Corstorphine+School+Milestone+5

// Corstorphine School – We learn, We discover We share, We grow. //  At Corstorphine school this year we have made good progress with the clusters ICT goals as well as our own individual skills. We have a small staff of just 3 teachers at our school and because of my role as cluster facilitator we decided that a 2 to 1 ratio was better than any ratio our staff would receive attending cluster workshops run by myself or Sarah in Term 1. As a result staff attended ICT professional development meetings at school rather than attend some workshops. Staff ICT and Inquiry PD meetings were held on February 25th March 24th and 31st, and April 14th. Because of the low ratio it has allowed us to work successfully on the use of web2 tools notably protopage for staff professional development and publishing class writing, and wikispaces during the schools Inquiry focus (‘Extinction is forever) from term 1. Teachers skills on these sites have improved noticeably. I was also granted a release day to work 1 to 1 with teachers and support staff on specific skills on April 17th. This helped upskill staff on areas of weakness or concern to them. Jenny Munro and Principal Marion Carter, and I attended the Learning @ Schools Conference in Rotorua this year and took a great deal from this which was shared jn school on February 25th. There has been some frustrations with SMS and the constant updating of the programme. Principal Marion Carter and I attended Chris McKinlay’s workshop on March 19th regarding advanced SMS and some school data has been loaded onto the system. We are working towards trialling taking the role via SMS hopefully in Term 3. Our use of ICT in the school in recent times has been hampered by a changing and upgrading of our server. Wireless broadband has also been installed. There have been the usual glitches during these changes which has slowed progress somewhat! As staff skills improve these sites will be used more and more. Generally, Corstorphine School is making pleasing progress with ICT and Inquiry goals. The senior class presented their Inquiry reports via powerpoint to the school community last term and their efforts were met with great enthusiasm. Parents were also given the opportunity to tour the school and observe the efforts of the classes with their inquiry learning via class work displays. Teachers are making better use of web based learning, and use of digital photography is prevalent in junior and middle school. I feel we are developing strong ICT leaders in our school and we have a staff which is genuinely enthusiastic about improving their ICT and Inquiry knowledge alongside the development of the use of the revised NZ curriculum document. Staff have enrolled for 5 of this terms workshops and I have run a staff meeting regarding useful websites for this terms Inquiry topic (May 19th). Student findings will be published via moviemaker and powerpoint for this terms topic. All staff are attending Kath Murdoch’s visit in September, and Roz Mitchell will be attending Graham Watts workshop in August on ‘Effective Pedagogies’ and ‘Thinking – A Key Competence’ I will also be attending these sessions. Online school sites can be seen at http://corstorphineschool.wikispaces.com [|www.protopage.com/corstystaff] - password staffcorsty www.protopage.com/corstyroom8 – password ro8om