Week 4 Term 1 - Literacy Project 2022: Department Self-Review (Feb 21 - 25)

SELF REVIEW: Self-review is the method of self-evaluation. It is a procedure to observe, analyze and calculate the worth of efforts contributed by an individual by the self. To self-evaluate means that people explore and evaluate their own professional work. When an employee or an individual self evaluates, it helps him/her to become more aware of his performance and helps in exploring new ideas to work efficiently. A self-evaluation is a great opportunity for employees to honestly and objectively consider and document their performance.

Self review is such an important part of teaching. As teachers, we are encourage to reflect on our current practice in the hope that we can identify good practice and also see where the gaps are. Scrutinizing our practice can meaningful if we see these 'gaps' as an opportunity to improve. I have started to introduce the Literacy Project 2022 to the English Department before we roll it out to the rest of the learning areas and the first point that we are focusing on is the Department Self-Review for Literacy. As a Department, we understand that Literacy is one of the core pillars in our subject area, so discussing and reflecting on how we practice literacy and what our next steps are is crucial. The English Department started the Self-Review for Literacy in Week 3 (focusing on what our current practice for literacy looks like) specifically for data use and management, kaiako pedagogy and akonga action plan. Here is a excerpt from our department discussion around our current practice with literacy. 

Where are we at with Literacy in the English Department?

What do we currently do with Data Use + Management?

• For now, I’ve had a look at my Year 9’s PAT results and it’s not where I want it to be, but it prescribes a starting point at least. Once all have sat the test, I’ll review it properly to help me target learning needs
• Individual learning pathways (using NCEA Kamar and customizing the plan for akonga)
• Using testing results to plan for classes, texts being used, seating plans
• Tracking Sheets have made life easier in terms of accessing data (adding data/assessments/work etc.
• We have PAT/Asttle Testing
• We have NCEA Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 English data but we cannot explore this data as the time frame around NCEA assessments does not allow for it (time poor)

What do we currently do with Kaiako (teacher) pedagogy for literacy?

• Understanding NCEA better and the upcoming changes, adjusting to NCEA being like it was prior to Covid-19
• We need time to understand the new literacy + numeracy changes. More time to plan and discuss within departments is a need.

What do we currently do with akonga action plan for literacy?

• Individual learning pathways (using NCEA Kamar and customizing the plan for akonga)
• Sitting together and discussing literacy and strategies
• My Year 13s and I have been having discussions about skills based learning, and it’s longevity and usefulness rather than focusing on the numbers count for Level 3. I don’t know how to quantify this lol but it’s a start.
• Departmental planning (on-going)
• Some individualized planning for students across each department

There is a mutual understanding that whilst there is good practice with literacy in our department, we know that we can do better. Individually we are doing great things with and for our akonga, we are unpacking the data and using it as a springboard for our teaching and planning. However we want to tighten how we focus and use data (PAT and Asttle in particular), have more time to plan and discuss literacy (also work with experts in literacy and we are totally open to more PLD - specific to literacy) and we would like guidance and direction on what akonga action plans for literacy looks like and how we can design our own. 

Now that we have discussed our current situation, let's look at possibilities and opportunities that we have with literacy!

What can we do better with Data Use + Management for Literacy?

• Make time to go through the data as a department and to unpack what it means for us and our planning.
• Make time to go through the data with our students so that they understand where they are at and what the next steps are for them.
• Understand the data, when sharing with students and/or families, we know what the data means and how to explain it in an easier way
• Unpack and understand
• Share results with students
• Look at areas that need developing
• Forward steps

 

What can we do better with Kaiako (teacher) pedagogy for literacy?

• Prioritize time as a department to discuss (in depth) our literacy practices and see what we are doing, learn from each other.
• PLD specific to Literacy.
• PLD on literacy, seeing how other schools especially D1 schools implement literacy in the classroom, observing peers within the Dept

 
What can we do better with Akonga (student) action plan for literacy

• This starts with unpacking and understanding the data. If we can do this, we can design an action plan fitting for our akonga - in the hope for a better outcome.
• Involve students with next steps
• Target learning needs
• Involve students in the process

What could you learn about your ākonga and their passions, strengths, and experiences that might help you to identify situations to explore through literacy? How could you learn about these?

• Find out what they enjoy - are they into anime? Using this as a text to get the students to engage.
• Year 9 survey - to feel befriended and to make a comment on certain things (what they like and do not like, what they find tough)
• Understand how they learn best e.g with Music, on their own, with their friends etc?
• We’ve got a lot of students that are multilingual - maybe some sort of translation exercise could be good for vocab/cultural concept literacy
• Metacognitive awareness - learning to learning and why, is a vital tool to engage learners. Learn to learn.
• They might want to incorporate the concept of Le Va (from a Samoan perspective) - looking at a text and bringing a cultural literacy perspective into it.
• Understand their strengths and motivate them to achieve success through it.
• Trans-language - it is about bringing your own cultural perspective as a lens at whatever is at hand. Cultural inclusion is relatively easy, if you open spaces that are frequent where they are given space to share, they see it through their lens of family and culture. It is so enriching for kids to think about where they think about their lens is
• For Juniors - it would look like peer sharing in the class. Look at the character - three angles - would you approve or disapprove of that character, is there anyone from your culture that relates to this character. Taking the focus of control out of the teacher's hand and giving it to the students.
• a prompt could be like ‘when you write adjectives to describe character, setting’ you could write any word you want but you have to explain it (it could be their own language)

The possibilities are exciting and refreshing. I sense from the department that there is a collective want and desire to do better for our akonga. To provide a service that will nurture and support our akonga's literacy needs and celebrate the literacy skills that they bring to our classrooms. "A self-evaluation is a great opportunity for employees to honestly and objectively consider and document their performance" - it can be confronting and challenge to discuss your truth. For our team, I believe that it has been confronting but meaningful. Meaningful in that we understand and appreciate where we are at in our literacy journey and we can see that there is an opportunity to grow and learn with our akonga. 

Week 3 Term 1 - Academic Mentoring - Same page/Same message (Feb 14 - 18)

SAME PAGE: agreeing about something (such as how things should be done) Try to get employees and clients on the same page.

Student centered leadership is characterized by key important aspects such as building relationships between teacher, student and prioritizing the learning at the core of how we lead. For me personally, the heart of student centered leadership is the students - knowing who our students are and using this as a foundation when we are working with them. 

We are now into Week 3 and one of the priorities for Totara House this week is starting our Academic Mentoring program. I met with the Totara House Academic Mentors in Week 2 to discuss the role, what we are doing, who their students are and what the plan is for our first meeting. This is an important of the entire process, ensuring that one of the key stakeholders (staff) are on board and the same page. When we had our meeting, we made sure that we agreed on what the best approach and we felt that the best approach was to give the same message to our students. This included: 

• WHAT? - an explanation on WHAT Academic Mentoring is. 
• WHY? - an explanation on WHY we are doing this and WHY they are involved. 
• WHO? - informing the students on WHO is in the Academic Mentoring team. 
• WHAT? - an explanation on what the plan is going forward. 
• OVERVIEW - providing an overview on NCEA Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3, informing the students on what is offered to them. 
• GOING FURTHER - The students will then review their academic profile and work with the mentor through setting some goals. 

Totara House Academic Mentor Presentation: Click on the image to access the presentation. 

SAME MESSAGE: If two or more things, actions, or qualities are the same, or if one is the same as another, they are very like each other in some way.

Agreeing on the approaching and delivering the same message are vital especially at the beginning of the journey. We want to ensure that everyone involved understand the purpose of the program, their place or role in it and what the action plan is. The students involved will be notified that they are part of this group and then they will meet with their mentors. The first meeting is important especially where we are looking to set the tone and expectations for our students. The one thing that I appreciate with the Academic Mentorship team is that we are open to collaboration and to letting the journey grow naturally. Having a plan is imperative, it brings a sense of structure and security. I am hopeful that this first initial meeting will be a both valuable to the staff and students involved. I look forward to documenting how the first session goes with the Academic mentorship team and the students. 

Viviane Robinson highlights that "The more leaders focus on their relationships, their work, and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their influence on student outcomes." Academic mentor is role where teaching and learning is the core focus, there is an element of pastoral care that comes into play with getting to your akonga but the driver is the learning. I want the staff to feel empowered by what they are doing and by using the idea on focusing on relationships and learning as the 'core business' as our direction, I am anticipating that the mentors will feel a sense that what they are doing is meaningful to the students. 

Week 2 Term 1 - Academic Mentoring - What does this look like for Totara House 2022? (February 8 - 11)

 MENTORSHIP: the guidance provided by a mentor, especially an experienced person in a company or educational institution.

I am a product of good, strong mentorship. Who I am and what I do professionally is not the result of my own doing but is the result of people who invested time and helped shape me into the person that I am today. Sounds incredibly corny but it is true. The guidance and direction that I have been under throughout my teaching career, has had a significant impact on the teacher that I am and for that, I am forever grateful. I believe that mentorship is an important - whether in an educational institution or not - this type of leadership is one that based on trust, understanding and knowing who you are working with and having a vision or action plan for your client. 

A snapshot from one of many assemblies with my Year 9 cohort 2017. 

I understand the importance of mentorship and the value that it can have on both the mentor and mentee. As a Whanau Dean, I see my role as both pastoral and academic mentor to my students. The role is needed but it is also a demanding in terms of time and I know that all teachers (whether in leadership roles or not) are time poor. Totara House have three Academic mentors and we are going to start our action plan for our students and more importantly get to an understanding on what we are doing and who we are working with. 

We are still in the planning stages on WHAT this will look like for our Whanau House - but we are eager to get it going. We know that we have to get on the same page and agree on the best approach for our Whanau House. Establishing who is in the team and the classes assigned to them is the first step. 

Totara House Academic Mentorship Team 2022

So in preparing for this I shared an excerpt from Onehunga High School who have an established Academic Mentoring system in place that runs alongside the Pastoral Mentoring system. 

Click the image to access OHS school website to see what this looks like. 

Setting the tone and making sure that this starts well is imperative. An idea on what we can do to start, is that we need to discuss this as a team and agree on what our approach should be for Term 1. An idea that I have suggested is: 

Know the Learner (Term 1 focus)

It is important we KNOW who our learners are. What are their needs and how can we support them. That requires some meaningful and structured conversations, time and planning with our akonga. This may take an entire term to establish and that is OK, I would rather the team take the time NOW to build the relationship with their priority students and get to know what they want from this relationship. A suggested outline on what this looks like has been suggested and I look forward to hearing feedback from the mentorship team on what they think is the best fit for our focus 'Know the Learner'. 

Suggested plan on what we can do start the Academic mentor journey with our akonga - a work in progress :D

As with every project or class that I am working with, I look forward to documenting the journey. Throwing around ideas and formulating a plan is fun but I really want to get into it as soon as we can. What we have established so far is WHO is doing what and we have already collated data of our current students who short of achieving NCEA Level 1 + Level 2 in 2021. We have this data already as we were quite data driven with our senior students last year and this has flowed onto this year. I look forward to recording our progress or lack of progress - it is always good to review, reflect and reevaluate. 

Week 1 Term 1 - Starting 2022 with the English Department (February 1 - 4)

"A good start makes the rest easier, it lays a foundation to build upon." (CIC)

When I reflect on 2021, I feel this huge sense of relief in the fact that I was able to get through it. When I reflect on 2021, I feel an overflow of gratitude, thankful for all the challenges, lessons and blessings that I experienced. Personally 2021 taught me that when your plans do not happen, it is not necessarily a bad thing. There is a lesson and a silver lining in what we perceive as a 'failure' but that ultimately is up to us to see the blessing in the lesson or loss. Professionally 2021 taught me to trust my leadership, to enjoy and value the process in leadership and that collaboration can be a meaningful and powerful experience if you are open to it. Going in 2022 I feel grateful and grounded. Grateful for the experiences of 2021 but also grounded in that they act as a great foundation or springboard for what is in store this year. 

We started the year off with a whole PLD presented by CORE Education focusing on 'Learners as Designers' - looking at project based learning and what that could look like at our school. This was a great PLD session and below are some images from the day. One of the memorable takeaways from the PLD was the paper cup sculpture challenge - where we had to collaborate and design and produce a free standing paper cup sculpture that represented our school values (R.I.S.E - Respect, Innovation, Success + Excellence). I have also linked our team's presentation which documented the journey. 

Click on the image to see our design process presentation

We then completed our first week with a Department reflection and planning day. This was an opportunity for the team to reconnect and to build off where we left from our Department review week at the end of Term 4 last year. We spent time during our planning day reviewing 2021: 

Excerpts from our department reflection session. 

• School goals
• Junior English Program
• Senior NCEA English program
• NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 English External Assessment Results

We did not want to spend this session scrutinizing what did not work, but instead look at the growth we experienced and what we can do better in 2022. We were pleasantly surprised with our External Assessment Results considering that we lost so much time in Term 3 and 4 due to the lockdown. We could see that our students responded well to our intense approach to Derived Grade Assessments (offered in Term 4) and this was reflected in the results (in particular with our Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 Response to Visual Text external assessment). We were also pleased with our Level 1 and Level 2 students who gave the Unfamiliar Text external assessment a go and passed. This particular assessment has been (historically) something that our students do not engage with but over the course of 3 years, we have seen an increase of students attempt and pass this external assessment. We are proud of our students and the work that they put into their external assessments. We are grateful for our Department members and the commitment that they have shown to our students and subject area, especially during multiple lockdowns which disrupted the learning overall. 

A snapshot of some of NCEA Level 1 and Level 2 English External Results 2021

Our Department goals for 2022 is characterized into four areas. 

• Department Wide - Collegiality, Collaboration + Cohesiveness
• Junior School - Literacy focus (literacy project 2022) 
• Senior English - Cohesive approach to NCEA program
• Individual - Professional development to support appraisal goals and inquiry focus 

English Department 2022 - lunchtime at our planning day

Having this time as a department is important. Everything starts at the top and for us, we know that our student's success is reliant on how we operate and function as a TEAM. I am looking forward to 2022 and to see the department grow as a team together. "A good start makes the rest easier, it lays a foundation to build upon." I believe that starting together, understanding our goal and vision - creates a positive and solid foundation to build on.