T3 PBS Teacher Inquiry Check-in...

Today I met with all our staff to talk about their teacher inquiries. I asked everyone to share with me where they were at now, what changes had been made to their teaching practice and how I could support their inquiry moving forward into term 4. These were rich conversations and provided a great forum for sharing successes and bouncing ideas. 

The list below reflects the common themes and recurring ideas when teachers discussed the changes made in their teaching practice to help us accelerate shifts in our learners from Year 0 to Year 8: 

• Teachers modelling/gifting language they want students to use in context across curriculum areas
• Increase in time spent to unpack vocabulary
• Timetable changed to cater for late students
• Phonics programmes implemented in all classes
• Changes/adaptations made to the way data is recorded to give a clearer picture of micro shifts
• Drawing connections with visual scaffolds
• Use of mentor texts as exemplars
• Incorporating elements of critical literacy to help strengthen connections
• Shifted locus of control to give students a more agentic experience in the classroom
• Increase in instructional time
• Revisiting learning when connections are not strong through rewindable opportunities and further instruction
• Making connections to prior learning
• Differentiation is needs based and can be supported with upskilling of TAs
• Adapting teaching DLOs to meet the needs of learners
• Planning for talk time
• Making use of collegial expertise

This was a very valuable opportunity as it showed that as a staff, we are all on the same page. No one apportioned 'blame' to students where innovations tried had not been successful. Our conversations instead, focused on changes or adaptations made when these speed bumps appeared.