Te Ahu o te Reo Māori with Takatū

I am SO excited to be participating in Te Ahu o te Reo Māori this year! I had the introductory zoom session on Sunday morning and was buzzing about the course at the end of it.

The course with Takatū is broken up into 7 levels. I am going to be entering into the course at the Tumu level. I really liked this illustration which explains the levels and the philosophy behind the course. 

Data Collection

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my data collection will be focussed on confidence, communication and oral language. So how will I assess these three elements to create a profile of learners?

PAT Vocabulary Test: This will give me an idea of the children who need support in developing their vocabulary knowledge. 

Observation: I have emailed the team 4 teachers to ask them to observe and recommend children who could benefit from being a videographer, photographer, presenter or editor for the news to support development of confidence, communication or oral language.

Reading Age: The idea is that the children who are presenters for the news should be reading at 10 years or above. This is because the news requires children to read from a script fluently.

Student Voice: Asking the child about their confidence, communication and oral language and about the their speaking and confidence at home.

Whanau input: Gathering data through conversations with parents about their child and their confidence, communiation and oral language at home.

PENN episodes: Comparison of children in term 1 compared to term 4, presenting on the news. How have they improved? This could be measured using a rubric.

Examples of children creating the content to develop confidence, communication and oral language.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have had some awesome examples where children have used film/videography as a medium for their learning.

These first two examples were learning experiences led by our Sport Coordinator, Sally Va'afusuaga. Sally worked with our 2022 House Captains to create these movies for the school. These are clear examples of film being used for the teaching and developing of confidence, communication and oral language. 

The first movie was also edited by Finau and Jade, two Year 8 House Captains.

This next example was created when our year 5s & 6s had their fun day in place of the usual year 5&6 camp. I had some time where I took two keen year 4 children out to try out the video cameras. This is an example of developing confidence but also communication as the children had to ask questions to learn more about using the cameras.

These are just three examples where tauira are being given opportunities to use film as a medium for learning, developing confidence, communication and oral language. 

How can I develop more confidence through PENN and how can I encourage more of this sort of learning to be happening through the classroom?2

Example of using movie as a medium to create meaningful learning experiences for children

At the beginning of the year, I sent an email out to our teachers at Pt England School. A large element of the Pt England Network News is sharing learning from across the school. During lockdown last year, it was challenging to expect each teacher in the school to do this. I would sift through the children's blogs to find great learning examples and share these daily on the news. Now we are back at school, it is important that I place that responsibility back onto the teachers so that each class and the tauira in that class have their learning showcased in some way. 

Here is the email I sent out to the teachers to encourage this:

In the email, I created a list of suggestions to teachers to support them in making movies which are meaningful for our tauira. 

Last week, I came across a wonderful example of a teacher who used these suggestions to make an awesome movie! Heidi Davis is a third year teacher who teaches year 2 and 3 children. Heidi looked over the list I had sent and wanted to use her term 1 PENN movie to create a meaningful learning experience which would challenge and excite her learners.

In her movie, she had one of her year 3 children read the script. You can hear the confidence, fluency and clarity as he reads. What a fantastic, engaging, REAL learning experience for this child! Other children showcased their learning through the term. Heidi included her children and they were highly aware of the purpose as they created the movie together. Heidi said that the children were so excited to see the finished product! The anticipation of waiting now until it shows on PENN is engaging and will create a fantastic intrinsic reward for the children too! 

Here is Heidi's movie:

This is such a great example of what I hope to see more of through my inquiry this year. I want to see more movie making happening across the school which engages children, creates real learning experiences and gives children a purpose in their learning. I want to be able to watch movies like Heidi's class movie and be able to see the learning that the children have had through the experience of making the movies.

Having taught in the classroom, I do understand and appreciate the time that is required to do this well. Therefore, part of my role will be to support teachers in making this happen. 

Developing confidence, communication & oral language through film

Producing the Pt England Network News (PENN) for the school has started off with a bang this year! We have got some fantastic new equipment to improve the quality of the product we create at school. I have also already started seeing the potential that using film at school has on learning for the children, particularly confidence, communication and oral language.

There is an understanding amongst my PENN crew that we are a team. I am at the same level as them in the team. This is the first step I use to create confidence amongst the children and it sometimes takes some time for the children to get to the point where they realise they can tell me what to do, rather than ask. An example of this is if the sun is in their eyes when filming. Rather than ask to move, the understanding is that the children can tell me that we need to move. When the script is scrolling too fast, the understanding is that the children tell me that it needs to be slowed down, rather than ask for it to be slowed down. 

The pattern I often see with new children is this:

On Thursday last week, one of my presenters said that they wanted to develop the weather section of the news to provide more important information. In particular, adding in UV levels and fire risk. We decided that having a UV level included was important for the audience to know about.

On Saturday, I received this email:

Yes, emailing you on the weekends is probably the wrong time but I want to add the UV level part. It's to tell whether you need to stay protected from the sun, or if it's ok and you won't get a sunburn.

Thanks if you want to add it.

Here is some of the email thread we had. My emails are in red, where the student's are in blue.

Hi _________,

I have taken the fire danger level out but thought we could include the tide times and water temperature at Pt England Beach. What do you think? Keeping the UV level in is great!

Miss West

YAY to UV level! I thought I was going to add that but I think that it was too much information. So that means that:

Tomorrow's weather, UV level, tide times (maybe for after school so they can play at the beach after school) and water tempo is going to be added for weather. And inquiry is the easiest one. For now...

That's it. Let's see what we think and decide if we want to remove anything this morning.

Ok, let's do more detail person to person in like 10 minutes

I was so impressed when this student re-voiced our conversation in writing, creating a great summary of what we had discussed (see above in blue). This is a great example of me working alongside a child at their level, encouraging them to solve the problems with confidence.

Here is the finished product of the weather segment this morning after the email stream (go to 6m36s).