Reporting to parents

Throughout my years of teaching I have been involved with reporting to parents.
This can be done both formally and informally.
I have found the best method in reporting to parents are with the use of student lead conferences and using portfolios or e-portfolios. As they are student lead parents don't seen to feel as daunted. It also provides an environment where parents, caregivers and teachers can strengthen relationships and enhances the use of student voice.
Teacher lead parent interview can be daunting for a lot of parents. Especially those parent who have not had a positive experience with school.
The written report is important in sharing concrete evidence to parents and sharing next steps. These are often supported by parent teacher interviews to discuss next steps.
Below is an example of one of my written reports. Please note that the name has been changed.

Using data to plan for next teaching steps

The below examples are students that I have identified in numeracy and literacy that needed extra support in their learning. I have changed the name of the students.
The use of I.E.P's (individual educational plan) or individual pathways helps to focus teachers when planning for the next steps. The idea behind I.E.P's are about being specific and reflective on both the activities using and teaching methods.
Here are the examples and personal reflections on learning.

ALL literacy

2015 I was involved with up skill in the ALL (Advanced learner of literacy programme)

During this programme I was trained to identify students who were struggling to show success in writing. This programme is backed by research. So my first step was to look at the research and its benefits. Second step was to test my targeted students (I also included these students as one cycle of my literacy inquiry). Third step was to use the learning progression to find where these students were sitting. I identified what the students could do and their next steps. Example below.

I also changed my planning and had observations. A couple of times I was videoed which enable me to visually see my teaching methods, feedback and feed forward and how the students reacted to my teaching style and its effectiveness.
As a results all the students involved demonstrated progress in writing.

Te Reo Huarakau assessment form

Teaching Inquiry

This is my first attempt at using teaching as inquiry as a method of teaching and as an assessment tool. These students were selected as a result of observations noted during my guided reading programme. This process took 6 weeks but could go longer. It is important to note that anecdotal notes were used throughout the process to track students progress and the effectiveness of my teaching methods.  

Teacher Inquiry Process: - 2013 Focusing Inquiry: Reading (Serenity, Mya, Utah, McKenzie, Mason, Charles, Mystery)

Wk 3 term 2- Wk 7 term 2

What is the intended learning outcome? Students will be able to use expression, voice projection and use punctuation                                                                            correctly

Why is this important? Phrasing correctly helps with understanding text

                                           Able to read confidently and competently to an audience.

Teaching Inquiry:

How do I enable the students to hear their own reading?

Using ICT to record voices.

Students to identify own errors and discuss how they can

improve.

Make a story book using ‘little bird tales’ web site.

Record a play using Audacity.

Personal reading using web cam.

Students that are not confident to read easier book in order

to focus on the expression, projection and punctuation.

What are my next learning steps?

Teach students to using ICT to record their reading of text. Self evaluate.

Focus on volume, expression, use of punctuation and

fluidness.

What resources will support this?

Web cam

Audacity

Little bird tales

Teaching and Learning:

So what did the students do / learn?

Read to small groups.

Shared reading out load with small groups.

Share a range of written language.

Learning Inquiry:

What are the students’ next learning steps?

Students have made huge progress. Serenity stills needs ongoing

support to project voice. Mya has moved down a group to

practise these skills with an easier text. Other’s doing well with

the above skills. All students have made gains in confidence.

e-asTTle writing assessment

This year we are going to be trialing the new e-asTTle writing tool. We are going to be using a recount for this terms writing.
We watched 2 videos introducing the assessment tool and going over the user manual.
The results of e-asTTle can be used to provide feedback highlighting the next steps in learning for each individual student or for groups of students for each element.
Rubric for marking covers a range of elements students use in writing. It is based on the NZ curriculum and the learning progressions.
Annotated exemplars are given to be used in conjunction with the rubric in order to give a clear O.T.J of where the students are working at for each element they are using in writing.
There are 7 elements that need to be marked against. They are ideas, structure and language, organisation, vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling.
As this is a one off test it only provides information of what each student was capable of doing at the time of the test. However the video mentioned that the test is 70% accurate highlighting the specific needs and strength each writer has.

IEP's

I've spent Thursday (first teacher release day for 2015) working on my IEP's for my at risk students. I used last years end of year data to highlight my at risk students. I ended up having around half my class on my at risk register, covering literacy and numeracy.

Sharing end of year data between teachers via e-Tap can save a lot of time. However, I found that a lot of the data was out dated or inaccurate, furthermore making it very difficult to highlight the students next learning steps. I was able to go back through their red profiles and make my own OTJs on the individual students ability.

Great resources that have helped have been the literacy learning progressions, the english language literacy progression, NZ math standards and the NZ curriculum framework document. TKI and nzmaths have been excellent web sites to help me develop teaching strategies and ideas to help me develop my students next teaching steps.

Now that I have created my IEP's I will share with my students their new short term, measurable goals and how the students and I will work together to help them meet these goals.

The last challenge is fitting this learning into my teaching programme. I am targeting some of these issues through my maths and literacy teaching inquiries.
I look forward to reflecting on the students progress at the end of the term where students data will show progress.

These IEP's are working documents. I find my self reflecting on these questions...
1. Will these activities engage my students?
2. Are my students needing more scaffolding especially in writing?
3. Am I targeting students interests and cultures?
4. Am I teaching to the very next learning steps and do I know what they are, and if not where can I find the information I need to teach their next steps?

I have found that the more I think about my student's learning needs the more questions I have about my own teaching effectiveness and knowledge of learning.
In conclusion, if I ever stop my own learning I guess then that will be the day to put down the white board markers, close the classroom door and look for a new challenge else where.

Maths PD Teaching as inquiry

Today Roz lead our Math PD staff meeting.

I am a priority learner in maths. I am below/ well below the NS.
I looked at the national standards in maths and identified students in my class the students at are below the national standards. Using the data I have and OTJ I made a plan of how I'm going to move these students from stage 4 to stage 5. What I have identified is that these students need to be able to make smart number splits to 10 instantly. From here I will target students making greater splits. For example 7+3=10 so 27+3=30. Students need to be able to make the link between grouping to ten from smaller to larger numbers.

I am meeting the national standards expectations for my age/year.
I have noticed that some students that are meeting national standards (stage5 and 6) have multiplication gaps. I have identified 3 students at stage 6 that needs support recalling 2,5 and 10 times table facts. Not being able to recall these facts will make learning new strategies in stage 6 and moving to stage 7 increasingly difficult. This term my goal is to help these students learn these facts. Students that are working at stage 5 also need to learning these facts. I've started teaching adding groups of numbers over 100. We are currently advanced counting. However subtraction and being able to use subtraction strategies need further development.

I am already above the national standards for my age/year.
Students in my class that are above the national standards in my class need to using only multiplicative strategies.
I am using ideas from NZ maths and using the NUMPA book 6 and 7 to help plan learning. I have noticed that some of these students have gaps in their Mult/Div knowledge, so my aim is to identify what the gaps are and target these as part of my maintenance programme.

Making Smart Goals

This afternoon Ana Byrne lead us in a staff meeting about setting up At Risk register for at risk students. We had to look and students literacy and numeracy data. Compare students data with the national standards and using data create smart measurable goal. These are to be reviewed at the end of the term. Below is an example of the smart goal.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ziZRyYHRVqQXb405CWFKQzLnFTt63Ae-yGAUUiKAplo/edit#slide=id.p4

James Street School            At Risk IEP   2014

NAME:	DOB:	YEAR: 4	Learning Area: Reading	TERM: 1
Data: What is the data telling me? What is the priority for this student to learn?	Short Term Goals – Specific and measureable To be achieved within 1 term		Strategies: How am I going to teach this? What differentiation will be needed?	Review: Specific to goals and effectiveness of differentiation
He is reading at level 13. He is needing to learn blend sounds, and first 100 sight words.	To learn all of the first 100 sight words.		Use flash cards of unknown first 100 sight words. Daily practise with (Students name).	Yes he has learnt the first 97 sight words and some initial blends.
He now needs to learn the next lot of sight words. 200 sight words.	To learn all of the 200 sight words.		Use the same strategy as the above. We will also trial S.T.E.P.S computer based reading programme to improve word knowledge, blends, reading skills and comprehension.	Made great progress with STEPS and is getting a lot of enjoyment from his successes.  Now knows the first 200 sight words.
He now needs to learn the next 100 lot of sight words,	To learn all of the first 300 sight words.		Continue using the STEPS programme. Test the 300 sight word list. Write out flash cards to the unknown words to practise daily at home and school. Test weekly.	Make excellent progress. Knows 300 sight words. Strategy work well.
He is now working at 7-7.5 reading age. STEPS programme has helped and teaming up with home to continue to push his reading practise.	Develop sentence comprehension and word knowledge.		Clozed reading and word comprehension tasks during guided reading. Use pictures to illustrate meaning of unknown words.	I have not spent as much one on one time with him this term. He is also going to rainbow reading and making progress. Comfortably working at level 21/22. During guided reading I have been sowing in new vocab.  He has been able to discuss ideas in detail and is making good links to personal experiences. I stayed away from clozed activities as writing tends to be a block for   (Students name).