Charlotte Verity Professional Learning (School Based)

It was a pleasure to have Sue Leadbetter (Assistant Principal) observe my teaching of reading, using a new phonics based approach and book range. Various staff across the school are trialing this approach at present, and I am loving having an opportunity to learn and build my skills in this area.  The full observation and reflection can be found here.  Key positives which Sue noted:  * Children had a positive disposition in the reading class. I have worked hard to show a personal love of books, and to present our material as fun and engaging.  * I showed a sense of trust and belief in the children's abilities... this is very true, I believe they are all smart, inquiring children who have every potential. I believe they can become great readers with the right teaching and resources from us, and engagement and effort from them,  * Explicit teaching of phonics related skills were clear, e.g. fast blending.  Possible challenges/next steps (with my reflections h...

  Workshop in School, September 2020 Click to view a checklist of urges and stages: this is useful for observing and planning for students' interests and needs. Constructivism... ....is about constructing knowledge, by building on existing learning (schema) .  It involves children doing the learning themselves. They are usually able to recall and draw on that learning in future. Free play - is generally without adults, and is totally child-led. Play in schools takes elements of free play, but is not free play Primarily, play in school is :  Self-chosen & self-directed Process rather than product-driven  The players choose the rules/structures It is often imaginative - imaginative play helps build the pre-frontal cortex, which is where higher level thinking occurs Occurs between those who are active, alert and non-stressed (Gray, 2013; Brewer, 2007) Teaching through Play involves observing children at their Cognitive Developmental Stage (Piaget, see information he...

  Teacher Only Day Workshop 31/08/20 The Ecological Model, Brofenbrenner Under this theory, the child’s development is viewed within the context of the systems and relationships in their environment, extending from the micro (e.g. immediate family) to macro. Microsystem: small, immediate environment the child lives in. Mesosystem: is the interlinked microsystems a child is involved in, e.g. the connection and relationships btwn home and school. Exosystem : the relationships that exist between two or more settings. Macrosystem :   the largest system, it encompasses all the institutions, people and relationships that affect the child. It includes the values and beliefs of the cultures involved. Chronosystem : the shifts or changes in one’s lifetime, e.g. moving towns, divorce etc. Universal Design For Learning https://everyones-in.tki.org.nz/ PLANNING TOOL FOR UDL Overview ·        Aim to teach the “hardest” children, and the ...

Observation with Caroline Morritt (RTLit) Caroline observed me taking reading groups using the Little Learners Love Literacy decodable texts.  I used magnetic letters to go over letter sounds and blending CVC words (stage 1-2 books) and modelled onset/rime (sound chunks) (stage 5-6 books). Caroline suggested:  * Teach from the code (target letter sounds) rather than the book  * Slow down with the books - aim for one or two books per week e.g. day 1 pre-teach sounds, Day 2 & 3 spend half time on book and half on letter sounds, Day 4 re-read for phrasing and fluency * Spend 90% of the guided reading time on explicit teaching of the target letter sounds, blends etc * Explicitly teach...don't encourage the children to guess  e.g. a child reads map as mat....say "this letter (point to p) is p. Say that sound at the end ma_" (or map) The Simple View of Reading  Decoding x Language Comprehension (Vocabulary) = Reading (Gough and Tunmer in 1986)  Further inform...

Stages of Inquiry ( Spirals of Inquiry ) Scanning Focusing  Developing a Hunch New Learning-and Reflecting on our Action Checking Term 3, Week 1-3, 2020 Scanning & Focusing Our team is working together to establish an engaging and varied maths programme for our students, which combines the following elements: * Concept * Inquiry * Warm-up * Independent tasks (informed by Rob Proffitt-White - see slide 6 ) We reflected and discussed maths learning at length as a whole team and began our Team Inquiry . Within this, we have formed teaching partnerships with one other, so we can focus more closely on each individual student. Amber and Lisa began co-planning and teaching, and then shared their planning process with the team in Term 3, week 3. Katie, my teaching partner and I, have developed our own similar plan, using their basis. Term 3, Week 4-6, 2020 Developing a Hunch Katie and I are working together, and collaboratively planning maths for all our students. We decided to meet f...

I am working collaboratively with my team, to help emergent readers make progress. Key Strategies:   * A collaborative approach: two teachers co-teaching home groups * Decodable books to assist phonological awareness ( The Little Learners Love Literacy series ) * Ongoing monitoring, with running record assessments every 2-4 weeks for target students, and letter-sound and/or high frequency word tests for target readers * Parents supporting literacy time - we train these parents in running simple, targeted word games * Professional reading, see notes below * Observations of colleagues, see note below Data & Assessment  End of Term 2, 2020: 19/43 readers from two home groups, are at or above standard on our Reading Wedge Graph. 24/43 readers are below standard. Professional Reading  -  Marie Clay  Teach students to: Monitor: notice when reading isn't correct, and make an attempt to identify issue or correct it. Check: that reading looks right, so...

Presentation Link Teach Dispositions For Maths  * This includes teaching what the School Values look like in maths learning (we care, we get there together, we love challenge) * This includes teaching what the Key Competencies look like in maths learning * This includes that maths needs fast thinking (e.g. basic facts) but also a lot of slow thinking  (place value on this when discussing with students), like maths inquiry Represent maths concepts in familiar and unfamiliar ways e.g. using mixed fractions, using a wide vocabulary Inquiry Maths * provides multiple solutions and pathways * provide extension, i.e. an extra challenge, organising and setting out all the answers you can find, join two groups/students with different answers and ask them to talk, compare, contrast, justify etc * enable students to solve or attempt to solve independently (do this by pre-teaching some content, reduce the number of steps, change the way it is represented, simplify the numb...