Monday, 6 June 2016

Queen's birthday thoughts

Last Fridays was a "Teacher Only Day" at WHS - this was a day set aside for professional development - in this case, a series of seminars and workshops and um stuff on "Restorative Practice" from the Institute of Professional Learning people from Waikato U.

 This produced some robust conversations around frustrations applying the more "touchy-feely" RP methods to the somewhat anarchic students at the school, many of whom are happy to game the system. I was curious to discover there was a name for the kind of management system I was trying out, and discovered I lacked follow-through: how to hold the student to account for improving their behaviour. Something that seems common.

I have settled to classes - I have a y11 maths, y9, sci, y11phys, and a form class ... going for a 0.8 load. The only trouble is that the seniors have external assessments in the 3rd week of my practicum, so I will be doing some teaching next week. Doubly unfortunate, the regular teachers are concerned that their students are prepped for the assessments - so the style I can use is going to be somewhat restricted with a focus towards revision. But there is still some flexability there.

The Y11's will get L6 stats: "statistical reports". This is basically a literacy exercise. We'll see.

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