Focus Practicum Days

Reflections on the Focus Practicum Days at St Orans

Following a year 9 class

This was a pre visit to the St Orans. It was a great opportunity to meet members of the staff as well as some of the year 9 ākonga. I became more familiar with the school grounds and where the different faculties were. I observed a science, drama, maths, Spanish and social studies class. It made me appreciate how much movement there was between classes and the change in the mental process from class to class. The girls had 5 different learning environments and had a different dynamic in each class. Even sitting with other ākonga depending on the class.

The first class I was part of was a drama class, they had an activity where they sat on the floor and had to answer questions without saying um. I sat on the floor with the ākonga and engaged in the activity. This helped with breaking the ice with a few of the ākonga and the kaiako. In maths and in Spanish there were interactive games to help facilitate the learning. There was a reliever in social studies, was interesting to be on the other side (not an ākonga) with a reliever. I always remember being less engaged when there was a reliever, this was still the case where some ākonga were more distracted.

Year 7 Science Stream Trip

This was a great opportunity to help on a field trip. I met the groups at Belmont Regional Park where I was a supervisor for 1 or 2 groups of 3 girls. They were already allocated into their groups and had been working on the what they were looking for in the stream in classes leading up to the trip. The resources were well organised and into containers to make it easy to track what each group had. Each member of the group was given a responsibility for a piece of equipment to look after. The ākonga were given clear instructions that were easy to follow. The ākonga were taken through the worksheet and how to take the different samples and measurements of the water as a large group before they were spread across the stream in their groups of 3. It was great to see them engage in the practical activity and enjoy being outside away from the classroom environment but applying the skills they had learnt to a real situation. Once the information had been gathered from the stream at Belmont regional park we moved to the stream by Manor park. This stream was on the other side of the main highway. The ākonga were still engaged to collect more data from this second stream they were able to collect all the information quickly as they had confidence from the previous stream. During this trip the ākonga were made aware that some streams in our local area are not healthy. It was easy to engage the ākonga into a conversation about the pollution and the stream health, what can we do to help the streams get healthier.

Once the data had all been collected the ākonga had a fun rolling down the bank and chilling in the sun before heading back to school.

There was a lot of planning for the trip, organising enough supervision for the trip. If kaiako are going on the trip to organise relief for the classes they are away from. Filling in RAMS forms to go through all the risk analysis. Organising the worksheets, forms for the parents to sign or made aware that their child was going on a trip off school grounds. Organising the equipment, make sure each kit was made up with the same equipment. Organising the transport for the ākonga.

The Big Sing

The St Orans Choir went to the Big Sing in Wellington at the Michael Fowler Centre. There were only 12 ākonga that went to the event. They had been practising through the term, had learnt 3 songs that reflected them. A maths kaiako had helped organise the school choir as she loved to sing and was a passion for her at high school. Sharing other skills and passions with the ākonga help to develop opportunities for the ākonga to have a release from school work. It was a fantastic experience to watch the ākonga be part of an event with lots of other Wellington schools sharing their passion for singing. It was a great experience as all the schools supported each other and were respectful of the other performances. There was a great range of genre shared and even bands were playing. Students were playing the piano to accompany the choir and one of the ākonga at St Orans was conducting the choir for one of the songs. This was a great opportunity for the ākonga to be part of an experience that helps them to grow as a person outside of the classroom.

I was shown a world and part of school that I was not part of while I was at school. I am keen to see more extracurricular activities that I have not been part of. Showing interest in the extracurricular activities shows the ākonga interest in them and their passions which help build the relationships which will influence the classroom relationship in a positive way.

Following a year 10 class

I started with an hour PD with a focus on Kaitaikitanga, how to effectively use in the classroom. I then followed a year 10 class around for the day I followed to English, DVC, Maths, French, Science, Social studies. This experience following a class around after I had done my practicum at the school and knew the ākonga as they were a science class I observed and been helping out in science class. It was interesting to see the different behaviour in the different disciplines. I was also more aware of what the kaiako were doing to engage the ākonga and teaching tools they were using.

The first thing that stood out to me was there was a quiz or revision questions in all of the classes. This was a Friday and for the ākonga to be quized in each lesson on the different topics was a lot for them to recall and engage with.

I was taking notes and learning skills that I could use in science. In English I saw how they were being shown how to break down the text/movie. To write out bullet points first to get the key ideas and terms down. It was a great progression of revision of the terms they had learnt about in the week. Quizlet was used as a tool for them to revise the terms, I became aware of the tools Then as a class they were going to practise writing an

Swimming sports-postponed due to level 2 in Wellington

Reflections on Focus days at Heretaunga College

Pre visit

I was able to visit the college and observe my AT teach most of the classes that I will be teaching while on practicum. This was the first time I had been to Heretaunga college so it was good to see the setting and start to find my way around the high school. This allowed me to see what content I will need to cover as well when I started. The classes I was teaching were not just science/biology/chemistry but a more focused class for example zootopia and marine biology. I observed the junior classes were diverse with a wide range of backgrounds and interest around science. This prepared me for writing the goals I wanted to set around classroom management which I need to develop.

There were several other student teachers on site, where at St Orans I was the only one. It was nice to have another science student teacher to talk to. I also observed the science department was a close department who worked well together. The science department and labs were in a wing meaning the labs were all close to each other. The classrooms were set up with a lab at the end of the room and a seated classroom down the other end. The junior classes were full with 30 ākonga in the class, the class was a capacity.

The pre visit was an invaluable experience as it meant I was able to spend two days on site before lockdown happened. This meant I was a lot more comfortable coming back to the school in level 2 starting the face to face learning after level 4/3 online learning with four classes.

School Production

Before I started my practicum I was able to purchase two tickets and watch the school production. I took my 9 year old son along as well, we both throughly enjoyed the show. The amount of work the ākonga had put into the production was amazing. They all put in an huge effort to put together a well crafted and entertaining performance and looked like they were enjoying the show themselves. The school band was playing the music to accompany the performance. It showed me the importance of offering these opportunities to the ākonga to express themselves in an artistic way. This was a great introduction to the school showing me the passion and drive the ākonga had and were allowed to develop in this high school.