End of Term Reflection

This term has been a really busy term. Probably the most stressful so far. Over the term I have learnt so much about a junior class and feel I have really only brushed the surface - there is just so much to learn.

I spent a lot of time at the beginning of the year setting up my routines and expectations. This has really payed off as I feel my learners know what is expected of them and are working really well.

I have been running my maths in needs based groups and changing these depending on my class needs. This term our focus has been on number knowledge and strategies. After testing my children in a different way - same questions as JAM but in a more informal group manner. I have found the results more accurately reflect what my students can do.

I am continuing to run the Daily 5 programme which I believe works really well for my class and they can do all activities independently. I currently have 7 reading groups which are all going really well with most of my learners moving at a steady pace. I also run the adapted Early Words programme during this time and I do notice a difference in their reading.

After consultation with Lisa from Te Toi Tepu regarding my students writing she brought to my attention the lack of phoneme awareness in the class. So I have made time to teach the children nursery rhymes and each day we spend 5-10 minutes going through the ones we have learnt. This is also helping them in reading as they are learning the words of their rhymes and reading them in their stories.

Writing has been going good. The students are all becoming independent writers and are much more self sufficient which I am really happy about. A lot of what they write about is based on real life experiences as I have found the quality of writing is much better.

My afternoons are spent doing topic, PE, drama, music and maori. I find that I tend to run out of time for some of them so next term I am going to ensure I stick to a strict time regime.

I am looking forward to next term and all the challenges that it brings to me.