Changes after lockdown

After lockdown our school trialed a change in lesson times. Initially, we had 3 sessions; session 1 was 75 minutes, session 2 was 2 hours and session 3 was 75 minutes. We had two breaks, 20 minutes and an hour. The new times were 4x 70-minute sessions with 3 breaks (2 x 30-minute breaks and 20 minutes for morning tea). After trialing the new lesson times for a fortnight staff voted to keep the new times and not to revert to the old session format.

Along with that change, my senior teacher and I (with the permission of management) decided to rotate classes. As we shared the only two Year 7/8 classes in the school, we decided that Hevaha would teach Math to both classes and I would do the Reading for both classes. Our decision was based on the fact that after speaking to some teachers at TC, it was mentioned that one of the things that the Year 9 students struggled with was having a different teacher for each subject and moving from class to class.  We hoped that getting the students to rotate classes would help to smooth their transition into high school. The feedback received from students (using Google forms) was extremely positive about the change.

Some of the benefits of rotating teachers include:

• Students avoid getting bored with the same teacher.   
• A different teacher brings a new style, a different accent, a different sense of humour….
• Class rotation helps children become more flexible and forces them to better organised.
• It introduces variety into the school day for both teachers and students.
• It has encouraged a feeling of camaraderie amongst students as we feel like one big class. 
• Both classes getting the same information and instructions.

Lockdown Learning Musings

Lockdown Learning Musings

"The impact of COVID-19 on education has been significant. In the short-term, there has been a complete change to the day-to-day realities of educators, students and their families. However, there also are much broader and on-going implications. The physical closure of schools has shone a spotlight on some of the persistent and systemic challenges facing our education system, providing an opportunity to refocus our attention and efforts on them. It further has created a space for asking big questions about education; do we want to return to the status quo and business as usual when schools reopen? Might the lockdown period act as a catalyst for education reforms that many have been seeking? And if so, what should we be looking to change?" - Dr Nina Hood

Lockdown was literally looking into an unseen part of the lives of my students. Initially, it was very hard to get them to turn their cameras on and it was hard to hard to get them to engage, I think it was all very strange for the (and me too)! I struggled a bit with the online interactive board, but persevered when I saw how much my students enjoyed working collaboratively. 

Teaching remotely and face-to-face teaching share the same principles i.e. 

• The importance of relationships and developing a class culture based on mutual respect, care, empathy and warmth, and the need to attend to and ensure the emotional wellbeing of each student.
• Establishing a careful sequencing of content to be covered, which builds logically and consistently through a series of well-designed and clearly focused tasks.
• Designing learning activities in keeping with the principles of how we learn so as to avoid cognitive overload and to facilitate an understanding from comprehension, to remembering, to understanding and the engagement with higher-order thinking skills.
• Supporting students to effectively manage their time, establishing routines and habits and establishing clear expectations for what students will be doing
• The need to ensure plenty of opportunities for free play, for time in nature, for creative engagement, and rest