Ove the last 9 sessions, I have learnt so much about myself, my teaching style, and how students engage in and learn in reading. My own pedagogy has been validated as well as challenged along the way, all leading to in-depth reflections about why I do what I do.
The best things about my journey have been:
- The access to a large amount of resources, not just to have, but to look at, put our own spin on, borrow, be motivated by.
- Having a mentor – there’s nothing quite like having someone to keep you motivated to achieve all those goals you’ve set yourself! This has been a biggie for me. The homework was also designed to ensure goals were being met, as well as reporting back to our group on how we had done in this space.
- Having access to professionals who are easy to talk to and create a very safe space to make mistakes and ask any questions. They have always run a tight ship in terms of the agenda, again something I’ve appreciated. Each session I have walked away from feeling like I have gained massive amounts of authentic and practical learning/ activities, that will ultimately benefit my learners.
- The opportunities to create and engage in tasks/ reading responses during our time together, rather than have to do it in our own time. This then gave us the time to look at others’ and ask questions, before taking them back to our own learners and using them. I always left each session excited to be trying something different in my class.
- Always, students’ engagement and achievement have been the end goal. While I may not see the full benefits of this just yet, I hope that with time and refinement, my own abilities to teach reading effectively as well as the benefits to my students will grow.
So that just leaves me with… where to now?
I think with the holidays not to far away, it will be the perfect time to pull out all my notes and go over everything that we have done so far. I will make a list of what my priorities need to be… is there something in the student survey that shows no progress? What did I start but perhaps didn’t finish? What is humming along nicely but needs some… (hmmm, so much for vocabulary, I’ve forgotten the word…. solidifying? I’ll just have to come back to it if my memory allows me, ha!) . I like the way my word works programme is coming along, and the changes to my timetable are working well. However, I still need to make sure all my activities are purposeful, and that I’ve timetabled in conference/ feedback time. The share aspect still requires some love, as with our domain change over, blogging did fall to the wayside.
There is so much to consider, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have taken part in this wonderful PD. Next up is the structured literacy at the Y7-8 end of our school, so I hope that all the learning I have done through this programme will fit in with structured literacy expectations.
And look, I got a badge
(but not for that word I’m yet to remember!!)

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