on the planner, so taking that moment to breathe and acknowledge the things I had accomplished was pretty cool.

The next job - have a look through Term Two's planner. Yus - I've been looking forward to this topic! Learning to Learn!! I've been interested in this for so many years, and collecting information for so many years that I'm looking forward to sharing it with my hub!! I've used the information in my own teaching and learning practises, and I've been longing to teach it so I'm so excited that the opportunity is here this year! :D 

The third section of PD was considering the effects on hauora using Bono's thinking hats. I didn't take a photo so found this one on the internet. We didn't have the purple hat, but I thought it was cool enough to include.

It was interesting. We were split into groups using the coloured hats, and my group was to look at the negative effects on hauora (we got the black hat). Each group quickly presented back, as the LCL also mad the connection between what we were doing and writing an essay. A sneaky way to build literacy skills in to hub - love it!

credit: https://mgrush.com/blog/2017/06/22/debono-six-thinking-hats/

9:30 - Block 1

The kids have a late start every Wednesday morning. I've worked out that we make up for this time by finishing school at 3:30 every afternoon, not 3:15. This is the day they do projects - on site, with a rigorous curriculum. As I don't have a project, this is essentially an office day for me.

The office day starts with my weekly meeting with my PE co-teacher. Every week we sit down and work through what we need to do with the students for the next week. Today we were going through the markbook and checking who's handed in work. We were updating notes on Kamar. She was teaching me about what to look for when assessing the PE kids. We reviewed a video I took of the kids on Monday where they were playing basketball - and I mentioned how I found it less overwhelming to view the video and mark than to mark in real time. I feel this is how I go with most unfamiliar situations - find a way I can control my learning, and once I've got it I can feel more confident with using the knowledge.

10:50 - Morning Tea

Later today because of the late start. :)

11:10 - Block 2 - In the Office

Winter arrived - I went looking for my office-mate's blanket!

Office time = thinking time. I was working through preparation for the next few lessons, and just working through stuff - as we do as teachers.

12:30 - Block 3 - Office time continues.

The students have floor time during this block and as my books arrived from London during this block, I sat with the students working near my office door and opened the package! :) A couple of the students also happened to be my English students, so they were reminded to get on with the English work they were behind on! 

The new books from the National Galley of London that disrupted my thinking time!

The cool thing about opening this package meant that I was sharing something I love with the kids, I was talking with kids whom I hadn't met before, and we were exploring this together. At the moment I'm really intrigued by text adaptations, and one of the books that arrived is Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm pretty sure that there's some way I can work with biology in the future and create a unit out of this.

Wednesday. Thinking time. So Awesome.

1:30 - Lunchtime.

Deeply back in thought, I was retrospectively vaguely aware of my critical friend telling me to stop for lunch. I can't even remember what I was working on at the time - but it had me hooked at the time!

2:10 - Hub Time

This is our second 80-minute block of the week. We started off with a celebrations assembly today, and then came back and finished off our porohita question from yesterday morning. The furniture had been left in interesting places today - and it kinda made a cave-like feel. We girls sat on the floor, while the boys were on chairs. Following that, they finished their forms for me - Floor time selections for term 2, reflections, and student voice. I then gave them time to catch up on assessments, as they requested, and I tried to get around students who I hadn't chatted with for a while and just chill with them.

I was talking with a friend tonight about how much time we spend with our hublings. 80 minutes twice a week and 20 minutes four times a week because relationships are paramount. Relationships are the most important thing, and they're what everything else is based on. Without a strong foundation, we can't have a strong building. The storm last night illustrates that nicely!

3-storey scaffolding (a structure with no foundation) that blew over in the wind storm.
Photo cred: Carrick Hill

3:30 - Home time

Throw the shoes in the drawer and put on the toe-socks and jandals to walk home :)

8:48pm - LBC Whanau: Love you

I've just come back from the farewell of an amazing teacher at Long Bay. Spending time at LBC, the place where my training wheels came off, was like going back to mum and dad's house. It was like whanau. Mum was there, Dad was there, aunties, uncles, cousins... I've always said (and I heard it tonight) that a school is not about the building (or the results... ;) ), it's about the people. I came home filled with aroha at having spent time with whanau I love. Whanau - you know I write these for you. I couldn't bring you with me to HPSS in person, and so many of you expressed desires to know about what's happening over here. So many of you look at HPSS and see glimpses of what we're doing and want to know more. This is my way of helping to remove the fence so that you can see what goes on and how we make it work.
Arohanui tatou.

A Week in my HPSS Life - Tuesday

8:30

I arrive at school - walked here in jandals today. As they get kicked off under my desk, I notice a growing pile. Better take these home tonight! Nude heels are retrieved from my bag, and put next to the pile. Teachers who lead projects have a meeting 'round the kitchen table today but as I don't have a project, I spend the 25 minutes catching up on things. Emails, quick look over attendance, quick check of Kamar notifications to see if there's anything that needs addressing.

8:55 - Hub Check-in

Leaving the office, I go out to my hub space in Foxtrot (oooh - that would have been an excellent photo op! I'll try to remember to take a photo tomorrow). Today I notice that as I sit on a couch with my laptop and do the roll, my hublings start forming the porohita (circle) without me prompting them. Win! Devices are still coming out, so that may be the next thing to work on. My quick question this morning is again reflective. Each student is asked to state one success and one challenge they have faced this term. I decide that this is an excellent thing to write down, and pull out my diary to note their responses. This is met with a little bit of a groan - I don't think they like the idea of being held accountable to meet their challenges! We only get half way around the porohita though, before it's past 9:10 and time for first block.

9:10 - Block 1: KAKAHU

Kakahu Google Classroom

Our year 9 and 10 students are in composite classes, which we call the Foundation classes. Kakahu is a module, meaning that there are two learning areas being taught. Two teachers support the students through the learning - and support each other to make the learning deeper.

We started in the library today. A half hour reading session each week is awesome. The students are really valuing it, and for the most part are using the time really well. After half an hour, my co-teacher and I gave instructions for what they needed to do, each of us giving the things that the students needed to be achieving and what learning we were looking for for each learning area. This was the best delivery of instructions I've had this term - it was a tag team. Completely unplanned, each giving one instruction at a time, and each building on the other person's point. Pretty fun.

I then spent time looking through the students' work on Google classroom and working with individual students, while my co-teacher spent time checking in with small groups.

10:30 - Morning tea

I'm still adjusting to this 20 minutes deal! 30 minutes for morning tea was a luxury that I never took for granted and always enjoyed. I needed to catch up with two people - one of the clever techy teachers to help me find a missing message on Kamar, and with a DP who sent me the message.

10:50 - Block 2: KAKAHU

Twenty minute break, and we're back into it. Students are still working on completing their work for their portfolios so that we can assess them against the learning outcomes for the term (for English: To make sense by understanding that texts are crafted for different purposes and audiences - Oh no! I just spotted a typo in my mark book!! - and for Technology: To explore by investigating the nature and principles of design in a range of contexts).

How does this all come together in one unified course? This term, we worked on a play. They read plays and understood the structure. They read short stories and re-crafted them into play-scripts. They unpacked their characters deeply, making inferences about what the characters would be like as people. They created a wooden theatre and made backgrounds of the settings for the play that they adapted. Today, they were finishing their materials analysis where they are investigating the types of fabrics their characters would wear based on their inferences and interpretations of the story. 

The students then either wrote their responses into their chart, or I filmed them talking through their responses and linked them to their forms.

12:10 - Block 3: LITHEO

We have been investigating feminism theory in Level 3 English this term. The students have read a number of texts around an aspect of feminist theory that has caught their attention. From this reading, I looked at all their topics and crafted a prompt for a seminar. In preparing their seminar, they will be addressing how texts are connected as well as using them as a window into society. Their seminar topic is The way a society treats its women determines the strength of its nation. This will allow every student to use their reading as a basis to ground their seminar in, while giving them scope to explore their ideas in depth and detail. This will also form the draft of another piece of writing for their writing portfolio.

I've also found this chrome extension that allows me to record the instructions and the doc as I'm explaining the instructions, so that the students can come back and listen to the instructions again if they need to.

The other tool I used this block was my OneNote notebook. These days it functions only as a whiteboard, but it in this function it works really well. I talk through the questions that the students ask, and then upload the image onto their Google Classroom.

1:30 - Lunch

Sitting in the staffroom, completing forgetting that I had students due to arrive to foxtrot to catch up on work for DBAD101. All I can do is hope...

2:10 - Block 4: LITHEO

Our second block today, where students worked away on preparing their seminars.

3:30 - Home time

Well, actually, I found my kids in the library sitting and enjoying books, so I sat with them and wrote this before I went home to sleep! :P

A Week in My HPSS Life - Monday

This series of blog posts is inspired by Bex who, more than once, has tried to get her head around my timetable. Sometimes the best way to understand things is to experience them - but unfortunately I can't bring Bex here for an entire week - as much as I'd love to! So, I'll walk you through my week, one day at a time. Each day, with its outline, hopefully some photos, and let you into my world.

So let's start at the beginning.

Monday

8:30 - Mondays with Maurie Kitchen Table

All staff in the staffroom, the school waiata is sung. Singing together builds culture, a commonality, community - Whanaungatanga. It's nice, actually. Maurie (or sometimes others are given the slot) speaks to us - so far I've noticed these kitchen tables have something to do about building the culture, upfronting the school culture. This morning's was about cultural sustainability.

Our Teacher Only Day before Easter features Anne Milne's Colouring in the White Spaces - and this is what Maurie koreroed about further.

He shared stories from his past, telling of how he went about building relationships with whanau, and emphasised the importance of relationships. I tend to think no matter what colour a person is, relationship and a sense of belonging is of utmost importance.
He shared different strategies of engaging with another's culture including reading about the history and engaging with the literature.

We were issued a challenge around Culturally Sustainable Practice:
* we're all responsible for making changes - I have to read, I have to learn the language, I have to get into it.

But that makes sense, right? Nothing changes if nothing changes.

We were directed towards an email that Maurie had sent and given about 3 minutes to 1. Write down what we learned from TOD and 2. What one thing we were going to do differently to be more culturally sustainable.

* he aha tatou

We then went on to revisit the definition of what success should look like for students at our school.
staff voice
student voice

Following Maurie, one of our SLT spoke with conviction about the importance of Pasifika, and how Pasifika viewed our school:
"Palangi with a touch of Asian"

We heard that the most important thing for them is to feel happy and proud of who they are, where they come from, of their family, their culture and their identity.

The feedback was that families and students want to learn their own languages because knowing the language leads to understanding the culture.
We heard how humility is valued by pasifika people and how we need to celebrate pasifika achievements - find stories about Maori students and Pasifika students because they won't be forthcoming with them.

Where do the kids get a chance to find out about things that are important to them?

8:55 - Hub Time

Right up until today, our community huis have been on a Monday morning! We're switching this up today - so no hui to write about. Instead, I'll have the full time (from 8:55 to 10:30) to spend with my hub - my 15 hublings who I have pastoral care for.

Being the last week of term, I asked them to reflect on their learning so far this term. When they gave me shallow responses, I challenged them to go further and think deeper. 

They also filled in a hubling voice form which asked them 10 questions about how they thought I was going as a coach. The responses were more brutal than expected, and I put some paper and pens around the room asking for their solutions to the problems.

10:30 - Morning Tea time

I sat in my office with the A3 pieces of paper and thought about what these meant.

10:50 - Block 2 - DBAD101

This is a Level 1 (Year 11) module combining English and PE. Today my co-teacher and I are watching the students and assessing them on their effective communication goals. The students set these goals on Friday, and today we were watching them, trying to catch them displaying the communication techniques they have chosen to improve. I videoed them for a few minutes so we can go back and analyse their skills later.

A lot of my time this block was spent following up students who had missed the deadline.

12:10 - Block 3 - TEENAGE

This block I spent going over the steps involved in writing an in-depth letter. We looked at planning, selecting, testing points to figure out if they were compelling or not. After I spent about a half-hour chunk of the lesson talking through rubrics, planning, and expectations of challenge, the students were set free to work on their own. I gave them a few minutes to get started, then talked to each one of the kids about what they would like to focus their letter around. Some would like to let Chris Hopkins know their thoughts towards NCEA, others think languages or or soft skills must be built into the new education system. Really cool discussions emerged as students and I wondered about issues together, and generated avenues of research.

1:30 Lunchtime

Back to foxtrot to meet the L1 students coming in for a catch up. I also spoke with one of my students about the difficulty he was having in L1 English, and we investigated some alternatives for him to try so that he can find success.

2:10 - Block 4 - TEENAGE

For our second 80-minute block of the day, the students were continuing to prepare their letter info and discuss their ideas.

3:30 - Home time (For students)

I had two meetings on simultaneously: Hub coach training for new coaches and an English meeting. I prioritised the English meeting today, as it had been some time since all 5 of us have been in the same place at the same time.

4:30 - Home time  :)