Farewell...

 

Wow! I'm so incredibly grateful
to have been part of

the Pt England School whanau

but... after 4 (and a bit)! years, 

it's time to say farewell.

I will leave with a 

heart full of many precious memories 

of my life at PES.

To the staff at PES
Thank you for your friendship, 

your willingness to share ideas,
 your passion for educating young people 

and plenty of good laughs!

To my students - past and present:)

I learnt so much from each of you -

thank you for being my teacher!

My deepest wish for each of you is

that you find a way

to step into your amazingness

(yes - this is now a word!)

and show up as

the best you can be!

Ka kite Pt England, 

Team 5 and Room 2 

- it's been a journey!

Arohanui,

Ms. Tapuke 

MIT 2020 - Launch Day - TAHA CHALLENGE First Responses!

By the end of the first day - SUCCESS! There were a total of five Taha Challenges recorded from three students and two teachers (my team leader and myself).

Kahurangi 

Tuluinga 

Sauma

MIT 2020 - Launch Day - TAKE THE TAHA CHALLENGE

April 1st - it's no April Fool! Today, Kahurangi became the unofficial poster child to launch DAY 1 of the TAHA CHALLENGE. Let the fun begin!

Thinking ahead to the Class of 2020!

Our first meeting for 2019 and Andrea has challenged our team to identify the qualities/traits of what we think a typical Year 8 student would 'look' like. I got to work with Angela - back in the Team 5 fold after a break of a few years. Our brainstorm of ideas is below:

In no particular order we decided that if a Year 8 student left PES with the following attributes they would be ready to take on the world in their first year of high school.

seeing possibilities

respectful of others

risk-taker

self-pride

self-belief

goal oriented

self-confidence

resilient

problem solvers

kind

It was a powerful exercise. It was worthwhile to take the time now to think ahead to the end of the year and envisage the kind of young person we would be sad but proud to farewell. I would be really satisfied knowing that I played a small part in ensuring they leave us full to the brim with the 'right stuff' that will hold them in good stead not only as they take their first steps in their next learning journey at high school but also beyond into their chosen career paths.

Fractions and Decimals with Jo Knox

Today Team 5 had the opportunity to watch Jo Knox in action with two different Maths groups (one at Stage 6 and one at Stage 7). The aim was to see her teach students to convert fractions into decimals.

DIAGNOSTIC TESTING Jo asked a series of quick questions to gauge the groups understanding of fractions and decimals based on examples from the Numeracy  Development Project (NPD) resources or ‘Pink books’.

MATERIALS - Decipipes are a really effective tool to help support students to understand the basics of fractions and decimals. They are also easy for students to manipulate, able to break/build up both representations of both fraction and decimal numbers. 

STRATEGY MODEL Start students off using materials then progressing to Imaging and then Materials as students show greater fluency in their use of a given strategy - see NPD Book 3 p5 

e

MODELLING BOOK - Number equations were recorded in a modelling book in plain view of all students. A handy reference point for the teacher to guide students in their thinking and to record in themselves (see next note).
STUDENT THINKING - Jo regularly asked students to explain their answers. The focus was on how they got an answer, helped to highlight can be more than one ‘correct’ solution; extended this to give specific roles to members of the group - split group into three - one group explained their answer, while a second group modelled the answer using materials (decipipes) and a third group recorded answer in modelling book - this approach ensure all students were fully engaged!

PLENARY - at the end of each group’s session, Jo asked the students to reflect on what they had learned and together they co-constructed the WALT for the lesson in kid’s language - she feels that sharing the WALT at start of lesson isl ike giving away the punchline of a joke upfront

Example 1: WALT Convert fractions and decimals by turning them into tenths, hundredths and thousandths

Example 2: WALT by add numbers by taking one off one number and adding to another to make a whole number

So many golden nuggets from this session! I would like to try out co-constructing WALTs with my students - it will be interesting to see if what I had planned to teach matches up with what students feel they have learnt.