Linton Camp School Donation - feedback please

We recently received a very kind donation from the community of Linton Camp School in the North Island. This is to support the children and staff as they recover from the affects of the earthquake. We've given the responsibility of deciding how this money will be spent to the Student Leadership Council, who would like your feedback. They have a form which we'd love you to fill in, which is linked off the school web site under the 'Leadership' area. This form will also be posted through our facebook page for quick access. Please give the children some feedback and thoughts to help their decision.

Writing Review

Staff and children are currently reviewing our writing programmes. This involves finding out what is working well and what could be improved. Involving children in this process is an important way to give us as a school feedback on how we are going, for it is the children who have real insight into what works and how we can make learning better. These insights give us real opportunities for improvement. This is an important aspect of our curriculum development which we call Self Review through the use of Student Voice.

Our process involved children from the Student Leadership Council interviewing others using a form, taking a photo survey and videoing children talking about their writing. The photos to the right show that writing happens in a wide variety of ways - it also happens in conjunction with reading and other learning areas. Here are some of the quotes from children about what they like about writing at school:

Explanations and recounts because its lots of fun. Matthew, Y4

You get to do a lot of cool things and uses a lot of imagination. Evie, Y3

When he can write about show and tell. Jacob, Y2

Writing about stars. Sydney, Y2

Writing fiction and using my imagination. Trinity, Y6

I love to do free writing. Hannah, Y6

Getting to make up my own stories. Charlize, Y5

Writing about what he's done. Harrison, Y1

That you get to make up story. Emelia, Y3

It shows all of the hard work. Matthew F, Y4

It's fun and it has so many different types of writing and i just like writing. Shalagh, Y7

Newsletter - Term 2 Week 1

Dear parents/caregivers,

Our latest newsletter is now online for you. In this issue:

• Bullying article
• EnviroSchools - new vege garden
• How we use student images/names/audio and video
• Road safety success
• Learning Conferences - these start next week
• Cross Country - also next week
• Student Leadership Council update
• PTA tea towel fundraiser
• ANZAC speech is online

Have a great mother's day this weekend.

Evidence of learning

The Apple Leadership Summit in Singapore has a number of key themes:

• challenge based learning; 
• developing rich, learner-based environments which leverage technology; 
• the convergence of mobile technologies, content and pedagogy (how we teach); 
• developing and utilising authentic assessment artefacts; 
• a process called 'reverse mentoring' which is a great way to help students demonstrate their learning.

One of the ideas that struck me yesterday was the idea of developing rich artefacts to show learning. This idea was suggested during a workshop with Marco Torres, who is an educator from Los Angeles. Marco challenged us to consider 'What does our top learner look like? What defines them? What are they like and what skills would they have?

Marco believes that teachers should have their own portfolio of learning and that a good principal must be a voracious learner him/herself. I think this applies to all educators - the better learners we are, the more able we are to encourage/develop this in our students. Marco asks some really thought-provoking questions about teacher learnership: What evidence shows me that the adults are learners in our schools? 

For the first time we now have the tools that change according to the need at hand.

Analog vs. Digital - he makes an interesting analogy that the piano is an analog device that you are limited to have to learn in a particular way

-can a piano change according to the need at hand?

-do I want to learn the cello, or do I want to create music that a cello creates?

Is schooling built as this huge analog device that we must learn to use in order for learning to happen?

Learners love to share and learners love feedback. People are loyal to those who provide them with remarkable moments. Learning requires quality feedback and now we can enrich that feedback in exciting ways. Here are some other reflective questions:

• What does our evidence show about us as learners? 
• What does it show about our learning?
• How many remarkable moments have I provided my colleagues or students lately?

Earth Hour - Go Room 2

Check out this awesome movie by Room 2 to promote Earth Hour - I think you are fabulous team!

 

Talented Tamariki

Over the last couple of weeks we've been treated at our kura to a whole range of talented students all showing strength and self-belief to share their talents. This is one of the many examples of our amazing place of learning and the partnership that supports this. Children have shared jokes, dances, songs and musical instruments. Congratulations to the Student Leadership Council, in particular Jayden and Cameron for your leadership. Organising this event has involved our SLC figuring out how to make this happen and they have led it from the start.

 

The children have learned that two important aspects of leadership are how effectively one communicates and how well we organise special events such as these. Well done to our performers, these talented tamariki have shone not only through the skill of their performances, but also in the values and competencies developed as part of taking the risk!

 

Burnham's Got Talent - sign up form

Leadership

"Is leadership something you have or something you gain from experience?"

Recently I had a most interesting conversation with a parent who asked me whether our intention for the Student Leadership Council was to develop leadership or to reward it. My response is that we want to do both. Developing leadership in our tamariki is a theme that is coming through strongly in our curriculum consultation.

Our Student Leadership Council have now met a number of times and are learning how to run a meeting and how to effectively manage their responsibilities in the school. Our intention is to involve students from all levels of the school in this leadership responsibility, which we plan to develop in order to represent student views from every class. 

There are many opportunities in classrooms in which students are given opportunities to lead - which start with developing self-management skills and lead into organising others and eventually leading others. 

In which ways do you think the family or sporting/cultural experiences help develop leadership skills in our young people? 

I invite your thoughts on this post...

What makes great leadership

Today I was approached by the Selwyn Council to give them a decision of who is to receive the cup for outstanding leadership at Burnham School. This led me to wonder what the children think. I spent some time in Room 6 talking about leadership with our Year 7 and 8 students and they had some great ideas.

Please write your ideas about what makes great leadership as comments to this blog post.

Samoan Day Celebrations

Wow - what an amazing group of seniors we've got who organised today's Samoan fundraiser to raise awareness and gain some cash for the Samoan tsunami victims! I enjoyed refereeing some of our talented touch rugby players as a part of this day!

Thank you for a great event team - here are some photos: