Champion Centre

WOW! What an incredible place the Champion Centre here in Christchurch is!!
I had never heard of this place before finding out that I would have a student transitioning to school from here. I didn't know what to expect but I do know the child is not what I expected. You would not be able to tell that he was any different from any of our other students or be able to tell that he had a difficult start to life.
Champion Centre is amazing and they do the most amazing things with all of their patients. I was lucky enough to have been able to go out and visit and observe at the centre two times before my child started school.
I gained lots of new ideas from observing the different people there and what their role is at the centre. I loved the music therapy and occupational therapy. I have started implemented some of these strategies already.
The Champion centre also provides the student with an early intervention teacher- who has come along to all of the school visits. Judy is the most amazing lady, we have been so lucky having her expertise in our classroom over the last ten weeks and boy I am going to miss her next week! She has been a great help and has provided me with some really good fine motor activity ideas.
The write up that the Centre has provided for the school as a transitioning report is incredible and full of details and ideas. This is something very powerful and we are extremely lucky to get a transition document like it.

Ashleigh Wade SLT: - LLI- Language and Learning Intervention

Ashleigh is the speech-language therapist for our school. This term Nicole Rebecca, Brenda and I were lucky enough to spend the day with her to have LLI (language and learning intervention) training based around Sharnee and her language needs. This was such a valuable day beginning with being put in the shoes of the children. It was great to think about how much is going on and to think again about how much I am talking. This is something really big that I have taken away from this, about me increasing wait time and thinking about my instructions to minimise the amount the students are having to listen to, comprehend and follow.
It also made me think that we need to use a lot more visuals for the students as well. The slide below is the presentation that Ashleigh went through with us.
Attached are photos of the plan we came up with for Sharnee on the day. It was beneficial for Nicole to be there as Sharnee is moving out to Nicole at the beginning of the new term. I do wish I had this LII at the beginning of the year or closer to when Sharnee started school not after one year when she was moving to a new class. However, I know this will be beneficial for lots of other students.

Belinda - Reading Recovery Teacher: Literacy Support

This term I worked with Belinda, as did all the Junior teachers, we were getting support to continue to help our struggling readers. Nicole, Joanne and I were particularly looking for help with our readers at red as we have a lot of students that are just moved to red because magenta is no longer valuable for them, rather than moving because they are ready. She gave some good ideas and now we are moving to reading one book over two days to really get our worth out of it and to work on some further word and alphabet work with the students.
I was very nervous before my lesson where Belinda observed, however once I got her feedback it made me feel really good about what I do.
There has only been little minor tweaks to what we were doing, but have seen gains already.

Reflection on criteria - Learning Focused Culture:

Reflection on criteria - Learning Focused Culture: Joanne, Nicole and I have worked together as a team to really create an environment that is rich, positive, collaborative and inclusive. We have lots of children's work displayed on the walls and have created different displays to help with their learning. We spent a very long time this term establishing deep level relationships with the students and making sure they all felt valued and special. We have created an environment where the students feel comfortable to take risks and accept challenges. We have ensured each child feels valued and are looking at all the cultures we have throughout the year and these are displayed on the wall and one is a focus each week to explore into. The students know that I have high expectations and they are learning to have them for themselves also. I have lots of fun with my students and feel it is super important to be like this to ensure trust, respect and the relationship is built right from day one.

The leadership team this year created a Setting up for Success document - That teachers needed to ensure they had in place by the end of the first term and then the Senior Leadership Team would come in and do an observation. I felt this was good and something we should have each year. My observation of my teaching was extremely good and had me feeling really proud of what I do and what we have achieved. Some quotes from my observer Andrew (Principal)

KWW Class Tree-Treaty

We have created a class tree-treaty. All students coloured in their hands to show they agree to the way we will be in the classroom.
This was a really cool activity- as Nicole, Joanne and I all had a vision of how we could do it and we collaborated all our ideas together and this is the final product. It is a great central focus point in our room and teaching space.

Learning Our Mihis

This term we have been focusing on learning our Mihi. We are starting with a brief Mihi for our younger learners.

I have modelled my Mihi to the students to show them what they can do when they are older.

This is the Mihi we are teaching our younger students

Karakia and Waiata

We start each day all together where we do the Karakia and Waiata daily.

KWW  - Kura Pounmau, Whakaute and Wawata end the day together where we do the end of the day Karakia. A different student leads this each day.