Teacher inquiry at PBS 2023...

This year Dianne Fisi'iahi and I are both in-school COL teachers for Panmure Bridge School. What I like about this is that there are two of us leading the implementation of teacher inquiries for 2023. This means neither of us are trying to find time to have the professional discussions needed with our colleagues. By sharing the responsibility we are able to manage this much more effectively than past years. I look after the teachers participating in the RPI program as I am their mentor, and our beginning teachers. Dianne looks after the more experienced teachers. This means we are playing to our strengths and guiding teacher inquiry effectively in our school.

We began our journey by using the presentation I created a few years ago which helps us set up our PBS staff for their inquiries into their own practice. With two sets of eyes we have adapted and tweaked my original slides, making our inquiry process more streamlined. I am also enjoying the fact their are two voices delivering the messages, which means we can support each other in staff meetings. 

We began by supporting our teachers to analyse their data to find the gaps in learner knowledge, then use this to identify a target group and formulate their inquiry questions. All inquiries are visible with links to professional blogs being recorded on a shared doc so that we can learn with and from each other. Our second TAI session was about creating a causal chain to help map out inquiries and stay on track. Both of these TAI staff meetings have been shared with a purpose to encourage buy-in and inform blog posts. 

Dianne and I share our inquiries as exemplars to guide those new to this process. We have also shared the link to the Manaiakalani Kahui Ako page so that teachers can find exemplars of inquiries that align with their year levels. Our next step is to encourage our PBS teachers to tap into the expertise of the Across School COL teachers. 

Teacher Inquiry at PBS...

At Panmure Bridge School we decided as a school and before our students returned in February, that our initial inquiry focus would centre around student engagement by establishing foundations to go forward with formal learning. To support this at a school wide level we have started with syndicate discussions using the questions the COL teachers discussed at our first meeting.

This will then followed up with a blog post that encourages everyone to think about what it is they have been doing to engage their students and keep them engaged in class and online. We learn best we we learn from each other and in our current situation, this will be such a powerful resource to have at the end of the term because each and everyone of us is constantly changing and adapting what we are doing in our rooms.

Thinking ahead to Term 2 we will be using our data to form the basis of our individual teacher inquiries. As a school we will have an overarching focus on Reading, but at teacher and class level this picture will look quite different. Having an idea of the way forward allows teachers to start thinking about the direction they will take. As always having an overarching focus allows for the conversations to flow as we bounce ideas off one another.

We're ALL on the same page...

Over the last few staff meetings we have all shared our teacher inquiries. This capitalises on the learning we have made through our teacher inquiries. To capture a school-wide picture I met with everyone to identify the most significant changes in teacher practice. When asking teachers what practices we want to carry forward a common thread emerged. We all want students to see that learning used in one area can be transferred to another - linked to vocabulary, instruction and strategy. This shared understanding shows our way forward and has determined our school’s focus for 2020.

Here is the link to a summary of the picture captured

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.