The Mid Point
Well, we're half way through and I didn't get anywhere near my goal to reflect on here once a week.
In terms of learning, we're doing OK. Not great - but OK. I hope we are going to be able to do OTJ's on all of our students at the end of term, but that means that all Kaiako need to have a knowledge of not only how to assess reading writing and maths through an inquiry, but also how to plan all of these subjects in. I'm not sure all of them do, and we just haven't had any time to be able to help them.
Behaviour is still a hard thing to work with in Kōrepo, and it's constant roaming. Where if you ask them to go back to class you receive a "fuck off", and a "I'm in the middle of something here". It is taking away from the students at the top, who we really need to approach and work with, who really need to excel if we are going to make this work.
Andy was talking about pulling from the top the other day, and I think it's a great idea in theory. But my concern comes around, can we pull from the top if we are going to be sabotaged by the bottom at the same time?
Thoughts around how to fix this have been:
Take some students off site and give them a live in programme - requires huge staffing
Take some students out of the hapori and give them a more traditional programme - again requires more staffing
Group the students differently through the next Kaupapa, group them by engagement and staff accordingly. So we put the top 30 engaged students in a kaupapa with one teacher, and have smaller ratios right down to the least engaged students with several teachers. This means that we're again putting all our resources into the least engaged learners and leaving those who are keen to learn with the least number of teachers. Though they are more self managing and more capable of doing the work required?
Then it begs the question where do we put our best teachers? At the bottom where the needs are great? Or at the top, where the needs are also great, but different.
It's such a conundrum, and so mind boggling. But the longer we sit here complaining about how little staffing we have, or what we can't do, the less we get done.
I have to also remember that lots of these students have gone through massive trauma in their lives. They are suffering from years of not only whanau neglect, but also community issues, and environmental disasters.
In short, how best to support them? I'm actually not sure.
In terms of learning, we're doing OK. Not great - but OK. I hope we are going to be able to do OTJ's on all of our students at the end of term, but that means that all Kaiako need to have a knowledge of not only how to assess reading writing and maths through an inquiry, but also how to plan all of these subjects in. I'm not sure all of them do, and we just haven't had any time to be able to help them.
Behaviour is still a hard thing to work with in Kōrepo, and it's constant roaming. Where if you ask them to go back to class you receive a "fuck off", and a "I'm in the middle of something here". It is taking away from the students at the top, who we really need to approach and work with, who really need to excel if we are going to make this work.
Andy was talking about pulling from the top the other day, and I think it's a great idea in theory. But my concern comes around, can we pull from the top if we are going to be sabotaged by the bottom at the same time?
Thoughts around how to fix this have been:
Take some students off site and give them a live in programme - requires huge staffing
Take some students out of the hapori and give them a more traditional programme - again requires more staffing
Group the students differently through the next Kaupapa, group them by engagement and staff accordingly. So we put the top 30 engaged students in a kaupapa with one teacher, and have smaller ratios right down to the least engaged students with several teachers. This means that we're again putting all our resources into the least engaged learners and leaving those who are keen to learn with the least number of teachers. Though they are more self managing and more capable of doing the work required?
Then it begs the question where do we put our best teachers? At the bottom where the needs are great? Or at the top, where the needs are also great, but different.
It's such a conundrum, and so mind boggling. But the longer we sit here complaining about how little staffing we have, or what we can't do, the less we get done.
I have to also remember that lots of these students have gone through massive trauma in their lives. They are suffering from years of not only whanau neglect, but also community issues, and environmental disasters.
In short, how best to support them? I'm actually not sure.
Comments
Post a Comment