Grants+Braes+Milestone+4





Milestone Report 4 (14.11.07)

Name of School: Grant’s Braes School Name of lead teacher: Kay Masters

Milestone Report 4 Facilitator Meetings: 17.10.07 – meeting with Sarah Dickson at school. Reviewed milestone reporting, the up-coming Lead Teacher showcase, the introduction of inquiry learning and unit template I have been working on. Spoke about the delayed introduction of inquiry learning to the staff (especially those not familiar with it) as we need to focus on our new eTAP sms before 2008. There will also be significant staff changes in the next 3months ie 2008, and this will impact on the delivery of ICT as we bring new people on board.

Lead Teacher Workshops: 19.09.07 – Inquiry Learning 31.10.07 – Positive Computing for Parents
 * A practical session with the Principal. Following an enthusing presentation we got to grips with the Kath Murdoch approach. A challenge to get the terminology in place. We worked on a possible school focus on Celebrations, especially with Christmas coming. Further work on this unit has not gone as planned as staff changes, new laptops and the sms system have taken the focus.
 * A worthwhile course presented by guests from Wellington. It opened up a lot of discussion about the use of ICT in the home and our role as ‘experts’ in our community to give guidance in this area. Potential to follow up with an series of evening in 2008 for our parents.

I am looking forward to the two trips planned for the Lead Teachers later this term to look at Inquiry Learning in local schools

Cluster Workshops: None of the staff have attended these during this time as the skills on offer were not required by the staff.

Staff Meetings: The Habits of Mind session continued until the end of Term 3 and we managed to come to grips with all 16 habits. There was some debate at the end about the need to introduce all especially in the junior rooms. It was felt that these are a good basis for the Key Competency focus in the new curriculum and should be reviewed at the time the new document is introduced and being worked through.

17.10.07
 * Reintroduce the staff to eTAP, login procedures and how to make and print a class list. This required the retrieving of several staff passwords, but eventually all completed the task successfully.

24.10.07 31.10.07
 * 2nd session using eTAP, to investigate the planning section, and for some investigation of the assessment and generation of school wide reports especially for reading and maths. The senior syndicate staff subsequently entered their PROBE data that will be used to produce a report to the BOT.
 * The staff received their TELA laptops which the BOT have decided to pick up the lease for. This session was getting all staff able to log on to the school server and those staff who are staying on to personalise their desktops and begin using outlook.

7.11.07
 * A 2nd laptop session for those staff new to laptops about how to connect to the internet at home which means the creation of another desktop.

Personal Goals:
 * 1) Cluster Website


 * 1) School Management Goal (if applicable)

To become familiar with this system as it relates to my Library responsibilities and the use of the school wide report facility. Successfully achieved updating the pupil files on the Library system so that teachers can use barcodes for all pupils when issuing and returning books. With the input of PROBE results by other staff the generation of syndicate wide reading report for the BOT has been simplified. There are a variety of options as to what to include in the graphs and finding the most useful took some time.


 * 1) Class related

To set up own TELA upgrade laptop. This was done in conjunction with configuring the other staff laptops for the school network. The use of the school server to store material for ease of transfer was excellent. Need to make sure that backing up to this source is a regualar ( weekly, fortnightly or monthly) practise. It is too easy to forget to do it.

To trial an inquiry unit with my class. We are still working through this on the area of ‘How dangerous is the wind?’ Knowing where and what you want/need to cover is a bit different to actually getting the children focussed in the same areas. It does allow for a more flexible approach to meeting individual children’s needs and interests. There are still managerial issues, visible reporting timeframes etc that I feel I need to develop. There needs to be ongoing resourcing and direction. It has been interesting to see my CRT teacher take the wind into the arts area with a study of Monet, making windmills on a stick and doing ‘blow’ painting with straws. Very lucky too to have the violent wind arrive when it did and the announcement of the Lammermoor Wind Farm in the middle of this unit. Make the context so relevant.

Summarise.

The overriding factor during this phase of the project has been the retiring of the current Principal, the impending changes of teaching staff, the introduction of staff laptops. All of these impact on the direction and possibilities for the future. I know there continues to be a positive attitude to acquiring new skills by the staff and the excitement as they introduce and use their new skills in their class programmes.