Natural Learning Spaces

How does our learning environment stimulate what we want to say?

Today I listened to a inspirational and passionate Mum about how we could develop our outside learning spaces into a more natural environment where children are able to explore, be creative and challenged.  

There is so much research that supports the development of better outdoor spaces in schools, highlighting the benefits and positive impacts great decisions in this area are for all children. Findings have demonstrated significant improvements in resilience, team work, creativity and the ability for children to problem solve. The interesting thing is that these are almost a bi-product of increasing physical activity and having so much FUN. /http://www.educationreview.co.nz/magazine/february-2016/the-great-outdoors/. 

The recent inclusion of our bike track at school has got us all thinking and talking about the possibilities and that these possibilities could be endless. Swanson Primary School in Auckland has moved to developing more natural playgrounds. playgrounds that provide physical challenges with many loose parts that can be manipulated and adapted, to sensory areas where water play, sounds were stimulated.

Historically our school has been pretty traditional in its thinking about playgrounds. Having open greens spaces are valued and important as we are a big school with children who love the outdoors and enjoy being physical. This is evident in our high numbers of children involved in sports. Allandale has created veggie gardens and gardens around our school, flat playing fields, and several little play areas alss. We have an internal Wonderland with plastic playground, that is gated and a huge sandpit that is full everyday.  But we have the potential and drive to develop this further. To create spaces which support of development of resilient children that enjoy learning together and playing together. A place where the transition from Early Childhood centres to Primary School education is seamless. A place where nature and tikanga Maori are alive and kicking!

Allandale School Arts Festival 

Thank you to all the amazing Allandale School staff for supporting our children to express their talents through the arts.  Thank you to the support staff for supporting of staff and children in getting our arts festival organised.  

Thank you to our AWESOME children who shared their amazing talents from singing, dancing, performing arts, photography and visual arts.  

Lastly thank you to all our families and community for coming and celebrating in our children's learning.    

RESILIENCE

There has been a lot of talk about our at risk children not having or demonstrating  'resilience' but the more I think about it the more I see how much resilience they have and show us everyday. 

The definition of resilience is...

1 the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

"the often remarkable resilience of so many British institutions"

2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

"nylon is excellent in wearability, abrasion resistance and resilience"

synonyms:

flexibility, pliability, suppleness, plasticity, elasticity

Resilience is an important skill that in today's world our children aren't facing day to day. We, as a society tend to wrap our children in cotton wool to protect them from so much and this has allowed some of our children to grow up with no adversity therefore not developing their skills to be resilient. I've been thinking about how I grow up 1 of 6, we had a girls bedroom and a boys bedroom 3 in each. We quickly learnt how to share and get long with each other. We rode bikes without helmets, we climbed, jumped and made our own fun everyday. If we wanted something we would work together as a family to get it, nothing was instant. 

Our at risk children have much adversity in their day to day lives and in my humble professional opinion I believe we have some of the most resilient children I know. These chn face stresses and adult problems but manage to find their feet everyday  and come to school. Many of them with a smile of their gorgeous faces, with a good morning or a morena. I believe our at risk children don't need to be taught resilience as they teach me about resilience everyday. 
I believe what they need is teachers that recognise and can fill their emotional tanks up. 

Check In Check Out

As part of our PB4L tier 2 journey at Allandale School we have trialed the implementation of a new behaviour support programme h, Check In and Check Out. This programme has been researched and runs along the lines of CR & RP.  Developing relationships were chn are valued, listened to and respected provides opportunities for all chn to succeed. 

I have run this programme with 9 chn from senior school to junior school. All 9 chn are boys demonstrating challenging behaviours in the classroom and outside. CICO is a targeted intervention that looks at con-constructing daily individual behavioural goals. Every morning the chn and I identify the amount of points their would like to achieve for the day. We talk about their families and how things are going and what they find tricky at school. After lunch we get together again and review how they day has gone. Celebrating the successes and problem solving the difficulties that have been evident.

Teachers have identified...  

• Students look forward to seeing facilitator teacher everyday
• Students understand the process 
• Students seem to be calmer and positive throughout the day
• Students learning is more focused
• Students have two adults to celebrate their successes with
• Families and teachers all get to share positive comments about a child.
• Families share the successes the children are having at home too
• A decrease is negative behaviours.
• Classroom environments are positive focused. 

Leadership Teaching

I begun my teaching and learning career 13 years ago. Beginning as a very excited beginning teacher in a Year 5 and 6 class. After 4 years of being a classroom teacher I became involved in the senior management team at our school. 2 years after my initial induction into our senior management team I become DP, Team leader and SENCO. Throughout this time I taught across the entire school From Year 6 to Year 2. 

I have been a DP, a team leader, SENCO over the past 9 years and during these years I have adapted my leadership style and the approaches.

Recently I have been thinking about the cultural toolkit that I bring to my leadership areas especially as I have been Acting Principal for the past 5 weeks. 

PLD on Cultural Responsiveness and Relational Pedagogy has provided me with the opportunity to reflect through a lense that values relationships and cultural. With this as a focus  I'm thinking about balancing the need to support staff growth vs celebrating staff success and meet individual needs vs school wide objectives and how this can become a juggling act. 

While I don't know the answers I have made some observations and I have some questions...

Staff that play together stays together. 

(Will develop a team that enjoys things beyond a work place relate to each as people not just colleagues)

Collaborative communication is paramount.

(Will develop a team that has trusting, respectful communication is a team where learning is honest and real) 

Shared direction and vision.

(Will develop a team that understanding where they are heading and willing supports everyone to get there) 

Cultural Responsiveness and Relational Pegagogy

Coming out of the closet

Recently I have been involved in the Cultural Responsive & Relational Pedagogy team at Allandale School. This team consists of different members of staff from Allandale School. Our team is Tania Doherty, Wendy, Ashton, Aroha, Cilla, Wiremu, Dianne, Teresa and myself.This teams focus is to forge strong links between staff, our children and our families. It is about lifting practice in order to lift the success for all our children.

At our last discussion a team member suggested that once you believe in this thinking and you 'come out of the closet' and can never go back. While I didn't fully understand nor grasp the magnitude of what she was saying to us back then I totally understand now!

Research tell us that to be successful educators of Maori students we, the professionals, need to be Culturally responsive and demonstrate a high level of understanding around relational pedagogy.  And while I understand that when some of our teachers were being trained this thinking may not have been seen as important I believe that is is still our responsibility to address it now.  

Being Culturally Responsive and showing Relational Pedagogy is not hard, as it is celebrating and respecting the basic needs of our children. As I come out of the closet I see it everywhere. I see it in the faces of the children at Allandale School. I see it when children are playing and when children are learning. I see it when children are learning how to read and write and when they are learning about playing together. What is incredibly interesting to me at the moment is the more I see it the more it become clearer and the more important I feel about it and the more I want to grow it. 

I see it not only in the faces of our children but in the faces of our teachers. I see it in the faces of teachers when our children are teaching us. I see it in the faces of teachers when they are talked with a growth mind set to each other. I see it in the faces of our teachers when they are talking about amazing things that have happened to them during the learning day. 

I see it EVERYWHERE in our school and I want to see it MORE! I want to see it where I don't see it. I am so hungry for all our children, our families and our staff to feel it and see what I see and feel. I want them to feel the warmth of being Culturally Responsive and being shown Relational Pedagogy. I want them to feel to inspiration of showing Culturally Responsiveness and showing Relational Pedagogy.

I love Allandale School and I am passionate about this school, our children, our families, and our staff and I am so excited about developing my knowledge and the combined knowledge of us all.  

Week 32 - PRACTICE - Changes in Practice

WOW, what a journey, 32 weeks learning, coaching, support and exploring. A journey that I have travelled with 5 other colleagues and closely worked alongside 2 of these colleagues. This postgraduate programme has provided us with multiple opportunities to trial, discuss and reflect on our new knowledge and thinking.

While my learning has developed many of the twelve  New Zealand, Ministry of Education criteria for Practising Teacher Criteria this reflection will focus on only two, criteria 4 and 7.

“Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice”  and “Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment” have been evident throughout the entire 32 weeks and was a catalyst for my involvement in this programme. Our Community of Learning (COL) is committed to providing the staff of all ten schools with opportunities to grow professional learning and development and to do this is a collaborative, inclusive way in order to lift best practice. As I reflect on my involvement in this programme, I think about the level of my commitment not only to myself and my own continually learning but my commitment to help and support others in completing this programme. As a Deputy Principal in our school, I believe that it is my professional responsibility to support ongoing learning and development for our staff. It is my responsibility that staff feel valued and respected for who they are and what they bring to our school. It is my responsibility to support staff in embracing new ways of thinking and questioning old ways of thinking. It is my responsibility to ensure that problems are understood and that solutions are found.  Our involvement in this programme has provided me with all of the above. Opportunities to trial and explore together, to question, think and reflect and to be able to encourage and lend on were all parts of this journey. As a result of these opportunities my ongoing professional learning and development changed to being open to other viewpoints, asking for help from others, working with others and taking a back seat, relying and trusting other people. This has truly promoted a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment with our group.

Growth is a funny concept, you think you are growing in one area and before you know it you recognise growth in many parts of your life.  Being committed to ongoing professional learning and development through our involvement in this postgraduate programme has provided me with a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment. Learning is an amazing concept that continues to grow beyond its expectations.

Reference List:

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/