Content:

We are learning to use Edublogs to reflect on our teaching and get some ideas for class blogging. 1.Describe what you have done in the PD session today. JTY has shared a template for us and our student to use to make a blog. 2. What is a positive for you? Adding Categories and Tags for the post. 3. What can you take with you from today to use with one of your classes? How to add a category that reflects the learning and a Tag. 4. Set a specific goal to achieve in the next 2 weeks. Students to complete a blog, and at the end of the week write a reflection for their learning.

We are learning to use Edublogs to reflect on our teaching and get some ideas for class blogging.

Welcome back to term 3, 2025!  Today’s staff PD session is coming to you from Ōtaki College hosted by Whaea Jess, Blogger Extraordinaire.  She asked us what was a positive part of today’s PD session and for me the best part was the already trialled and student class-tested blog template to help “idiot proof” (I mean support students with their blogging.  This is helpful to teachers learning/relearning and also students who sometimes get boggled down trying to remember all the steps and all the different online tools and their features.

As a teacher,  I love that the template can be adapted to any class or topic and will help students to gain confidence building their digital portfolio. I will definitely be using and adapting the template this term with my junior classes and hopefully some senior ones too.

My first blogging goal will be to get students in class to complete their first post by the end of week 1 – for my 10HUMws (Humanities 10 – “All the World’s a Stage” – Introduction to Shakespeare and his world. I am keen

to see what they will think of a new novel I will be introducing to them this week – an old one but a good one to introduce Shakespeare before we tackle “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Term 4.

 

We are learning to use Edublogs to reflect on our teaching and get some ideas for class blogging.

1. Describe what you have done in the PD session today. Logged into edublogs – created a blog – Yay! 2. What is a positive for you? the wifi was working and creating a blog was straight forward 3. What can you take with you from today to use with one of your classes?  I can find student blogs through the Hapara dashboard 4. Set a specific goal to achieve in the next 2 weeks. To see if there is some way that blogging will be beneficial to students in my subject areas. perhaps trial with an EDS class – getting them to blog about what they are doing.

Redefining Success

Bill Lucas – Rethinking Assessment

Is hugely impressed at the revolution quietly taking place in NZ. A readjustment is needed in how we think about education for young people. “The tail is far too waggy for an ill-fitting dog.”

He sees change as accelerating rapidly, partly because of AI. Our understanding of curriculum and pedagogy hasn’t quite caught up with this, and/or policy makers have not quite caught up with us.

He argued that there are seven things which we could do to improve assessment:

• Going back to the true purpose of assessment (i.e. formative)
• Building school-wide teacher capability

There is a curriculum and assessment underway now in the UK, and Bill is optimistic that there may be changes in the right direction.

Digital learner profile – strength-based, acknowledges that some courses are short courses, project-based inquiry learning, micro credentials – it is being rolled out in schools in Scotland right now. There is also great work happening in South Australia and Victoria.

They are working on a ‘skill builder’ – this looks very similar to the NPDL model – key competencies.

We need to move away from the idea that the only way of constructing a timetable is by subject disciplines.

 

Professor Sandra Milligan – University of Melbourne

She has been working with a wide range of schools who had been working on changing curriculum but who found the metrics were inhibiting them. They have been working on micro-credentialling which is accepted by the universities.

What is success? Curriculum supporting humans to thrive. You need to have a sense of competence. You need a sense of belonging. And finally, you need to have autonomy to act on your own or community purpose.

The old model: school as a place where students go to watch adults work. We need to learner agency, where students have the skill and ability to manage their own learning.

Young people need to really develop the human skills – not compete with AI.

The idea of reporting is profiles of student strengths, based on robust assessments, not on a grade or a score.

 

Sarah Martin – Stonefields School (EdTalks)

What might a mana-enhancing and strength-based assessment system look like? We set out to measure what we valued. e.g. our kotahi whanau tool, which specifically measures whanau engagement.

We also want to know how challenged and engaged our learners are – using a sliding scale to ask students about both. We also want to know if our design for learning is increasing student agency. They also use surveys, with all the metrics feeding into a dashboard. This year that dream has materialised.

Building a culture of improvement and encouraging teachers to be deeply reflective in their practice.

We need to reunite assessment with teaching and learning – not make it some separate event. Using AI for teacher efficiency.

What do you value in your context? How do you measure what you value? Is it underpinned by the premise ‘do no harm’?

 

In our table discussion on this section, we talked about the need for system-wide acceptance of new ways of assessing, and also the need for student agency in self-assessment and in building a portfolio of evidence of their skills.

 

Student Perspectives

Students from Stonefields, ASHS, Hobsonville Point

This was an amazing panel of young people from both primary and secondary schools. They were articulate and thoughtful, and we really appreciated them coming out in their school holidays to speak to us!

1. School Experience & Engagement

• Students highlighted the importance of social interaction, collaboration, and mature learning environments.
• Fun and engaging school experiences were associated with passionate and supportive teachers.
• 100-minute periods were preferred by some students as they allowed deeper learning compared to shorter class periods.
• Impact projects and presentations allowed students to express themselves, explore culture, and work collaboratively on community-related issues.
• Students valued supportive teachers who were approachable and were interested in their well-being beyond academic work.

2. Support Structures in School

• Students described “student classes” and teacher-student relationships that provide ongoing support.
• Open communication with teachers helped students address learning challenges and succeed academically.
• Individual feedback on portfolio-based subjects was appreciated.

3. Characteristics of a Good Teacher

• Interest in student well-being, enthusiasm, passion for subjects, approachability, trust, and the ability to make learning engaging.
• Teachers who helped build confidence, provided reassurance when students made mistakes, and explained concepts clearly were preferred.
• Personal relationships that extended beyond academics were highly valued.

4. Preparation for the Future

• Schools emphasized collaboration, self-management, and adaptability.
• Flexibility in subject choices allowed students to pursue areas of personal interest and career goals.
• “Adulting sessions” helped prepare students for life skills.
• Leadership roles within schools contributed to skill development.
• Students recognized the importance of being prepared for an unpredictable future.

5. Hopes for the Future

• Students desired a sustainable, green world with preserved habitats and cleaner environments.
• A world characterized by fairness, kindness, and peace was a common vision.
• They hoped for a society focused more on people than money, with greater environmental awareness and social justice.
• Peace and avoidance of war were of significant concern.

6. Concerns and Worries About the Future

• Worries about AI and technology impacting job security, possibly making some careers obsolete.
• Concern about climate change effects, endangered species, and environmental degradation.
• Fears of global conflicts or wars affecting New Zealand and the world.
• Social challenges including bullying and the need for improved mental and emotional support.
• The impact of insufficient political engagement among peers and limited awareness of how young people can effect change.

7. Communication and Family Involvement

• Use of apps and online platforms like Hero allowed parents to monitor student progress.
• Student-led conferences and in-school events helped bridge communication between students, teachers, and families.
• Some students found it easier to share experiences with parents or teachers when there was mutual trust and understanding.
• Others felt less comfortable sharing personal or academic details due to differences in interests or fear of judgment.

8. Educational Approaches and Skills Development

• Students agreed that modern education should focus more on broader, transferable skills beyond traditional academic subjects.
• Critical thinking, collaboration, empathy, entrepreneurship, and other contemporary skills were recognized as important.
• Impact projects and flexible subject choices supported personal growth and skill development.
• Some students felt their schools provided good opportunities for these skills, while acknowledging room for improvement.
• Free time and breaks during school days were seen as valuable for personal development and well-being.

Suggestions & Improvement Ideas

• Increase physical education classes with more structured activities like dodgeball.
• Reduce social pressures such as bullying related to social media abstinence.
• Start teaching social skills and environmental responsibility from a younger age.
• Improve student engagement in political and social issues by educating on how individuals can make a difference.
• Greater teacher involvement in individual student progress across all subjects.
• More practical and relatable learning about community and world issues.

 

Leading for Transformation

Martin Westwell – CE, South Australia Dept. Ed

The first thing is to really listen to people – have a shared aspiration and understand what you have to work with. Public Education forums: what we heard was student wanted to be more hands on, have more creativity, greater agency, etc.

Know your capabilities – your capacity for change.

Martin emphasized the importance of making choices in educational strategy and resisting rhetoric to focus on purposeful action. He shared insights on listening to stakeholders (students, teachers, families) to understand their aspirations and influence educational practices. Engaged over 1,000 students and communities in diverse forums.

Student voice and community evidence is crucial in influencing teachers and educational policy over traditional political and bureaucratic influences. Martin advocated for leadership that balances being tight on purpose yet flexible in execution, promoting shared accountability, professional responsibility, and empowerment across the system.

He addressed inclusion by discussing collaborations with Indigenous communities, with agreements to ensure cultural respect and mutual influence.

We need to focus on improving learning rather than just data, supporting equity, excellence, and wellbeing as interconnected goals. Martin stressed the role of professional identity and trust in educational leadership and the necessity for coherence across the system.

 

Dr George Philhower – Superintendent, Eastern Hancock Schools, Indiana

As change leaders, we can hear the music, but the people we are leading can only hear the tapping.

Beliefs, practices, teachers, structures & schools. If I want teachers to change their practice on a permanent basis, then I have to shift their beliefs. I need to give them some hints as to what tune is in my head that I am tapping to.

Joy – the idea that we have to be intentionally making it a place that students want to be. We try to embed magical moments for kids as often as we can.

Three promises: connection – know the kids; we try to create an environment that feels like home – safe; growth ; success – we want kids to be excited about what happens after graduation.

Collaborating with other schools that are using a similar approach.

Advocated for a culture of joy as a foundational aspect of transformational change. Examples include interactive celebrations such as birthday parties for every student and music/dance rituals to create a lively, engaging school environment.

Introduced the concept of a “four-chord song” to symbolize a simple yet powerful set of core values that guide the district:

• Joy – intentionally foster joy daily in schools.
• Connection – knowing students personally, including their strengths and aspirations.
• Growth – ensuring students learn new and memorable things every day.
• Success – preparing students for life after graduation beyond academic proficiency.

Shared practice innovations such as hiring celebrations, therapy dogs in schools, and having a Joy Integration Specialist to support teachers in embedding joy into lessons.

Discussed launching a network of publicly funded micro-schools allowing innovative, flexible education models featuring multi-age classrooms and self-paced learning, a first in Indiana.

Emphasized the importance of shifting from positional leadership to belief-driven leadership for lasting transformational change.

 

Dale Bailey – Springboard Trust

We believe in strategic leadership at the school level and we are optimistic about the possibilities. They have worked with over 800 schools across the country.

Key points for transforming:

• Curiosity: avoid group think, look for the evidence, form an hypothesis, not an opinion. Ask what we are missing, what do we need to validate.
• Bring the outside in: have wide conversations across boundaries. Ask who is silent, who is absent in our conversation. Build new coalitions, seek out student voice.
• Simplify the goals: less is more, focus on the most important, where we can make a difference. Ask what will be the keys that will unlock more positive change.
• Evidence for progress: measure with absolute integrity what you want to shift. Discuss and challenge the evidence, share the progress.

Dale highlighted the challenges and hopes of New Zealand’s education system, focusing on the need for curiosity, bringing external perspectives into education, and simplifying goals. He emphasized the moral imperative for educational transformation and the importance of measuring progress with integrity, and noted the influence of diverse volunteers in education leadership, helping schools learn from other sectors.

Advocated for clear, purpose-driven leadership backed by strong values and community-agreed principles. Discussed the importance of manageable goals and evidence-based progress measurement, including use of modern data visualization. Reinforced that performative politics have limits and authentic leadership requires deep community engagement and shared responsibility.

 

Maurie Abraham – former Principal, Hobsonville Point Secondary School – How might we lead?

We need to ‘know our why’:

• Why? – core values and beliefs e.g. student at the centre
• How? – principles, guidelines for action e.g. look for ways to align learning to students’ interests and needs
• What? – practices

Maurie talked about the journey of Hobsonville Point High School.

Vision: To create a stimulating, inclusive learning environment which empowers learners to contribute confidently and responsibly in our changing world.

They wanted to ensure two pathways of Excellence, both Academic and Personal – they came up with the ‘Hobsonville Habits’.

Principles: Innovate through personalised learning, engage through powerful partnerships; inspire through deep challenge and inquiry.

At Hobsonville Point they transformed school assessment and recognition by focusing on values such as inquiry, collaboration, innovation, and connection rather than solely academic results. They emphasized engagement through authentic partnerships and inquiry-based learning, shifting away from traditional ‘credit chasing’.

Maurie highlighted the creation of a school culture where personal excellence is publicly recognized, empowering all students regardless of academic standing.

 

Where to from here? Panel Session: Anthony Mackay, Virgel Hammonds, Jeff Wetzler

1. Tony Mackay: Four Big Shifts for Education Transformation

• Establish a shared, purpose-driven system focusing on education for human flourishing that integrates care for self, others, the planet, economic prosperity, social cohesion, and wellbeing.
• Broaden the concept of learning by redefining success, expanding recognition of various forms of learning, and integrating cognitive, social, and emotional learning for holistic human development.
• Redesign the education profession and learning environment by collaborating with allied professionals and supporting formal, non-formal, and informal learning in diverse settings.
• Reimagine pathways and governance particularly focusing on the senior years of secondary education to create multiple, career-connected pathways aligned to workforce needs and a governance model closely attuned to learning rather than traditional government structures.
• Emphasized the importance of place-based learning that respects and embraces contextual diversity.

2. Virgel Hammonds: Collaboration, Community-Driven Innovation, and Inclusion

• Highlighted the need for collaboration and convening innovators, educators, researchers, policymakers, community members, and learners to redesign learning systems.
• Announced the merger of Aurora Institute with the Learning Accelerator, aiming to strengthen and scale innovation through unified leadership and distributed models.
• Stressed the importance of including young people, families, communities, and workforce partners in co-designing learning experiences.
• Encouraged reimagining credit and credential systems to include alternative competencies relevant to workforce and community needs.
• Advocated for hyper-inclusive, learner-centered approaches that use diverse data and metrics to ensure equitable outcomes.
• Reinforced that policy and regulation must be informed by actual practices on the ground and invites stakeholders to experience what transformed learning looks like.

3. Jeff Wetzler: Strength-Based Approaches, Learner Experiences, and Leadership

“There’s nothing wrong with us that can’t be fixed by what’s right with us.” – Bill Clinton

• Advocated for building on existing strengths and assets in schools and communities.
• Emphasized centering on learner experiences as an essential measure, beyond just learning outcomes. Suggested actively listening to and engaging young people to gain valuable insights.
• Promoted community-based design, meaning education cannot evolve in isolation but needs partnerships across schools, healthcare, housing, transportation, and more.
• Encouraged looking at existing successful models nationally and globally to accelerate transformation.
• Highlighted the critical role of learner-centered leadership that prioritizes what is best for learners, even if it means dismantling legacy systems.

 

Table Discussion

The aim: every learner thriving and a system that supports them. We need to make sure it is not just a micro-movement.

Don’t disregard the curriculum work which was done before the current government. Have we clearly identified what from the current structures we are going to leave behind.

Where are the businesses, the arts community, the other voices at this conference?

Within the constraints of the changed curriculum, there is still capacity for us as educators to make the learning relevant and appropriate.

We begin with the learner at the centre. We need a visioning process for future learning – is it a re-evolution, or a revolution? It needs to include the range of voices, including iwi, all akonga, teachers, leaders, whanau, wider community, health providers, social workers, businesses.

Go to listen. Find the people who are interested, and invite them to be part of the process.

We need a starting point – e.g. the EdRising draft. An iterative process in which we share models and possibilities and get feedback. Use scenarios to help people visualise the possibilities.

 

Derek Wenmoth – Closing Remarks

Overview

The gathering centered on visionary discussions about the future of education, focusing on aligning purpose and vision across organizations, the role of policy, systemic leadership, and transformative approaches to schooling. Various speakers contributed insights into collaboration, educational frameworks, policy influence, and the importance of indigenous perspectives in education reform.

Key Themes and Discussions

1. Aligning Purpose and Vision

• Emphasis on collaboration among organizations to align purpose and vision.
• Sharing of ideas around youth ambition and educational engagement.
• Highlighted the importance of a shared framework for interviews and data collection to underpin educational work.

2. Policy and Systemic Leadership

• Participants highlighted the necessity of being agents of policy development rather than merely advocates or complainers.
• Schools and educators are positioned as leaders within the education system.
• Understanding the system’s elements (learner, qualifications framework, organizational delivery, learning culture, curriculum) is crucial for effective leadership.
• Discussions of current educational policies, including concerns about the Education and Training Amendment Act and its implications.

3. Educational Ecosystem and Community Involvement

• Recognition that learning happens both inside and outside school settings (formal, semi-formal learning).
• Community and business involvement is essential for enriching education and contributing to society.
• Examples provided about community protests and business partnership roles.

4. Horizon-Free Schools and Educational Transformation

• Identification of three horizons in education:
  • Horizon One: Current post-industrial school model with traditional classes, timetables, and subjects.
  • Horizon Two: Disruptive innovations focusing on new pedagogies, open spaces, and competencies, which face implementation challenges.
  • Horizon Three: Visionary future state where transformative, ecosystem-oriented schools exist.
• Emphasis on preserving valuable aspects from existing systems while embracing innovation.
• The concept of “sigmoid carbide” to sustain new innovations and move education forward.
• The meeting called for collective action to design and implement horizon-free schools.

5. Collaboration and Community Building

• Proposal to build a large, collaborative network, possibly including thousands of participants from various sectors.
• Plans for ongoing online discussions and convenings (monthly or every five weeks).
• Identification of experts and future leaders who could contribute to ongoing efforts, e.g., an Australian principal with a PhD in educational futures involved with OECD.
• Engagement with organizations such as ATC and AEC for collaborative synergy.
• Invitation extended to participants to join and contribute actively.

6. Engagement and Next Steps

• Participants encouraged to reflect on their actions moving forward through a provided personal challenge sheet.
• Collection of feedback and ongoing dialogue through digital platforms.
• The formation of a think tank and vision team to facilitate future work.
• Possibility of large-scale conferences and gatherings to sustain momentum.
• Commitment to follow up with participants and expand the network.

Hana O’Regan

• Mihi to Derek for his vision in drawing us all together.
• strong emphasis on the importance of indigenous knowledge and perspectives.
• A call to develop educational solutions rooted in the local context of Aotearoa New Zealand.
• Embracing Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) as central to creating a uniquely Aotearoa education system.
• Encouragement to create a system “more like ourselves” rather than assimilating colonizer practices.

Introduction – Derek Wenmoth – Future Makers

Derek talked about advancing the transformation of education systems, particularly within New Zealand, through a collaborative, community-driven approach. He emphasised the importance of building a diverse coalition of educators, policymakers, innovators, and business leaders dedicated to redesigning learning systems to meet the needs of a rapidly changing global society.

He talked about the concept of “imaginative activism,” a futures-focused group activity designed to harness collective passion across education stakeholders in NZ. The initiative aims to build a network involving government, business, and education sectors to foster community-led transformation. He encouraged participants to engage across different professional boundaries to stimulate innovative thinking at the intersections (“boundary spaces”) between policy, classroom practice, and community. The hope is that we will build a movement, not a moment.

The Global Picture – Tony Mackay

Tony Mackay co-founded the Global Education Leaders Program with Valerie Hannon. Tony continued the discussion of seeing this conference as a movement-building exercise, emphasizing long-term transformation rather than a transient initiative.

Tony was optimistic about the global context for educati0nal change. He said that there has been significant global development in education transformation, illustrated by:

• The 2022 UN General Assembly Education Summit focused on transforming education as part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
• Collaboration among UNESCO, UNICEF, OECD, Google, and other global actors working on future workforce and learning systems.
• Shift from traditional metrics to more holistic ones, such as the “happiness index” for measuring education success.
• Multiple international coalitions and knowledge exchanges involving leading education systems and organizations.

Tony said that despite ongoing challenges and the enduring influence of dominant, traditional education systems, we are making serious progress. He stressed that often that progress is in parallel to the continuation of the dominant system. But, according to Tony, that dominant system is now starting to shift in many of our jurisdictions. He acknowledged that it’s more difficult in some countries than others, and that there’s always the question about whether or not change in government and change in policy pushes us back, that the so-called gravitational pull, or if you like, the system that we have at the moment attempts to appropriate new developments.

We need to recognise that change is often evolutionary rather than revolutionary, requiring the alignment of purpose, values, structures, and practices. The transformation involves:

• Clear purpose alignment around human development and learning.
• Sharing power and building inclusive relationships.
• Directing resources strategically to enable innovation.

Core principles for transformation include a renewed narrative centering on human development, caring for self, others, and the planet, as well as a strong commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, which must underpin all efforts. Education should embrace a holistic, learner-centered approach. The movement must push against any forces undermining these principles.

Leading for equity and agency

Professor Rhonda Broussard – Beloved Community

Rhonda said that she really appreciate the way equity and agency had been combined for this topic. She said that equity can feel vast sometimes. It can feel systemic and out of our control, whereas agency can be an accessible way to promote equity.

In relation to student agency, Rhonda said that some important questions are:

• Who has their questions answered?
• Who has the right to inquiry-based learning?
• Who has their voice honoured in policy decisions?

We need to build the bridge from agency to power. She talked about how schools with the highest number of minority students are often the same schools which have more direct instruction and less inquiry learning. Students with literacy challenges are often not allowed to participate in inquiry programmes.

The students engaging on inquiries are asked, what’s the right you want to fight for at the moment? Who has the power? Whose mind do you need to change? How can you reach them? The educators would then help them work out how to build their own advocacy campaigns. They might be classroom or school issues, eg. uniform, food, lockers, etc. Or they might be issues at home, their faith community, or the wider community. Rhonda described initiatives such as:

• Empowering 8-year-olds to advocate for school-related rights (example: successful campaign for lockers).
• ‘Community Launch’ pilot project in Tennessee empowering community members to assess and endorse charter schools.
• Participatory Action Research Academy where young people research issues (e.g., social media and mental health) and advocate for school policy changes.

Rhonda concluded by reinterating that equity and agency are interconnected and actionable at various levels—from classroom to policy. Anyone in education can start fostering agency immediately.

Maxine Graham – Mātauranga Iwi Leaders’ Group

National iwi chairs forum – 84 iwi nationwide. Under this there are five pou, she is part of the social services arm. Looking a Māori-led, iwi-led solutions to social issues. Despite 50 years of kohanga reo and immersion schools, 95% of Māori youth are still in mainstream education. While much has been achieved in immersion education, much remains to achieve. Their kaupapa is that whanau should be informed to be able to make choices for their children. Building whanau confidence and capability to make those choices.

They have a five-year plan for their strategic priorities. They have just launched a campaign to encourage whanau to get involved in the education system.

 

Dr Hana O’Regan – Kai Tahu – Leading for Equity and Agency in Education

Feels like she has spent decades fighting against the education system, addressing systemic racism. The idea of fighting from within the system is new. She is excited that it is a generational shift. Inclusivity and agency must include the culture of the indigenous people.

Empowering the next generation: how do we see the current norms and rethink them, so we will not be constrained by them? How do we free ourselves up to question what we know?  We need to understand our current circumstance and how we got here, to be able to address the foundational elements to shift future outcomes.

Coloniality noun: the set of attitudes, values, ways of knowing, and power structures upheld as normative by western colonising societies and serving to rationalise and perpetuate western dominance.

• coloniality of power: hierarchical classification of diverse groups by race to justify their exploitation
• coloniality of knowledge: legitimation of Eurocentric knowledge as the only valid one; and the negation of other knowledge systems
• coloniality of being: Inferiorisation of oppressed groups. Prejudices, discrimination and violence because of ethnic or gender or other origins.

Hana highlighted how the NZ education system was established to privilege Pakeha and marginalize Māori and minority cultures, including through curriculum biases. She warned against the “corruption” of equity terminology, where calls for “equal rights” undermine targeted equity efforts meant to address historic and systemic injustices. We need to reclaim the terminology.

We need to be intentional about what we leave behind, we need to understand the past and current situation to knowingly choose what to bring forward into any future system.

Consciousness and Conscience

If we truly want to support agentic learning, if we truly want to support equity, we need to know our situation, we need to develop a cultural consciousness as a basis for a cultural conscience, we need to develop equity consciousness as a basis for an equity conscience.

We need to intentionally create the conditions that allow for equity, and understand that it is an intergenerational journey. Hana ended on a cautiously optimistic note, sharing a personal story about the difficulty in protecting her Māori son from systemic racism in education but expressing hope for future generations through collective effort.

Finally, Hana encouraged bravery to abandon outdated and inequitable structures and embrace inclusive, culturally diverse knowledge and success definitions.

Community-Led Transformation

Tony Monfiletto – Instituto dei Puente

Work in New Mexico around Capstone Projects. Tony was originally a policy analyst in the finance area of the state education system. The state has some of the most inequitable outcomes in the country, despite the funding system being 100% equalised. Tony concluded funding was not theproblem, then went teaching and founded Future Focused Education.

If students are affected by policies, then they should have a role in creating them. They went out to communities to get student voice about what education is like for them and what they want for the future of their education.

Students said that they need purpose and meaning in their learning, adults who will not give up on them, and mentorship to become successful adults. Their views lead to four policy proposals:

• Sustainable funding for paid internships
• Teen mental health first aid – trained peer support in schools
• Interdisciplinary community-based Capstone Projects
• Modernising Graduation Requirements – graduate profiles, new pathways to graduation

Jeff Wetzler – Transcend Education

Jeff is coauthor of the book Extraordinary Learning for All and the co-founder of Transcend. He urged thinking about education as what students want but also what the community needs. We think about engaging experiences and effective learning. How do we move from the industrial model of education to extraordinary learning experiences for all students? How do we make this shift? In the US, they have seen several different suggested solutions not work out – whether top down or bottom up change. So they are trying a third way, which they call community-based design. This is an iterative process.

Young people and families and educators and administrators and experts and community leaders are coming together to change the way we do school. Are coming together to ask questions like, what do we want of our graduates? Ask the kinds of questions that Tony was talking about earlier. Ask the kinds of questions like, what kinds of experiences do we want to have? What kinds of models are we inspired by?

Design of the learning environment is a key component, and another is the rich and deep community conditions. The journey needs to be tailored to the conditions and can go at the pace that the conditions allow. When the conditions are right to allow the desired design, then the extraordinary learning experiences will occur. They hold experiences, engaging experiences, as equally important to the outcomes. Both because experiences are what drive outcomes, but also because they see experiences as an end in and of themselves, the kinds of experiences that young people have in school.

They also measure the learning experiences as well as the learning outcome, through the voices of young people, through psychometrically validated student voice surveys. While there are correlations to outcomes, the school communities they work with also look at experiences before, during, and after design processes to see, are we moving relevance? Are we moving a sense of agency? Are we moving a sense of community? Are we moving a sense of high expectations?

Jeff concluded by saying that we need more models and design supports – giving communities starting points that they can begin from in designing their own learning system. We need evidence and insights to show that investing in this will result in better opportunities for young people. And then we need a conducive ecosystem – state leaders and national leaders who are talking about this.

 

Dr Pam O’Connell – Education researcher

Pam shared the following insights:

• Place matters – mana whenua is involved, it is inter-generational. Community-led transformation will have both educators and mana whenua acting together.
• Relationships matter – a third space is a treaty relationship
• Structure matters – you need to be at the governance level, but also every level.
• Narratives matter – what’s in your head matters.
• Shared language matters – understanding the terminology and the journey/whakapapa, then having the community set their goal in their own terms.
• Coherence matters – students should expect the same, in terms of the education they receive.

The bottom line comes in answer to the question: Kei te pehea aku mokopuna?

 

Barbara Aa’alatoa – Former Principal & Educational Council Chairperson

Long-term partnership between school and community to define learning priorities. Aligning curriculum with community calendars and cultural events. Views curriculum as a powerful “weapon” to engage students in meaningful learning. Emphasizes inquiry-based and timely projects every 10 weeks linked to community issues.

Students produce tangible outputs such as art, documentaries, events that showcase learning. Strong focus on student agency and sharing information openly with whānau (families).

Encourages professionals to deepen knowledge and resist superficial “silver bullet” solutions. Stresses the power educators have in designing and implementing meaningful curriculum. Commitment to demanding, authentic processes to ensure real transformation, not just surface-level change.

 

Overall, this section emphasized moving beyond ideology or sector-led reforms to true community-led educational transformation. This recognises the multiplicity of communities and the necessity of culturally grounded, place-based approaches. The critical role of policy ecosystems that support innovative practices rather than impose rigid, one-size-fits-all rules.

Optimism was considered essential alongside deep professionalism and shared accountability to support sustainable change.

Digital Futures

Ian Zhu – SchoolJoy

SchoolJoy is not here to present a solution but maybe to see some possibilities.  How can we leverage AI to transform education? We don’t want substitution, we want to move through augmentation to transformation. It doesn’t start with the technology, it starts with the pedagogy and then the possibilities that AI can open up.

Ian highlighted the emergence of voice AI and AI agents capable of real-time conversational interactions tailored for education. He demonstrated an AI Ethics Debate simulation to explore ethical questions around AI use, particularly voice AI.

Privacy, security, and strict guardrails in AI are essential to prevent misuse, protect student data, and ensure equity. Ian shared real-world AI use cases including AI tutors, companions for teachers, and students practicing communication skills through AI. He encouraged educators to conceptualize AI as a collaborative tool rather than a solution, promoting innovation while safeguarding values.

 

Michael Barbour – Professor at Touro University, California – Reimagining the Educational Ecosystems

There is a long history of distance learning in NZ. Traditional/Connected/Networked. If we are trying to create a more networked environment, we still encounter a lot of the traditional models and language. We are still talking about schools, classes, entities which prevent us from imagining what education could look like.

An ideal educational ecosystem could include:

• Student Agency and Choice
• Cohesion and Coordination
• Equity and Inclusion
• Innovation and Future Focus

They felt they were stuck in visions of what schooling looked like, rather than what education looked like. If you applied a medical model, which has the patient at the centre, what would education look like? It would enable the student to be the focus of the planning and the programme, and the focus of the funding. The role of the teacher would be to interact with the student to find out what they need to know and what they want to get out of their education. Then they need to manage and arrange the learning for that student. Finally, they may be responsible for some direct teacher. But the role of the teacher becomes quite different and the role of the student becomes different.

 

Te Rina Leonard – Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu

Te Kura has changed a lot. They had a roll of 30,000 last year. One third are full-time akonga, referred by MoE. Another third are young adults 16-19, and the final third are dual enrolments, accessing subjects not available at their schools. Over half of the teaching team are now across the motu, rather than all in Wellington. They have 17 regional offices and around 1000 kaimahi, with 150-200 huinga ako – learning advisory locations – where they can meet with learners.

What balance of virtual and in-person learning creates the most resilient education system for all learners, and how might this vary across different communities and contexts?

• Learner-centred design – not bound by timetable and rules, transport, etc.
• Personalised learning and ākonga agency
• Flexible and inclusive
• Equity and inclusion
• Leaving School to learn – learning beyond the school walls (Big Picture philosophy)
• Effective teaching and support
• Holistic Wellbeing and Belonging
• Community and Context
• System-level enablers – policy and infrastructure – advocating for connectivity and devices.

What would happen if we measured belonging before achievement? How would we design an education system for ourselves as five-year-olds? Are we teaching content or growing people?

 

Sandy Brown – N4L – Digital Connectivity

Sandy provided insights on the national technology infrastructure supporting education in New Zealand. He described the N4L network, which handles 25% of the country’s daytime internet traffic, serving every school. Sandy discussed cybersecurity, emphasizing the scale of threats blocked yearly and the importance of privacy safeguards.

He highlighted the significant costs associated with powerful AI queries and infrastructure demands, including energy and carbon footprint considerations, showing how the power demands of generative AI are huge in comparison to a google search.

Sandy discussed challenges of procuring and licensing AI technology for equitable system-wide access. He encouraged thinking about future system organization to maintain scale, cost-efficiency, equity, and agency. Finally, he raised questions on how education systems can balance centralized resources and community engagement in a digitally enabled future.

 

Overall, in this session, some of the key ideas were:

• Equity and Access: Ensuring technology, connectivity, and resources are universally available regardless of location or socio-economic status.
• Student Agency: Placing learners at the center of education, allowing them to direct their learning pathways tailored to interests and needs.
• Teacher Roles: Moving from traditional content deliverers to facilitators, coordinators, and mentors in a flexible, multi-modal learning environment.
• Privacy and Security: Maintaining rigorous protection of student data, especially with AI integration.
• Mindset Change: Shifting from traditional schooling models and language to new paradigms that embrace innovation, flexibility, and personalization.
• Infrastructure and Sustainability: Building robust, scalable digital infrastructure while managing costs and environmental impact.
• Ethical Use of AI: Balancing AI’s opportunities with risks of misuse such as misinformation and loss of trust.

 

Workshop 5: From Sylvie to Swifty – Karl Lee, Glenfield College

Karl runs this unit as a connections unit at Level 3, but he thinks it could also work at Level 2. He told us a bit about Glenfield College: a few years ago it was 405 students, but it is now up to 750 ish. Very diverse, 30% Filipino, with probably over 50% ESOL students and many 1st or 2nd generation immigrant families.

The idea for the course came from a post on Subreddit where someone said they were doing their PhD thesis on Taylor Swift as a confessionalist poet. For Karl’s unit he starts with background on 1950s/1960s USA, then teaches some close reading techniques, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton then into Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar.

He uses the background part of the unit as preparation for the students going to university, so they practice note-taking during ‘lectures’, doing group presentations, etc. The unit was 7 weeks x 4 lessons a week.

Hulk Smash! by Greg Santos – while this is a poem probably more at a Year 9 level, Karl sees it as a great poem for teaching the close reading techniques.

We read and unpicked Anne Sexton’s poem Her Kind, which was really amazing. Karl got us to do this in a group analysis and then share, which was really good, like an adaptation of think/pair/share.

Once they get onto Swift, they do a task where they have to choose 3 songs about relationships: one where they are thinking of leaving the relationship, one where they have left but can’t let go, one where they move on.

The students are encouraged to make connections around questioning conformity, e.g. with societal expectations and gender roles.

Kendrick Lamar – similar issues as with the confessionalists and Swift, where they are writing and you aren’t sure if it is a character speaking, or the author, or some persona in between. With Lamar, he is critiquing society from the point of view of race, rather than gender.

I really enjoyed this workshop and can see how I can use some of the approaches in my Y11 unit this coming semester, where the students will be looking at the language of love poetry.

 

Workshop 5: Steph Matuku – Insights into Migration

I wasn’t able to get into Steph’s workshop in the morning, which in fact, turned out not to be a bad thing, as it meant I went to the ‘Sylvie to Swifty’ workshop, which I enjoyed. However, Steph kindly allowed me to leave my phone in the room to record her workshop. I listened to it when I got home, and here are some notes from the recording:

Steph introduced her book “Migration,” published by Huia Publishers and recognised as a New Zealand Book Club Award winner and finalist in other awards. Steph described it as indigenous speculative fiction rooted in a Māori worldview. The narrative setting is a far-future world where descendants of enslaved peoples create a new society on a distant planet, blending cultural heritage and futuristic elements, centered around a boarding military school. Themes include migration, colonisation, grief, loss, and friendship.

Steph gave an explanation of societal organisation on the fictional planet Aowhetū, structured around Ngāti (communities) ranked by wealth and economic specialisation, political and military forums, and their roles in the story’s character backgrounds.

Character details: Farah, from an upper-ranked Ngāti facing familial and societal pressures; Lase, from a lower Ngāti with motivations tied to family and financial survival; their initial antagonism sets up the narrative conflict.

Details about the school environment: pairing of combatants (fighters) and intuitives (future seers), their training, competitions, and school hierarchy reflecting martial culture.

Themes around time, history repeating, and cultural perspectives on the future were explored, including Māori views on time and their historical experiences shaping societal behaviours. She included theological elements and the development of indigenous gods based on foundational characters aligning with Māori and classical pantheons. World building was extensive, using workshops and maps created with tools such as Inkarnate to visualize and structure the story’s setting.

The narrative structure progresses from the prologue (escape from enslaved past) to the present story (three thousand years later), with conflict escalation leading to alien invasion and the protagonists’ roles in the resistance.

Discussion of writing approaches—“pantsing” (discovery writing) versus “plotting” (outlining)—and the author’s personal evolution toward outlining influenced by TV writing experience. Tools for writing included Milanote for visual organization and Scrivener for drafting and rearrangement, highlighting software preferences and the importance of choosing what works for the writer – even if it is pen and paper.

Insight into the drafting process emphasising multiple revisions focused on plotting, character development, dialogue, and formatting per industry standards. Steph said we should tell our students that multiple drafts are needed, it doesn’t just happen.

Reception of “Migration” emphasised its groundedness in Te Ao Māori culture, realistic portrayal of military and social tensions, and feedback from students wanting more romantic elements.

Steph read two sections from the book, one from the Prologue and one from the time at the wānanga. The readings from the book demonstrated the narrative tone, school routines, character interactions, and the visceral experience of interlinking mental and physical combat training.

Steph stressed persistence in writing, mentioning multiple drafts and adaptation of stories (e.g., turning a film script into a novel) as natural parts of the process.

In her experience with mentoring emerging writers, she highlights the importance of understanding one’s story and writing style, as well as the non-linear progression of draft development.

 

Keynote 5: Steph Matuku

Steph sees three reasons why kids aren’t reading as much:

• it’s hard and they didn’t practice it while they were little
• their concentration spans are too short
• they haven’t found the right book yet

Teaching children NZ literature shows them that they are worthy of being written about. As a child, she found few books aimed at NZ children, zero books with a Māori girl like herself as the protagonist. Seeing themselves in books might inspire young people to write their own stories too. She writes SF and Fantasy grounded in the Māori world view and she feels that this genre is really taking off at present. She said that part of the reason she prefers writing speculative fiction is that she hates research! At the moment she is writing a book set in the whaling days and is not really enjoying the research process.

She thinks that speculative fiction is a safe way to explore big questions about things Māori. It gives you the opportunity to ask, ‘What if?’ These themes, like the loss of land, culture, identity, language, are not specific to Māori but are common to most indigenous colonised peoples.

She finds picture books really hard to write. They are difficult, they are about craft. She encouraged us to use picture books with our students. Steph read us her picture book The Eight Gifts of Te Wheke, which was great.

 

 

The first version Steph wrote of Falling into Rarohenga had the adult as the protagonist, and she had feedback from her writing mentor that it was about her relationship breakup. She realised this was completely true and rewrote it with the children as the protagonists, but in both versions it was a film script. When she came back to it and rewrote it as a novel, it only took her about three weeks, because the film script was a terrific outline to work from.

Steph says that learning that her story had been written about her relationship helped her understand that fiction is working on multiple levels. “All fiction has truth at the heart of it” – we need to tell children that writing can be a way of working our issues out.

Writing radio advertisements (30 seconds, 75 words) taught her to keep her sentences short and pack in a lot of information.

When she is doing personal writing, she works on 3 or 4 different projects at the same time, as she has a very low boredom threshold. When she first started writing, she was a Pantser. But she doesn’t do that so much now, as it tends to stall at about chapter 6 and you don’t know where it is going. Writing for film taught her to become a Plotter, as film writing has to be very planned out.

At 25% your character goes from the ordinary world into a new world. At 50% the character realises the old ways of doing things don’t work anymore and they have to learn new ways. 75% is the dark days, 95% is the final victory.

She started using TrackBear which tracks words etc. She also uses the Forest App chrome extension to keep her writing and motivatied: if you don’t work the trees die.

Steph says that even if you have to cut out stuff, no word is wasted. She says that you learn from everything you do. The best thing to be as a writer is stubborn. No one is going to motivate you; writing is hard, especially when you get to feeling like your book sucks, which is going to happen.

I found it interesting that Markus Zusak had said much the same thing about imposter syndrome and losing faith in your work as a writer. It definitely sounds tough!

I was awed by the courage of these writers in sharing their personal stories with us.

Great conference, thank you, NZATE!

Keynote 3: Michael Bennett

The keynote was introduced by Whitney, highlighting Michael as an award-winning writer, director, and storyteller with accomplishments in both fiction and non-fiction. Michael has written both a non-fiction book, In Dark Places, concerning a wrongful conviction, and a fictional crime series featuring Māori detective Hana Westerman. He is also a film director, and made the short film Kerosene Creek, which I have taught many times, and which my Māori students, in particular, really connect to.

Personal and Artistic Journey

Michael shared insights on the emotional and creative processes involved in being an artist, describing the vulnerability required.

He introduced the immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii. The immortal jellyfish doesn’t die, when it gets old or sick it reverts to its juvenile form and grows again. Kind of like a phoenix, except it is real. Michael related its regenerative ability metaphorically to human experiences of mortality and renewal. Throughout his speech, he returned to the jellyfish a number of times, pointing out that it doesn’t mate or reproduce, and that it exists alone.

Michael talked about his parents’ influence: his father’s passion for justice and his mother’s love of words and debate, and how these helped shape his own journey toward writing.

He talked about his struggles with writing prose versus screenwriting, discussing the transition from visual storytelling to literary form. Michael explained that his background as a screenwriter is one of the main reasons why he can’t write in the past tense. He also said that as he writes, he sees everything happening like a movie, which also contributes to the way he writes in present tense.

Cultural and Family Background

Michael spoke about his Māori heritage – he is from Ngāti Pikiau and Ngāti Whakaue – and the legacy of his grandfather Frederick Augustus Bennett, who was an influential community leader and creative, having written and directed an opera, as well as being the first Māori bishop in Aotearoa.

The influence of historic Māori leaders and the cultural struggle of the Māori people was emphasised, including the loss of language, land, and population due to colonisation. He discussed how his family background and upbringing in a rural New Zealand town shaped his worldview and creative expression.

Literary Influences and Early Experiences

When he was 10, an older sibling brought home some books from university. Michael is still not sure why anyone let him read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and A Clinical Textbook of Abnormal Psychology at the age of 1o, but these had a profound impact on him and sparked his interest in human behaviour and storytelling, perhaps explaining why he has ended up writing crime fiction.

Michael talked about his high school years, describing marching against the 1981 Springbok Tour as a Y12 and captain of the First XV, with the previous captain abusing him from the footpath, and explained how he pivoted to a different friend group with a different outlook on life.

Pivotal advice from Mrs. Lash, his English teacher, encouraged him to embrace his identity as a writer. She told him, “Bennett, you’re a writer. You’re going to write.”

Professional Achievements and Advocacy

Michael has had a successful career as a screenwriter and director, with international recognition and collaborations with notable figures.

In 2011, his life changed after being contacted about the case of Teina Pora, a Māori man wrongfully imprisoned for 21 years. Through documentary work, writing, and advocacy, Michael helped bring attention to Teina’s innocence, highlighting systemic failures in the justice system. Teina’s diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) was crucial in his exoneration. Michael expressed the emotional impact of working closely with Teina and the challenges faced within the justice system. His non-fiction book telling Teina’s story helped in getting justice. These experiences have impacted his fiction writing also.

Fictional Work: Hana Westerman Series

Michael discussed his crime fiction series featuring Hana Westerman, the first Māori detective lead in New Zealand crime fiction. The series explores systemic social inequalities affecting Māori communities, including justice, identity, and poverty. His fiction serves as a “Trojan horse” to shed light on real cultural and societal issues through engaging storytelling.

Reflections on Writing and Life

Michael emphasised the personal and societal importance of storytelling, despite the hardships and lack of security in a writing career. He stressed that writing is often about heart and emotional truth, not just logic or financial gain.

Michael urged us as educators and mentors to encourage students with a passion for writing to pursue it courageously.

He concluded with reflections on mortality, love, and the human experience, contrasting this with the immortal jellyfish metaphor – essentially, he was saying that to love and be loved is much more important than immortality. Michael highlighted how writing allows him to challenge the world and express his heart daily.

Key Themes:

• Intersection of culture, identity, and storytelling
• The power and responsibility of writers and artists
• The impact of wrongful conviction and justice reform
• Māori history, heritage, and contemporary challenges
• Personal resilience amidst creative and life challenges

Michael shared his writing toolkit (10 points on the right). Unfortunately, one had to go to his follow-up workshop to find out what all this meant, and the workshop had already been full before I went to sign up. So… I will never know.

 

Workshop 3 – Curriculum as Culture War, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Refresh – Dr Andrew Thompson

Andrew sees English as a moral subject, uniquely positioned to fulfill the purpose of schooling: to pastorally guide students towards conscience via conduct. The subject will endure despite its content unless the subject does away with analysis.

Pastoral pedagogy is a mode of coaching, coaxing, encouraging, and teaching students to do something different from what they are doing.

Subject English is concerned with modes of communication, literacy, morality, and aesthetics. Not every student wants to engage with this stuff. The aim of literacy is inescapably cultural:

• cultural heritage
• culture of the self
• culture as a humanist Enlightenment project

Both the constructivist and Romantic approaches to English literary education advocate the importance of the personal response.

Educational Ideals – the philosophical purpose of education: for a long time, this has been seen as self-realisation through the perfect unity of free will and the constraints of civil society. (e.g. Dewey, etc). OR self-cultivation through the perfect unity of thought and feeling (Humbolt)

Jauss – Literary History as a challenge to Literary Theory

Arendt – empathy as a form of assimilation.

Andrew hasn’t actually learned to ‘love’ the curriculum refresh, but he does see it in historical context.

Workshop 4 – Unpacking 91924 – Amanda Robinson, NZQA

Needs to be firmly grounded in a context which is shaping how the language is used, not starting with the language. A clear explanation of context is needed at Merit.

If they are talking about the use of typical language features it is helpful if they are actually using the word typical, though they can explain it without naming it.

How many? If they do 4 and 2 are correct, that would be enough for Achieved, ideally 3 though. And 1 is not enough.

If you are marking for E then 4 with 2 at E would probably be enough.

If they are using oral text, they can’t talk about visual things like gesture or tone of voice, but they could talk about tone using examples of the word choice.

Their preference is still that if we teach a text, it not be the text used for assessment, even if it is an extended text and it is a section that has not been taught. She gave an example that if you taught the first half of a novel, they would still rather the students did not do the assessment on the untaught half.

They would like to see more different ways of presenting – they are still mostly getting written responses. (Several people pointed out that without exemplars it was a gamble for schools to encourage students to present in other ways.)

Merit hinges a lot on the foundational description of the context up front. The ‘explaining connections’ refers to connections between the language and the context, not between verbal language use (e.g. pronoun + metaphor).

The context should lead the response, not the language. ‘Language-led’ responses are less likely to be on point.

Amanda shared some exemplars with us and we read through and discussed these.

Sample 3 is very close to a Merit, most of the discussion just needed a couple of extra sentences to take it deeper/further.

Sample 4 is a solid Merit, but it doesn’t take it to drawing conclusions, needed for Excellence.

 

Keynote 4: Markus Zusak

Personal Background and Influences

Marcus grew up in Sydney with three siblings; he is the youngest and describes himself as the “spoiled one.” Family stories from his Austrian and German parents, shaped by their experiences during World War II, profoundly influenced his writing.

He spoke about early life memories, such as his parents’ house with an outdoor laundry shower and vivid wartime stories, provided a rich tapestry for storytelling. The “alarm clock story” from his 1984 Christmas illustrated how personal anecdotes contain key storytelling elements: small details, unexpected moments, backstory, and the importance of repetition and editing.

Writing Journey and Philosophy

Markus emphasized that writing is not driven by whimsical imagination but by tackling specific problems in storytelling. He shared his struggles in developing “The Book Thief,” including initial failures with narration and character voice. The breakthrough came with the idea that death, as a narrator, could “like humans” and be scared of them, which gave the story depth and success.

He spoke about the importance of small, vivid details that make stories believable and immersive. The unexpected twists and opposites in storytelling create engaging narratives. Backstory enriches present events and provides layers to character development. The process of storytelling also involves editing and telling stories repeatedly to build connection.

Marcus recounted early humiliating experiences in public readings, saying that this happens to every writer. He described the breakthrough of “The Book Thief,” after an interview on radio in New York, after which the book unexpectedly rose to number one on Amazon and gained international acclaim.

He traveled internationally for book tours, including memorable experiences in New York and Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil, he participated in a literacy charity event, flew around Rio in a helicopter, and witnessed the vibrant culture.

Despite setbacks and challenges, his passion for books and storytelling sustained his career.

Insights on Teaching and Influence of English Teachers

Marcus attributed much of his success to the influence of his English teachers who introduced him to seminal works like Catch-22 – which he did not read at the time, but came back to when he was older.

He acknowledged his own struggles as a teacher and shared humorous stories from his early teaching days. Teachers’ efforts prepare students for future learning and foster lifelong relationships with literature. He stressed the importance and respect owed to us as English teachers for nurturing students’ love for stories.

He reflected on the lasting impact of teachers despite sometimes difficult experiences in the classroom.

Core Messages

• Stories in Personal Life: Everyone carries unique stories worth telling, filled with emotion, detail, and unexpected elements.
• Storytelling Techniques: Incorporate vivid details, backstory, and opposites; embrace editing and repetition to connect with audiences.
• Writing Challenges: Writing involves solving narrative problems and developing authentic voice and perspective.
• Teacher Influence: Great teaching can transform lives and inspire careers; exposure to literature at the right time is crucial.
• Career Development: Success can come unexpectedly and involves hard work, resilience, and passion for storytelling.

I think that the thing I enjoyed most about listening to Markus was that he was unpretentious. He talked about how his dad was a house painter and his mum was a cleaning lady and they still live in the same house where he grew up. And he struggled with his writing and he was surprised by the success of The Book Thief – I liked that.

Mihi Whakatau – Pip Bennett

Pip thanked everyone who had made submissions on the draft curriculum. New Zealand Association of Teachers of English (NZATE) has met with Minister Stanford in May regarding the draft curriculum and the process. During this meeting, Stanford expressed a desire to ‘get the curriculum right, as there was going to be a legislative change to ensure that another major overhaul of the curriculum could not occur’. Stanford appeared open to extending the implementation timeline, and this is something that NZATE is now advocating for.

 

Keynote 1 – Dr Ruby Solly – Ngā Oro o Hine-Pū-te-Hue

Dr. Ruby Solly is a multi-talented composer, music therapist, cellist, writer, and more.

Dr. Solly described her PhD research and presence of traditional instruments used by her family. She explained about traditional Maori instruments, especially hue, and how stories imbue them with meaning. Instruments were shared to be multi-functional as storytelling and cultural tools, not just musical instruments.

Dr. Solly discussed her path as a music therapist and cellist, moving into writing and cultural work including published books that engage with personal and cultural identity

Hine Pū-te-Hue is a female atua of peace. After the separation, Hine Pū-te-Hue, tiny daughter of Tanemāhuta, mother is Ruaumoa. (Some say her father was Ranginui and she was born directly from his tears.) She tries to stop the fighting and they have to pull in close to listen to her soft sound.  All the hue puruhau have the beautiful rounded shape – this came from her breathing in all the mamae and the raruraru, which she then used to speak with her voice. Large puruhau were also used to store karakia which could be released when at sea if needed. I found this interesting and it made me think of the bag of winds which Odysseus had.

Some of the different instruments Ruby showed us were used to make the sound of crying, to help people mourn at tangihanga, or to make the sound of kereru (in the days when kereru were hunted for food).

Ngā Taonga Pūoro – ‘Treasures of reverberation of music and sound’ – which gets translated as ‘musical instruments’. The instruments themselves (the type of instrument) contain stories, and then the individual instruments themselves also contain stories.

Most Māori musical instruments were made illegal by the Tohunga Suppression Act – so from 1907 to 1962 these instruments were outlawed and their use went underground. Then there was a renaissance to learn all about these instruments and pass on the knowledge.

The Three Sisters – Hine Pū te Hue, Hine Te Iwaiwa (atua of birthing and weaving, and of the moon), and Hine Raukatauri – the case moth who pollinates the flowers of the plant which becomes the hue.

Te Tukutuku a Tāwhaki – in their traditions Tāwhaki climbs a web – which is so much better than a staircase! The web includes the following strands:

• Taiao
• Hauora
• Kai tahutaka (= ngai tahu tanga)
• Mahi toi
• Pūrākau
• Wairua
• Whakapapa
• Te Reo

Ruby talked about her books Taku Papa and The Artist, and showed us some of her poems which are in the shape of hue:

That was truly amazing korero.

 

Workshop 1 – Offence, Defence or are you still sitting on the fence? – Robyn Welsh – Southland Boys’ High School

Robyn talked about English teachers ‘weaponising language to make a change’. She used the metaphor from Professor Rudine Sims Bishop of looking through the lens of windows, mirrors, or sliding doors. (See my post from day 3 of the RPI for more about this.)

• Mirror text – reflects a world we are familiar with – readers see their own lives reflected in the pages.
• Window text – allow readers a view of lives and stories that are different from their own.
• Sliding door text – sliding door texts allow comparisons between the known and possible worlds, useful for discussing protest.

Robyn talked us through a range of texts she uses: MLK – I have a dream – Maya Angelou poetry – TED talk – Tame Iti and poems Mohamed Hassan – When they ask you where you are really from and Unlearning my name – a focus on knowing who you are, standing your ground – Tupac Concrete Rose – Rainbow Warrior – No Ordinary Sun Hone Tuwhare, Herbs – French Letter. War poetry with The Things they Carried, Australian song I was only 19. The landmarch, Parihaka. Hi Ren, Temple Grandin – people who think differently from us.

 

Keynote 2 – Mihingarangi Forbes

Hinepūtehue – Goddess of calm, the female spirit of the hue or gourd -daughter of Tāne and Hine Rauamoa. Stillness holds the power to restore balance. We are born in stillness with Hinepūtehue, held by Wainui….

The past and present are the same continuous breath.

Ngā Mōrehu – stories led to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Systemic Abuse.

Learning from the situations we have found ourselves in, embracing Hinepūtehue.

With balance and accuracy and fairness, holding people to account – if we do that, then we are doing our job. Mihingarangi shared this karakia, which we can use to invoke Hinepūtehue:

Karakia by Bob Bickerton

Kia tau ai o tātou ngākau. Kia rukuhia ngā oro o Hine-pū-te-hue, o Hine-Raukatauri te ao taonga puoro. Whakarongo ki te reo o ngā atua! Whakarongo ki te puoro o ngā tīpuna! Whakarongo ki te hā o te ao tūroa! Tiakina nga oro o te ao Māori! Tīhei Mauri Ora!

What makes a good story?

• Injustice.
• Crime – a story that no one cared about.
• The environment: because we care about Papatuanuku.
• Joy! We try to do joyful ones, but sometimes they turn into like, crime ones.

Workshop 2 – Cheng Xu – Auckland Dio – Bridging Worlds: Innovating Language and Literature through Bilingual Learning

This was a really inspiring workshop from a young teacher who is running a bilingual Mandarin/English literature course at Auckland Dio. This may seem a world away from running bilingual re reo Māori/English courses at Ōtaki College, but I didn’t think so.

Cheng read an amazing extract from All who live on islands – Rose Lu, which code-switched between three languages. Their programme is designed to strengthen language/literature ability in both languages, with an emphasis on seeing multilingualism as an advantage, not a disadvantage.

• Enhanced cognitive flexibility
• Identify Affirmation
• ? there was a third point, but I blinked and missed it! Hopefully, the slides will be shared with us.

Students need a basic level of language knowledge in Mandarin to enter the CHELL programme. They follow the same English language and literature course as the mainstream, so students can step in and out if they want. They use texts from China, Aotearoa and beyond. (Tom Sawyer, Anne Frank’s Diary, Kiki’s Delivery Service, The Giver, The Whale Rider, The Wave and others. Students can have the text in either language or both. Some students will read it first in their first language and then in the one they are less familiar with. They are team teaching and try to have a balance between languages. The endpoint is for students to be able to choose between the two languages for their senior assessments. Team teaching is approached by splitting the hours and alternating them between the 2 teachers. Obviously they need to plan jointly. One of the teachers Cheng team-teaches with is also a Mandarin speaker, the other has no Mandarin, but is multi-lingual.

Cheng recommended the White Ravens Database as a place to search for texts in different languages.

In response to a question, Cheng said that including texts from the other culture is step one, followed by encouraging them to draw connections and discuss.

The course is proving very popular with both students and families – students are becoming more secure in their English and their Mandarin, they feel that their culture is recognised and valued, and they become more secure in their identity.

I can see many of these aspcts as being transferrable to our school for our te reo immersion students and for the growth of bilingual courses.

Cheng challenged us to consider what a bilingual literature course might look like in our own schools or settings.

• What languages?
• What tests or cultural content?
• What would success look like for students?
• What curriculum and year level would fit?

We have one bilingual junior humanities course this year and I would love to add some more in the future. With the Auckland University Press Kotahi Rau Pukapuka project, more ‘mainstream’ literature written in English is being translated into te reo Māori, which will help.

I found this workshop really inspirational.

Connecting with each other: Whakawhanaungatanga and Homework Feedback – Breakout Groups

Teachers in my breakout group have been doing a variety of learning activities. As we talked, people began to realise that vocabulary is a bigger part of our teaching than we really recognised. Part of our homework was sharing vocabulary activities which we use. I shared the vocabulary.com site which I use extensively with my Year 10 classes to pre-teach key vocabulary for whichever book we are reading. This is a free vocabulary learning website which includes options for including spelling, questions to reinforce previous lists, and ‘vocab jams’. Students enjoy the competitive/gaming aspect of the site. I have noticed that the most academic students really thrive with it and compete on the leaderboard, it is less successful with the lower abilitiy students, who struggle because they don’t want to use the hints and ‘lose points’. While it is not a complete answer to vocabulary learning, it is one tool in the box, and it is easy to use. There are many pre-made lists, or you can create your own, as I have. I have created vocab lists for the book we are reading (the Holocaust Memoir ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel) but there are also many lists created by other teachers which you can search and use. For example, I found existing lists when I was teaching The Hunger Games. You can create as many classes and groups as you like, using a joining code. Disadvantage: it’s an American site with American spelling. I hate to say it, but I have reached the point where I can live with that!

 

Connecting with Manaiakalani: Dorothy – Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Shared Pedagogy: Vocabulary (& Decoding)

Dorothy began with focussing on the ‘why’ of teaching vocabulary. A robust vocabulary improves all forms of communication: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It is one of the keys to a successful life. Size does matter here, both breadth and depth of vocabulary. Research shows that Decile 1 children have heard 30 million fewer words than a Decile 10 child when they start school.  This is an area where we can definitely make a difference. Dorothy talked about the Welcome to School project – a study conducted by Manaiakalani and Starship Hospital – 120 children were assessed over a 12 month period. This study confirmed the international research regarding the gap between vocabulary, letter recognition etc between children from high and low socio-economic areas, showing that the same factors are at work in Aotearoa.

Dorothy mentioned some of the digital tools available to support vocabulary teaching, such as Word Wall. This does cost, and she mentioned that many of the functions on it can be duplicated by ChatGPT. She also pointed out that there are many functionalities within Google Docs which can be used to enhance vocabulary teaching with digital text.

 

Chalk & Talk: Naomi – Background to Vocabulary Instruction

We are teaching learners to think and question, and vocabulary is key to empowering our students to do that. We need to be sure we build active vocabulary, not just passive.

Naomi asked us to rate ourselves out of 5 for whether we use the following:

• Pre-reading activity
• Independent follow-up
• Small group reading intro
• Making target words visible
• During small group reading

I could give myself 3 out of 5: I am only just starting to use small groups and don’t yet have a pre-reading vocabulary routine for that (though I do for our whole-class text), and I am not necessarily making target words visible either in the text or in the classroom displays.

Naomi explained that by Year 5, 70% of reading problems are related to vocabulary – this is a pretty sobering statistic and makes me realise that vocabulary is even more important than I had realised.

Naomi used a Word Knowledge Organiser to assess our knowledge of terms related to vocabulary teaching. This was really quick and gives a great overview to the teacher of which terms students are going to need more teaching on. I really liked this tool and can see myself using it with my senior classes as a pre-reading activity.

Seven exposures to a word will result in the brain starting to put it into long-term memory. However, it does need to be revisited for it to be retained.

We also need to expose students to the multiple meanings of words, depending on context.

We know that many learners take in vocabulary implicitly – from reading and listening – but there are many learners who don’t have that exposure, and we need to explicitly teach them vocabulary. We also need to expose them to it repeatedly and help them to use it actively rather than just understand it passively – extended mapping, rather than fast mapping.

We went into breakout groups to discuss the extent to which we use the four elements of explicit vocabulary teaching in our practice.

In our discussion, we built on the Ground Rules for Talk we had used previously, by using specific roles of Initiator and Builder within the group. I thought these roles were quite useful. We reached consensus in the group that we have all used the four elements in our teaching at different times, but probably not extensively or often even necessarily consciously.

 

Chalk & Talk: Janet – Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words, something we definitely want to encourage in our students.

Word displays in the classroom are a good way to build tier 3 (subject-specific) vocabulary. Another way to build curiosity about words is using rebus puzzles. There are a number of rebus generators available on line, as well as collections of existing rebus puzzles, such as the ESL Vault.

 

Deep Dive: Naomi – Explicit, Robust Interactive Vocabulary Learning Opportunities

Beck, McKeown et al – 5 Principles of robust vocabulary instruction:

1. Direct explanation (in a learner-friendly way)
2. Thought-provoking connections to meanings in students’ lived experiences
3. Playful use of words (e.g. word consciousness)
4. Interactive engagement
5. Follow-up (multiple encounters)

 

Tier 2 words are highly suitable for explicit vocabulary instruction because they are found infrequently in conversation, are high utility (crossing a variety of domains/contexts), and have a powerful impact on communication. Students need to acquire a robust knowledge of around 700 words per year.

If you present students with a difficult text and don’t front load the essential vocabulary, then the lexical bar will be too high – the text will not be comprehensible for the students.

We went into breakout groups and practised identifying Tier 2 vocabulary. In a futher buddy activity we acted as students completing some vocabulary activities.

 

Model & Master: Janet – Design and Share Resources

In this session we looked in greater depth at the vocabulary activities we had been trialling, and created an example of our own using one of these four examples:

• Word associations
• When have / might you ….?
• Which would you …? 
• Degrees of meaning

I will be teaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with my Year 10s, so I designed this activity using the word associations example to teach some key vocabulary.

 

Strategy Builder: Kiri – Teaching Questioning

Kiri looked at teaching questioning strategies to enhance comprehension. She shared frameworks such as the QAR (Question Answer Relationships) model and Reciprocal Teaching.

 

 

Chalk & Talk: Janet – Morphology

Janet explored morphology’s significance in teaching academic vocabulary across disciplines. She explained morphological awareness benefits decoding, spelling, and comprehension, especially for tier two and three vocabulary. One great resource Janet shared was this pdf of Morpheme Matrices which are ready to use.

 

Deep Dive: Naomi – Pulling it all together

Naomi summarised the day including:

• the four elements of explicit vocabulary teaching
• 5 Principles of robust vocabulary instruction
• examples of classroom displays
• decoding strategies and morphology

She then challenged us to consider how we could incorporate explicit vocabulary teaching into our learning programmes for next term.

 

Day 6 – Vocabulary (& Decoding) Reflection:

I really enjoyed today, probably because I was more inside my comfort zone with words, language, morphology, etymology, etc, being a bit of a language nerd.

Key takeaways from today for me were:

• the reminder from Dorothy about the huge vocabulary gap which many of my students have when they arrive at school
• reassurance that I actually do know how to teach vocabulary and I do it all the time
• some really practical teaching resources such as the four models shared by Janet, which we used to design a resource of our own
• the morpheme matrices – again, a ready to use resource that will help me teach word structure explicitly

Looking ahead, over the next two weeks I will be frantically trying to tie up my ‘Night’ unit with my Year 10 Humanities class, as their semester only goes to the end of the term. I will try to do some limited vocabulary activities with this class around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I somehow have to ‘cover’ in the next two weeks along with finishing reading ‘Night’.

Next term, my new Year 10 Humanities semester course (and class) will be focussed on the topic of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. While a film study will be a major part of this, I also want to use a number of short non-fiction and fiction texts about VR, AI and gaming. This topic will lend itself really well to the critical thinking focus in the RPI course next term.

 

Homework

For our homework this time, we need to implement at least two vocabulary activities, one should be the activity we designed in Janet’s resource design session, and then one other activity introduced today. Preferably, this should be done in the next two weeks.

We also need to bring along a text we might use next term with a critical literacy theme. I am quite excited about this as I have such a great topic for discussion next term.

 

Connecting with each other: Whakawhanaungatanga and Homework Feedback – Breakout Groups

Teachers in my breakout group have been doing a variety of learning activities. As we talked, people began to realise that vocabulary is a bigger part of our teaching than we really recognised. Part of our homework was sharing vocabulary activities which we use. I shared the vocabulary.com site which I use extensively with my Year 10 classes to pre-teach key vocabulary for whichever book we are reading. This is a free vocabulary learning website which includes options for including spelling, questions to reinforce previous lists, and ‘vocab jams’. Students enjoy the competitive/gaming aspect of the site. I have noticed that the most academic students really thrive with it and compete on the leaderboard, it is less successful with the lower abilitiy students, who struggle because they don’t want to use the hints and ‘lose points’. While it is not a complete answer to vocabulary learning, it is one tool in the box, and it is easy to use. There are many pre-made lists, or you can create your own, as I have. I have created vocab lists for the book we are reading (the Holocaust Memoir ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel) but there are also many lists created by other teachers which you can search and use. For example, I found existing lists when I was teaching The Hunger Games. You can create as many classes and groups as you like, using a joining code. Disadvantage: it’s an American site with American spelling. I hate to say it, but I have reached the point where I can live with that!

 

Connecting with Manaiakalani: Dorothy – Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Shared Pedagogy: Vocabulary (& Decoding)

Dorothy began with focussing on the ‘why’ of teaching vocabulary. A robust vocabulary improves all forms of communication: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It is one of the keys to a successful life. Size does matter here, both breadth and depth of vocabulary. Research shows that Decile 1 children have heard 30 million fewer words than a Decile 10 child when they start school.  This is an area where we can definitely make a difference. Dorothy talked about the Welcome to School project – a study conducted by Manaiakalani and Starship Hospital – 120 children were assessed over a 12 month period. This study confirmed the international research regarding the gap between vocabulary, letter recognition etc between children from high and low socio-economic areas, showing that the same factors are at work in Aotearoa.

Dorothy mentioned some of the digital tools available to support vocabulary teaching, such as Word Wall. This does cost, and she mentioned that many of the functions on it can be duplicated by ChatGPT. She also pointed out that there are many functionalities within Google Docs which can be used to enhance vocabulary teaching with digital text.

 

Chalk & Talk: Naomi – Background to Vocabulary Instruction

We are teaching learners to think and question, and vocabulary is key to empowering our students to do that. We need to be sure we build active vocabulary, not just passive.

Naomi asked us to rate ourselves out of 5 for whether we use the following:

• Pre-reading activity
• Independent follow-up
• Small group reading intro
• Making target words visible
• During small group reading

I could give myself 3 out of 5: I am only just starting to use small groups and don’t yet have a pre-reading vocabulary routine for that (though I do for our whole-class text), and I am not necessarily making target words visible either in the text or in the classroom displays.

Naomi explained that by Year 5, 70% of reading problems are related to vocabulary – this is a pretty sobering statistic and makes me realise that vocabulary is even more important than I had realised.

Naomi used a Word Knowledge Organiser to assess our knowledge of terms related to vocabulary teaching. This was really quick and gives a great overview to the teacher of which terms students are going to need more teaching on. I really liked this tool and can see myself using it with my senior classes as a pre-reading activity.

Seven exposures to a word will result in the brain starting to put it into long-term memory. However, it does need to be revisited for it to be retained.

We also need to expose students to the multiple meanings of words, depending on context.

We know that many learners take in vocabulary implicitly – from reading and listening – but there are many learners who don’t have that exposure, and we need to explicitly teach them vocabulary. We also need to expose them to it repeatedly and help them to use it actively rather than just understand it passively – extended mapping, rather than fast mapping.

We went into breakout groups to discuss the extent to which we use the four elements of explicit vocabulary teaching in our practice.

In our discussion, we built on the Ground Rules for Talk we had used previously, by using specific roles of Initiator and Builder within the group. I thought these roles were quite useful. We reached consensus in the group that we have all used the four elements in our teaching at different times, but probably not extensively or often even necessarily consciously.

 

Chalk & Talk: Janet – Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words, something we definitely want to encourage in our students.

Word displays in the classroom are a good way to build tier 3 (subject-specific) vocabulary. Another way to build curiosity about words is using rebus puzzles. There are a number of rebus generators available on line, as well as collections of existing rebus puzzles, such as the ESL Vault.

 

Deep Dive: Naomi – Explicit, Robust Interactive Vocabulary Learning Opportunities

Beck, McKeown et al – 5 Principles of robust vocabulary instruction:

1. Direct explanation (in a learner-friendly way)
2. Thought-provoking connections to meanings in students’ lived experiences
3. Playful use of words (e.g. word consciousness)
4. Interactive engagement
5. Follow-up (multiple encounters)

 

Tier 2 words are highly suitable for explicit vocabulary instruction because they are found infrequently in conversation, are high utility (crossing a variety of domains/contexts), and have a powerful impact on communication. Students need to acquire a robust knowledge of around 700 words per year.

If you present students with a difficult text and don’t front load the essential vocabulary, then the lexical bar will be too high – the text will not be comprehensible for the students.

We went into breakout groups and practised identifying Tier 2 vocabulary. In a futher buddy activity we acted as students completing some vocabulary activities.

 

Model & Master: Janet – Design and Share Resources

In this session we looked in greater depth at the vocabulary activities we had been trialling, and created an example of our own using one of these four examples:

• Word associations
• When have / might you ….?
• Which would you …? 
• Degrees of meaning

I will be teaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with my Year 10s, so I designed this activity using the word associations example to teach some key vocabulary.

 

Strategy Builder: Kiri – Teaching Questioning

Kiri looked at teaching questioning strategies to enhance comprehension. She shared frameworks such as the QAR (Question Answer Relationships) model and Reciprocal Teaching.

 

 

Chalk & Talk: Janet – Morphology

Janet explored morphology’s significance in teaching academic vocabulary across disciplines. She explained morphological awareness benefits decoding, spelling, and comprehension, especially for tier two and three vocabulary. One great resource Janet shared was this pdf of Morpheme Matrices which are ready to use.

 

Deep Dive: Naomi – Pulling it all together

Naomi summarised the day including:

• the four elements of explicit vocabulary teaching
• 5 Principles of robust vocabulary instruction
• examples of classroom displays
• decoding strategies and morphology

She then challenged us to consider how we could incorporate explicit vocabulary teaching into our learning programmes for next term.

 

Day 6 – Vocabulary (& Decoding) Reflection:

I really enjoyed today, probably because I was more inside my comfort zone with words, language, morphology, etymology, etc, being a bit of a language nerd.

Key takeaways from today for me were:

• the reminder from Dorothy about the huge vocabulary gap which many of my students have when they arrive at school
• reassurance that I actually do know how to teach vocabulary and I do it all the time
• some really practical teaching resources such as the four models shared by Janet, which we used to design a resource of our own
• the morpheme matrices – again, a ready to use resource that will help me teach word structure explicitly

Looking ahead, over the next two weeks I will be frantically trying to tie up my ‘Night’ unit with my Year 10 Humanities class, as their semester only goes to the end of the term. I will try to do some limited vocabulary activities with this class around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I somehow have to ‘cover’ in the next two weeks along with finishing reading ‘Night’.

Next term, my new Year 10 Humanities semester course (and class) will be focussed on the topic of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. While a film study will be a major part of this, I also want to use a number of short non-fiction and fiction texts about VR, AI and gaming. This topic will lend itself really well to the critical thinking focus in the RPI course next term.

 

Homework

For our homework this time, we need to implement at least two vocabulary activities, one should be the activity we designed in Janet’s resource design session, and then one other activity introduced today. Preferably, this should be done in the next two weeks.

We also need to bring along a text we might use next term with a critical literacy theme. I am quite excited about this as I have such a great topic for discussion next term.

 

This week our class is learning about science.  Yesterday our class learnt about insects close up.  Matua gave us a sheet and we had to draw bugs.  By Amaia W

On Wednesday Matua came into do some science with the class.  It was all about insects!!  Matua had lots of insects in resin, like a butterfly.  Me and Isabella got the leaf bug, the colour of the bug was golden.  We all had such fun with the insects.  By Lilly

Maths Whizz is something to help you get better at Maths.  You can get three blue gems,  but if you get three blue gems and 3 red gems you will be in the Hall of Fame!  By Willow

 

Last week Room 6 have been learning about place value in Maths.   For example in 600, the place of the 6 is the hundreds place and the value is 600.  The place is where the single number is and the value is the total amount  that the single number has. By Emily

 

We have been reading a Jason Mason book.  We have learning all about it and then making helicopters.  Jason Mason’s Great Uncle Bill died and he was the Prime Minsters Secret guy. Now Jason Mason is learning to be a spy too.  By Dekken

Last week at Interschool Cross Country you verse all the other schools in Kapiti.  We had to run two laps of the field and forest.  The Year 4 girls went first, we went next.  At the start of the second lap I couldn’t breath.  I was sad because I am not going to regionals. I came 10th.  By Vincent

Whakawhanaungatanga and Homework Feedback – Breakout Groups

People are busy with the CAAs but most have also been implementing reading groups and doing recordings and observations. In general, people are beginning to feel more comfortable with what we are learning on the RPI and beginning to put it into practice.

 

Dorothy – The Reading Programme in the Manaiakalani Context

The Manaiakalani model assumes we have a dedicated space on our class site to promote and engage our learners into the reading programme. Making the learning visible, ubiquitous, and rewindable. There is power in our young people having unfettered access to their learning; this frees up teacher time to work with students.

Design our site to be user-friendly – the three click rule – making it easy to access what they need to work on that day. Also, we should personalise it to suit our learners and classes.

Dorothy shared some great ideas for us to use on our sites, including using Muzify to create a playlist for a text.

 

Naomi – Overview of Planning a Reading Programme

In this session, Naomi took us back through the curriculum goals for reading and got us to reflect on how we are doing on implementing the different aspects. Since I am teaching Humanities (combined English and Social Sciences) this is pretty much business as usual, so in my reflection slides below I did not identify many gaps. One is spelling, and I will need to think about how to address that.

 

Kiri – Teacher Timetabling: Planning across weeks/units/terms

This session focussed on different ways of showing/organising our planning to ensure coverage and be clear on our progress in our students’ learning goals. It was reassuring to see some secondary examples which recognise that we have limited time with each class and that reading is not the only thing we are trying to teach in that contact time.

We also looked at ways for students to be accountable for tasks and show what work has and hasn’t been completed. Thanks to some shared resources from our Year 7 & 8 colleagues I already use mahi trackers with my classes (right from Y10 to Y13). Here is my current mahi (work) tracker for my Y12 class:

 

Naomi – Independent Activities, including Digital Reading Apps

Naomi showed us three different online reading apps: Epic! ReadWorks and Literacy Planet. I have been using Epic! for a few years to give student choice in short texts to read. I discovered that there are a lot of features on Epic that I am not using. I also explored ReadWorks and found that there were a lot more useful texts, particularly non-fiction, than I had found on Epic. I will also have a look at Literacy Planet.

Naomi suggested start with one programme for a few weeks, then introduce another and do that for a few weeks, then alternate and/or give choice. I will think about that, but my students are already using a LOT of different apps (Writer’s Toolbox, Education Perfect and vocabulary.com) so I would be hesitant about having too many reading apps running at the same time.

 

Janet – Multi-Choice Activities for Independent Practice

Multi-choice questions definitely have their place in ensuring basic comprehension of a text. They are used extensively in the PATs and Literacy CAAs, so it is important for our students to have practice with them. These independence practice questions should cover the non-negotiables, including building vocabulary and language skills, open-ended questions and, especially, working towards inference.

Here are the questions I came up with:

 

Kiri – Deep Dive – ‘Reading Apprenticeship Core Routine: Think Aloud Professional Reading.

In this session we looked at a transcript of a teacher using the Think Aloud strategy with her students and were given time to review and annotate it. Here are my annotations.

I liked the way the teacher had clearly created a culture of Think Aloud. The students are familiar with the metacognitive vocabulary, such as ‘prediction’. They are comfortable contributing and the teacher also hands the lead over to the students. (Increasing agency.)

 

Janet – Deep Dive – Strategy Builder: Inferring

Janet took a look at strategies we can use to help students in making inferences. She related this back to the curriculum objectives, sharing a table which provides links to resources that we can use to help us in teaching the various inference strategies. These are stepped from making basic local inferences to deeper global inferences from the text.

Key teaching strategies included:

• Providing explicit descriptions of strategies.
• Modeling strategies with think-alouds.
• Scaffolding learners to gradually increase independence.
• Encouraging learner articulation and reflection.

Four guiding reflective questions for learners:

• What is my inference?
• What information supports it?
• How good is my thinking?
• Do I need to revise my thinking?

 

Naomi – Deep Dive – Planning Activity: RA Core Routine: Annotated Think Aloud / “Talk to the Text”

With Naomi, we then were challenged to plan a Think Aloud activity to use with our own classes. Using the instructions on the left, I came up with the task on the right.

Kiri – Explore – Pulling it all together

Kiri gave a short overview of today’s learning with a key focus on the following:

• Teacher timetabling (‘rules of thumb’)
• Tracking to empower learners 
• Digital reading apps 
• Multi-choice questions for routine assessment practice OR Read-Like-Writers, Write-Like-Readers
• RA Core Routines: Annotated Think Aloud | “Talking to the Text”

 

Day 5 – Reflection

I enjoyed today’s learning and I think my main takeaway was that I can move my focus now onto refining my current Year 10 unit to incorporate more of the instructional reading strategies. I can see how some of the language activities I already use can be edited to align more with some of the reading strategies, such as a couple of excerpts I have previously used to focus on language features. I also already use multiple choice comprehension activities (which I wrote myself!) throughout my Night unit. I have these set up as Google Form quizzes for each section as we read.

 

Homework

Adjustments to timetable – for me, this will still be a focus on implementing a routine with the reading groups. Due to the Literacy CAAs, I have only worked with two of my four groups so far, so I want to get that fully implemented from next week.

Although I already use multi-choice questions with Night, I will put in place some inference-based multi-choice questions for the reading groups, based on instructional level text (as Night is well above instructional level for a lot of my students).

For the vocabulary focus, I already pre-teach the vocabulary for Night, but I will look at some vocabulary in the instructional texts I choose next for the reading groups.

On the whole, I feel pretty positive about today and about my reading programme moving forward.

After Day 4 of the RPI I reflected on my small group instruction which I had videoed on 30 April and discussed this with my colleagues Megan and Sean when we met on May 9th. I concluded that my students needed a clearer understanding of why I was asking them to work on fluency, and exactly what they need to work on. In addition, I had not managed to create a choice board for the first group session, so I really wanted to achieve this for the groups this week.

I set two goals to adjust my practice:

• Share the student-friendly version of the fluency rubric with my students, and get them to complete self and peer assessments against it.
• Create choice boards for all the reading groups, tailored to the needs of each group.

On 19 May, I videoed another small group session. I shared the rubric with the students and sent them off to record themselves reading aloud and then self and peer assess against the fluency rubric. I included the rubric in their reading activity linked to the image below:

 

The discussion of the rubric was unfortunately a bit rushed, as the article was quite long and I needed to wind the group up and move on to the next. I will return to the rubric with them next time and talk over the fluency goals the students have set for themselves. I will do this in the group if they are comfortable with that. If they are not, I will speak to each student individually. Part of the aim of the goal setting is for the students to develop greater agency over their own learning, so I will not suggest changes to the goals unless they are really off target.

The second goal I had set was to create choice boards for each reading group. I managed this, although the activities were somewhat restricted by the fact that we were losing two out of four lessons this week to the Literacy CAA exams. Below is a screenshot of the choice board for my target reading group:

I will not really be able to effectively assess the impact of the choice board this week, as I have been out of class supervising the literacy exams for two of four lessons, and will be at Day 5 of the RPI course on Friday. I will try again with the choice boards next week, and get feedback from the students when I meet with each group.

In addition to the two practice adjustment goals I have discussed above, I noticed some other positives in reviewing the video of the small group session:

• I deliberately used some of the metacognitive vocabulary and this was picked up by some students (e.g. scanning text for unfamiliar words before reading)
• I introduced the Pause-Prompt-Praise model and encouraged the students to let their peers have time to attempt a word before helping them. The ‘Praise’ part of the 3Ps definitely sank in, with students encouraging and applauding each other.
• I used ‘Think Aloud’ and also deliberately drew students attention to text features such as the text boxes and maps.

The main difficulty with the group session was that the classroom was very quiet (!) so the group was very self-conscious as they knew their peers outside the group were listening to them. This resulted in some silly behaviour. Next time I will either set an activity to ensure there is sufficient background noise in the classroom so that the group is not being overheard by the class, or arrange a helper so that I can withdraw the group to a break-out space.

One thing I have not achieved since Day 4 was to finalise my teaching slides/digital modelling book. I prioritised instead the choice boards. I also felt that I had made the learning goals clear on the choice boards and that introducing my students to yet another resource at this stage would have resulted in cognitive overload. They were already struggling with using the daily planner, the choice board, the online article, and the response document. I did not think the modelling book would have been helpful for my students at this point. I am covering the things on the modelling book (e.g. teaching new vocabulary, discussing text features etc), so am comfortable with this for the present. One step at a time!

After a day spent supervising students sitting the Literacy Reading CAA exam, it was back to more literacy PD this afternoon, with an online session at our ŌC staff meeting from Kiri Kirkpatrick of Manaiakalani.  This is the slide show from her presentation:

Amongst other things, Kiri recapped the reading apprenticeship model, which was fresh in my mind, having just finished my notes on it today!

I think my main takeaway from this afternoon’s PD was this link to an amazing set of graphic organisers. I have already picked out a couple to use with my Y11s next week for their creative writing.

Excerpt from Chapter 2 — “The Reading Apprenticeship Framework” from Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms, 2nd Edition, Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphy

Core Understanding of Reading
Reading is not just decoding or word recognition—it is a complex, cognitive and social process involving interaction with text, prior knowledge, and mental strategies. Just because a student can read smoothly doesn’t mean they understand what they read. Reading ability is context-dependent—students may be strong in one kind of text (e.g. narrative) but struggle in another (e.g. science texts).

Proficient readers:

• Are mentally engaged and strategic.
• Set goals, monitor understanding, and reason in discipline-specific ways.
• Coordinate multiple strategies to ensure comprehension.

Students can build fluency through frequent reading, rereading, and discussion, particularly when content is familiar or interesting.

Social-Cognitive Framework
Based on Vygotsky’s theory, learning is socially mediated through interaction with more capable peers or teachers. Cognitive apprenticeships show that mental processes can be learned through guided participation and modelled strategies. Demystifying reading is key—students must see inside the thinking of skilled readers.

Text-Based Discussion & Metacognition
Reading must be treated as inquiry, where discussion helps make sense of texts.

Metacognitive conversation (thinking about thinking) helps students:

• Reflect on how they read.
• Share strategies.
• Build understanding across all four language domains (reading, writing, speaking, listening).

 

The Reading Apprenticeship Framework

The Reading Apprenticeship Approach is based on the idea of cognitive apprenticeship: Students learn reading by engaging with expert readers (teachers/peers) who make their strategies and thinking visible. Students are “apprenticed” into reading practices, especially in subject areas, by participating in authentic reading experiences with support. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework is composed of four interconnected dimensions:

The Four Dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship

These dimensions interact and are embedded in a culture of extensive reading:

Social Dimension

• Builds a safe classroom community for risk-taking and collaborative reading.
• Encourages shared inquiry, problem-solving, and leveraging diverse perspectives.

Personal Dimension

• Develops students’ reader identity, motivation, and goals.
• Helps students build confidence and persistence in reading unfamiliar or complex texts.

Cognitive Dimension

• Expands students’ toolbox of reading strategies, including:
  • Previewing, skimming, chunking
  • Rereading, summarizing, visualizing
  • Questioning, note-taking, annotating
  • Focuses on strategy use in real reading situations, not isolated drills.

Knowledge-Building Dimension

• Build background knowledge (schema)
• Understand text structures
• Decode disciplinary language
• Engage in discipline-specific ways of thinking (e.g. scientific reasoning, historical analysis)

 

Classroom Culture
The approach emphasises discussion, collaboration, and reflection. Teachers model their thinking, make reading processes explicit, and scaffold independence. Students learn to value reading as a powerful tool for academic success and personal empowerment.

• Provide extensive reading opportunities.
• Encourage reflection and dialogue about reading.
• Link students’ existing knowledge and everyday literacy to academic tasks.
• Promote ownership and persistence through scaffolded support and goal setting.

Reading Apprenticeship is not a program—it’s a framework for integrating reading instruction into every subject. It respects adolescents as capable learners and equips them to read and think deeply across disciplines, by combining social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-based supports.

 

Reflection: This reading helped connect together the professional reading from my previous blogpost with the learning from Day 4 of the RPI course. When it came to what to apply in my practice this week, I could see where the decisions I was making fitted into the apprenticeship model. It also helped me put what I am learning in the RPI together with what I had learned during my initial primary teacher training about designing guided reading programmes. None of these models conflict, they just tend to focus on different aspects of the programme design. Underneath it all, it seems to me that a good reading teacher is the same thing it has always been: reading to and with our students, modelling and making explicit our good reading practice, and scaffolding students’ response to text to give them increasing agency and confidence in approaching a range of text types.

I followed up on some of the further reading resources provided on Day 4 of the RPI course.

Prior Knowledge – from Shanahan on Literacy 

Dr Timothy Shanahan points out that activating prior knowledge can be a double-edged sword: it may help students to process new information, or it may activate incorrect pre-conceptions which they will cling to and therefore not absorb new, contradictory information. In this blog post, he suggests ten guidelines for dealing with prior knowledge:

1. Don’t overdo it.
2. Respect the reader-text relationship.
3. Don’t be afraid to fill students in on some “appropriate” background information.
4. Excerpts are special.
5. Use multiple readings to solve the prior knowledge problems.
6. Culturally different students may benefit from a different prior knowledge input.
7. Only deal with prior knowledge if it is likely to raise a comprehension problem.
8. Prior knowledge issues can be addressed during and after reading.
9. Do not focus on prior knowledge for texts that present information that will challenge
   readers’ current concepts.
10. Analogies are a powerful way to bring prior knowledge to bear on a text.

Reflection: These can be summed up by saying that we should activate the minimum prior knowledge which is relevant to helping students understand the text, without issuing a bunch of ‘spoilers’ which will reduce the student’s agency in discovering and making meaning from the text. If we suspect that the prior knowledge may be incorrect and will be contradicted by the text, it is better NOT to activate it, since it will just reinforce the incorrect information. Not all background knowledge should be given before reading; sometimes it is more useful to interrupt the reading to give the information during reading.

I previously posted the following:

“The movie I am showing next week counts as a text to build background and prior knowledge. I have already set up a reflection/create/share activity for students to complete after viewing, but I am now going to go back and think about how to set a clearer purpose for viewing – e.g. whether to share the reflection questions with them before we view the film.”

Interestingly, after reading the above article I changed my mind about setting a purpose for viewing and sharing the reflection questions before students viewed the film – I decided it would narrow their responses to what they were seeing. Instead, I decided not to try and activate prior knowledge before the class watched Schindler’s List, and I think that was a good decision. I gave a minimal amount of background instead, explaining that the film was about someone who started out to exploit and make money from the Jews during the Holocaust, and then he ended up changing.

 

Activating Prior Knowledge – from Teaching Reading for Understanding in Years 4-8 – Wilson, Meiklejohn-Whiu, Wilkinson, Weiwei, Zhang and Zhoa

1. Activating Prior Knowledge Is Essential—but Needs to Be Relevant and Accurate

Students understand texts better when their relevant prior knowledge is activated. Inaccurate or irrelevant prior knowledge can hinder comprehension. Teachers need to help students focus on the right background knowledge—what’s central to understanding the main idea or deep structure of the text (e.g., trigonometry, not the ski field setting of a maths problem).

2. Background Knowledge Needs to Be Built, Not Just Activated

Not all students come to school with equal background knowledge, especially regarding cultural or domain-specific content. Building background knowledge includes:

• Topic knowledge (specific subject of the text)
• Domain knowledge (broader area it fits into)
• Cultural knowledge (from students’ home and community)
• General world knowledge.

3. Cultural Relevance Boosts Comprehension and Confidence

Students perform better and feel more confident when reading culturally familiar texts. Using culturally responsive texts can reframe struggling readers as capable, competent readers.

4. Effective Reading Instruction Connects Prior Knowledge to Inference-Making

Good practice involves supporting students to use their background knowledge actively (e.g., graphic organizers that combine “knowledge from the reader” + “knowledge from the text” → inference). This helps with higher-order comprehension tasks, not just recall.

5. Building Knowledge Also Supports Vocabulary and Strategy Use

Familiar topics allow students to focus cognitive energy on learning new vocabulary and comprehension strategies. For example, struggling readers with strong knowledge of baseball learned comprehension strategies more effectively when the texts were about baseball.

6. Teach Reading in Conceptually Integrated Units

Reading instruction is more powerful when embedded in rich, knowledge-building units, not isolated skill drills. Students should read multiple connected texts about the same topic to reinforce and deepen understanding.

7. Digital Reading Requires Digital Literacy

Prior topic knowledge is less crucial for online reading than for print; digital navigation skills become key. Students need to be taught how to use online tools (e.g., search engines) to build background knowledge on the fly.

Instructional Implications

• Select texts carefully: Choose materials that build and draw on relevant knowledge, including cultural knowledge.
• Frontload knowledge: Provide background before reading through discussion, visuals, or mini-lessons.
• Support inference-making: Use tools like graphic organizers to guide the integration of prior knowledge and new information.
• Use connected text sets: Design thematic units to build cumulative understanding.
• Incorporate digital literacy: Especially when students are researching or reading online, teach them how to access and evaluate information.

Reflection: Thinking about this article in the context of my Night unit, I am deliberately not using culturally-connected texts, because the unit is teaching about human rights and the Holocaust. Therefore, I need to build background knowledge, which I have done through short videos on Judaism, showing a documentary about the Holocaust, reading an online article about the Righteous Among the Nations, and viewing the film Schindler’s List.

The class has now started reading the main text, Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night. Alongside this text, I am continuing to include complementary texts to build on the background knowledge and explore the relevance of these issues today. This coming week, I will use a journal article, Buttons by Iona McNaughton, to look at how students from a Jewish school in NZ remembered the Holocaust. This is from a Part IV journal, which means it is at the instructional level for my lowest ability reading group, and easily accessible by the rest of the class, who are all working at curriculum level 5.

I will try and see if I can find some NZ articles about human rights in a Māori context to make connections later in the unit which are culturally relevant.

 

Teaching Oral Fluency to Older Students – from Shanahan on Literacy

Oral fluency is not just for young or remedial readers—it supports reading comprehension in students from Year 4 upwards, including secondary students. Many older students struggle to apply decoding knowledge fluently; fluency instruction helps consolidate this.

Reading fluency includes:

• Accuracy – reading the actual words on the page
• Automaticity – reading without effort (usually measured by speed)
• Prosody – reading with appropriate expression and phrasing

Poor fluency (e.g., slow or hesitant reading) negatively affects comprehension, especially in content-heavy subjects.

Practical Teaching Strategies

1. Paired Reading

• Students take turns reading aloud and giving feedback.
• Link to comprehension by asking students to identify main ideas or form questions after each section.

2. Repeated Reading

• Students reread a short passage multiple times with feedback until they reach:
  • ~99% accuracy
  • 100 words per minute
  • Expressive, meaningful reading
• This is great for content-area texts (e.g., science, social studies).

3. Pause, Prompt, Praise

• Partners wait before correcting, offer prompts when needed, and praise accurate or improved reading.

4. Recorded Readings

• Students record themselves reading.
• Encourages practice and self-monitoring;
• Teachers can spot check performance.

5. Chunking

• Provide texts marked with phrase/sentence boundaries.
• Helps with expression and understanding.
• Students can later identify phrasing themselves.

Key Considerations

• Not all students need fluency instruction. Focus on those reading below grade-level fluency (e.g., <150 WCPM in secondary).
• Avoid performance-based oral reading (like round robin); use practice-focused activities.
• Include fluency work in content areas (e.g., science, maths) to support comprehension of technical texts.
• Just 10–30 minutes per week across subjects can make a meaningful difference.

 

Reflection: The more I think about practicing reading fluency, the more I remember my own personal experience as a teenager. I have a sister about 4 years younger than me, who is mildly dyslexic. As a child, she didn’t like reading and at some stage when I was around 15 or so, I decided to get her interested in books by reading to her. I can report that this was highly successful, and that we read our way through Moomintrolls, Narnia and the whole of Middle Earth, amongst other things. As an adult, she is still a keen reader and recommends books to me.

But the reading had an effect on me, too. I was conscious of becoming a better reader the more I practiced. I listened to my own voice and tried to make it sound ‘better’. I worked hard at phrasing and intonation. I began to try and do different voices for different characters. I was a really fluent reader before I started reading aloud to my sister, but I am sure I was a much more fluent reader when I had been doing it for a while. So, while I was a bit startled to read about the importance of high school students reading aloud and practising fluency, it resonated with my own personal experience, and makes a lot of sense to me.

During this process of reading aloud to my sister and consciously trying to get better at it over time, I was aware of my reading role model (my mother, Prue Wilson, an experienced primary and English teacher with an ATCL in Speech). As I read, I would have in my mind how my mum would have read it to us. So again, this points to the importance of me reading aloud to my classes, to provide them with the role model to imitate.

 

Explicit Teaching Strategies to Strengthen Reading across Learning Areas – MoE

This is a Ministry of Education professional development presentation which aims to help teachers:

1. Explore how explicit instruction supports ākonga development of six reading strategies.
2. Examine activities that can support the explicit instruction of reading strategies in your learning area.
3. Plan reading strategies that you can use with ākonga before, during and after engaging with a text.

Six Reading Strategies

Independent readers have six key strategies that help them become better readers and develop a stronger and deeper comprehension of a text:

1. Making connections
2. Monitoring
3. Visualising
4. Inferring
5. Questioning
6. Summarising

Explicit Instruction to Support the Six Reading Strategies

Explicit instruction helps make these six strategies visible in the classroom. Explicit instruction involves making students aware of the thinking processes independent readers use as they engage with text. (Metacognition) By supporting students with this metacognitive understanding, they can begin to actively transfer these reading skills across learning environments.

Before Reading

Before reading a text, there are a number of metacognitive strategies students can use to be more aware of what they are about to read and to support their engagement with the text. Key strategies are:

• Making Connections
• Pre-teaching of Vocabulary

Explicit pre-teaching of vocabulary and helping students make connections are the two key pre-reading activities. Connections include text to self, text to text, and text to world. (Techniques: Hot Potato, Word Maps.)

 

During Reading

While reading a text, there are a number of metacognitive strategies students can use to be more aware of what they are reading and to deepen their understanding of the text. Key strategies are:

• Visualising – Visualising is the act of making ‘mental images’ as you read. These mental pictures help readers to create meaning, to check for sense and to access greater understanding of the text. Explicit instruction to visualise can support ākonga to recall information and feel connected to the text. (Technique: Freeze Frame.)

• Inferring – When students infer, they find clues in the text and use what they already know from
personal experience or past knowledge to fully understand what the text is about. Independent readers can read “between the lines” to make predictions, revise these, understand underlying themes, hypothesise, make critical judgments, and draw conclusions.

But — before students can infer, they have to be explicitly taught how. Inferential thinking is a complex skill that develops over time and with experience. Teachers can help students to make inferences by asking inferential questions during shared reading or during discussion in guided reading. Alternatively, teachers may pause, when reading a text with students, to draw out clues from the text and prompt the students to make connections between different parts of the text in order to reach a conclusion. (Techniques: Inference Graphic Organisers, Inference with Pictures).

• Questioning – teaches students to be aware of what they do understand, identify what they do not understand, identify where to use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension. (Technique: teacher and peer questioning.)

 

After Reading

After reading a text, there are strategies that allow students to reflect and share what they’ve learnt. The strategies tend to be interactive so that students learn from each other. A key strategy is:

• Summarising – Summarising is being able to identify the most important ideas in a text, ignore the irrelevant information, and condense the central ideas in a way that makes sense to the learner. Teaching students to summarize improves their memory for what they read and acts as a check for comprehension. When using this strategy with learners, it is important to remember that summarising academic learning doesn’t come automatically.
• Using think-alouds helps make this process visible to ākonga.
• Kaiako need to provide ākonga with a variety of approaches to use as they learn to summarise. (Techniques: cooperative reading, collaborative poster, 3 level reading guides – on the lines, between the lines, beyond the text.)

 

Think Aloud  Supports all Reading Strategies

Independent readers recognise when there is a breakdown in their understanding of a text and independently deploy strategies to repair this. Developing readers need support to deliberately implement these strategies. By explicitly naming and modelling these strategies, kaiako can give all readers the tools they need to monitor and repair their understanding of a text.

Think Aloud supports ākonga to:
• be aware of what they do understand
• identify what they do not understand
• use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension

With this strategy, teachers verbalize aloud while reading a selection orally. Their verbalizations include describing things they’re doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy is to model for students how skilled readers construct meaning from a text.

(Techniques to support: Metacognitive Bookmarks.)

 

Reflection: This slide show is a really indepth and useful resource which I think I would like to use in literacy PD for all staff across the college, not just for the Humanities Faculty. I am going to look at building it into our literacy and numeracy PD in term 3.

For my own practice, I am going to print and laminate some of the metacognitive bookmarks for use with my reading groups. I won’t try and use these this week, instead, I am going to start using some of the terminology through my own think alouds with the groups. The article we are reading this week is a long one, so I think trying to introduce another new routine would cause information overload. 

I also liked the graphic organiser model for teaching inference and will look out for an appropriate text to use to introduce that.