Grants+Braes+Milestone+6

Milestone Report 6 (5.11.08) Name of School: Grant’s Braes School Name of lead teacher: Kay Masters A key long term benefit has been the use of digital images in all rooms not only to enhance communication with home via wikispaces and in the weekly newsletter. Other area where digital cameras have proved effective has been in the PE area to improve the students reflection on their running, jumping and skipping techniques. The school’s Jump Jam team which is off to National Finals regularly use recordings of their performances to help critique areas for praise as well as for improvement. There have also been ongoing animation projects as well as the making of a music video and short movies promoting the message of the 3 r’s to do with rubbish, which ties into the current senior inquiry unit.

An exciting development for us was the involvement of a group of children in the kidz@conference. Although this event was not directly related to the cluster, our PD in ICT made us more aware of the benefits for our children in being involved in this sort of opportunity.

The purchase of a 2nd digital projector has allowed greater access to websites and other computer applications as teaching tools in classrooms.

The ongoing use of eTAP as the school’s management system has been slow and steady with most of the reports for the Board of Trustee being produced from data collected and analysed through this system.

The inquiry approach has been a major focus of our professional development this year. The two main development days with visiting experts have been appreciated by the staff as they work through the issues surrounding this new methodology. The day with Kath Murdoch, which the cluster organised, was especially useful with many ideas being implemented in classrooms. (reflection cards, placemat organisers, lotus organiser, to mention a few) Both syndicates are now developing units which are based on the Kath Murdoch approach and we have used a unit that was taken across the whole school. There has been a lot of discussion about the stage and terminology used which has resulted in a common understanding of the language and ideas that will be presented to the children.

Staff are now committed to the current round of PD opportunities offered for this term with everyone participating in at least one workshop. Although there has been some frustration when facilities have let everyone down, the one on one sessions held in our own school have proved beneficial with the staff involved.

Thank you facilitators for your efforts.