We are staying at the beach house for a few days this week so we do not have internet access. It has been quite an adventure going around the towns to try and find wifi. Luckily, we were able to find a McDonalds that has it.
The school we visited today was a decile 8 primary school. It was a very big school with about 800 students. The school is continuing to grow each year so that had some construction going on. Luckily, the school had a lot of land. The Year 6 students were working on a field all day outside doing problem solving activities which they called day camp. Denise, who is a friend of Bryony, organized our day and was our guide around the school.
The first classroom’s teacher was on release so every Wednesday a certain aide teaches the class. The class was doing a unit on community. Today’s lesson was to learn how to compare things. The students had learned about how school’s were 100 years ago. On the inside of the chart, they listed the things that they knew about schools from their previous lesson. Then, they read a story from one their school journals (free journals provided by the Ministry of Education) and filled in the outside of the organizer with the new material they learned. Since she does not teach the class every day, the aide uses a book that has a bunch of teaching practices with activities in it. I have seen the book many times and will definitely be getting it when I get back to the U.S.
The next class we visited was doing a unit on the brain. The class was split into groups and given a text about a specific part of the brain. Then, their groups went outside and did talking frames. Talking frames were a list of a few questions for the students that they had to discuss with their partners. The students were going to present their part of the brain in front of the class during the next class.
We also got to observe another reading recovery lesson. The teacher was doing the same thing that the pervious teacher had done. I can definitely see the effectiveness of the program and why it is such a success. We stopped in quickly to watch the school’s kapa haka group. They hired a Maori man to teach the students. Although they had just started learning it, the students did a great job demonstrating what they knew.
The school was having book week which meant that they had a scholastic book fair going on. One of the teachers in the school had written a children’s book which Dr. Lindsey and Dr. Fernandez bought and got signed. After, we went to the new entrant teacher to talk to her. She told us about the activities that she did with the new students. I saw a lot of similar methods that were used in other schools.
At the end of the day, we talked to Denise and she showed us some of the testing that the students did. It was really interesting. I love the fact that tests in New Zealand are used to access the students to make sure that the teacher know what level they are on. In the U.S. unfortunately, tests are used to grade schools and teachers. There is talk that New Zealand might be switching to this type of system but all of the schools are hoping that that will not happen.
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