Meeting the PTCs

2017

  The first writing topic this year was Instructional Writing. To support the children with learning the writing outcomes at year three and four level I organised them into mixed ability groups. They were given squares of paper to draw on. The leader(most able writer) facilitated the next stages. The group had to draw the material/equipment needed then the steps required to complete an instruction. When they were satisfied with their sketches they had to arrange their drawings into logical order. This involved some rigorous debate.
  Picture two shows a conversation between two girls. Alexi realised that she did not know enough to lead her group. She went and got Tess to help her. Tess paused and ensured her group was on-track with what to do then took Alexi back to her group and coached her through what to tell the group to do. Alexi soon had her group up and running to complete the planning sketches and Tess returned to her own group. They did this on their own initiative. I observed from a distance and left them to it.
  The idea for this notepad planning came from a TED talks by Tom Wujec about how we collaborate and make sense of things using simple drawings on post it notes. All the children were engaged in this process of drawing the planning sketches. One group disintegrated during the debate about where each sketch should go and required a few minutes to calm down before they could return to the task. They subsequently came to an amicable agreement and were able to begin their writing from the picture plan.
  The third picture shows one target child jumping up to tell Mr Moore all about his group's drawings and what they were going to write next.

Class Treaty

Our class treaty was formed through a collaborative discussion about School expectation, Behaviour guidelines and how the children in our class would like to be treated. Ideas were sought from the children and recorded on paper.  Each idea was debated and refined. These were then typed up and made into a display for the class wall.
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2016

PTC 1
Caitlin had presented with an escalating series of behavioural problems. She began to manipulate the group of buddy helpers who were assisting the low literacy children so that she could take most of the helping time. Caitlin systematically used manipulation and put downs to unsettle the other helpers. when confronted about this behaviour Caitlin reacted strongly to verbally attack me.
Meetings were initiated with Caitlin's parents to initially discuss the situation and share strategies for helping Caitlin redirect her behaviour. Caitlin responded with an increase of attempts to control the classroom buddy helping roster and more social manipulation. A BIP was actioned. Caitlin's parents were at first surprised and onboard with the management of this situation but soon became defensive and a bit aggressive back at me. With support and backup from Deb Campbell' observations plus further disclosures from Caitlin's parents progress was underway with turning Caitlin towards successful outcomes. Counselling at school from an external agency also assisted Caitlin with coming to terms with her personal and family changes.

PTC 2
The Running Man challenge was initiated by the staff as a fun challenge between classes.
Rm 19 were very keen to participate. I shared a variety of clips on youtube for motivation/inspiration which we discussed and made a joint plan. We set a scenario about the class writing at their desks breaking into dance utilising the whole class space then quietly returning to their work as the song ended. our vid clip finished on a close up of one student at his seat ensuring that all were seen within the video.
Class Treaty
The Class Treaty is a collaborative process with the class. After reading the children's story book resource, "The Treehouse Treaty," a discussion was lead to develop shared values of respect and expectation. Notes were recorded and condensed into bullet points for all to agree upon.

PTC 5
Unit Plan Term 1 & 2 2016
Unit Plan Term 2 & 4 2016
The above units were written by myself for the Year 3/4 syndicate using resources from within the school and my own personal knowledge. The content was focused on needs analysis of the children across the syndicate and linked or woven into themes of work across other curriculum areas.

PTC 9

Kylah is a delightful little child with global learning delays. She is very shy and quiet. Kylah requires differentiation of learning to meet her abilities. Kylah enjoys working with a select group of girls who will gently guide her and ensure she is included in class learning. She like consistency and familiarity of her learning programme. She has a strong preference to learn with one other very able student. They are often observed naturally paring up to work alongside each other. Story writing is
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Previous Blog - work from 2014 and 2015

2014/2015 Historical