Number Agents

Some of you may know that we have been on a journey over the last few years to transform reading at school.  Our aims have been and continue to be: 1)To only start reading when children are developmentally ready.  To stop using chronological age as a guide for expected progress.  To see the growth rather than the deficit.   2)To help all children to love reading from the moment they start reading, to be so interested in reading that they largely self-initiate the process and take an active role in driving their own progress. 3)To concentrate on the fact that 1/3 of children won't learn without explicit phonics and that by using this approach we won't hurt anyone's learning, but instead help everyone.  (Neil Mckay) 4)To ensure that within our play-based programme, oral language, visual learning (use of pictures for storytelling and the drawing of understandings) along with lots of stories and shared reading play a huge role.   5)To read i...

I thought I would put together a post that summarises what a day looks like for us now given we have changed and evolved a little.  It is of course pretty fluid, but this would be a pretty typical day for us...not planned, no timetable, just guided by our components of play and our focus for the term. Our bell goes at 9am. *Children come in and play for the first 10-20 minutes.  We do the roll based on the photos that they have moved to indicate that they are present.  During this time we will talk to children, check in with those that need a bit of extra 'care' and maybe catch up with a developmental check in if time. *About 9.20am we will come to the mat and sing our morning songs in Te Reo.  Then we will have our class meeting.  This will revolve around something noticed the day before and will be something recorded in our learning journal.  The discussion will revolve around this. *About 9.30 children will go back to play.  While they are p...

For those that have read my earlier posts, you will know that I am not a big believer in new entrant assessment of any kind, or testing for the sake of testing.  This play-based journey has had a flow on effect for me, it has allowed me to see how assessment (for want of a better word) can be used as and for learning without causing stress or anxiety. Let me start by saying this, I believe that if you are to truly embrace play as a pedagogy and student driven learning our old ways of using assessment need to discarded.  Assessment that 'tests' what a child knows, even when they are not developmentally ready has no place in our classrooms. Basically if we are obsessed with measuring, we will never be able to truly embrace the beauty of individualised learning and developmentally appropriate practice.  There is no way I can embrace play and the ethos behind it and then think it is appropriate to assess a child on print concepts at six, given that in my individualised en...

Before I Start When using play as a pedagogy, the hardest dilemma is in fact what the play may look like and be provided for as children progress through the levels. It is one schools wonder about most often and one reason that play may be used effectively in the first year, but not beyond. This makes it difficult for the children who have flourished in a play based environment to then fit into a more prescribed, directed room. Often leading to frustration and stress for not only the children, but the teacher as well. Relationships in a classroom that uses play as its primary pedagogy are something that come to the fore. Play allows us a deep understanding of interests, urges and strengths, which in turn gives us a way in with children. This is more difficult in a traditional, teacher directed room where children are more likely to go unseen. While this will differ from school to school depending on philosophies and values I want to attempt to capture what it may look like, how ...

It can be really difficult to let go of the way you have done things in the past.  Believe me, after 21 years teaching, this has been the most challenging and confronting journey I have been on.  Confronting because in the past six years I have called into question all that I have believed as a teacher and given away the majority of my practice.  It has been a challenging journey, because it has meant really having to stick my head up out of my teaching shell and be prepared to share my journey, knowing that many don't agree, can be down right rude, but also trusting that for many, the journey I am on supports them, just as I am supported by the journey of others. I think a lot, as we all do, so this experience has been challenging, because just as I think we are ticking along, another wondering pops into my head that I just have to pursue.  Play, as in the pedagogy that I use and how I approach it has morphed and changed each year, because let's face it...we...

Well we have just finished our first full week at school.  Seven days in it is like we never left and although our class is now made up of nine new children (27 in total) the play at our place has just continued seamlessly. I have already learned so much over the last week.  Thanks to Marc Armitage for giving me the confidence to know that for the most part, we really need to stay out of the play and just tune into what is going on.  I had started to get there last year, but his words have given me that last bit of confidence to just let go. What we have noticed this week is how little we are needed and how with the different mixture of urges in the class, the play has changed from last year.  We have a lot of children with connection urges, so the items that largely went unused on our shelves last year have been out in force.  We have spent the week realising how deep and rich the play already is, and how little attention the children pay to us.  We ...

Something I have learned over the last four years of this journey is that as teachers we have a huge role to play in how children define successful learning in a classroom, this is no different in a classroom based on play.  Children notice every nuance, every facial expression, everything we say and do not say.  They notice how much weight we give to certain activities, how much positive attention we give and they seek to please us by choosing to engage in these activities. What I have noticed over the 20 years of my career are that most children are people pleasers...particularly girls and they deeply want to do the right thing.  If they perceive that a certain type of 'play' is more desirable than another type, they will engage in this preferred type, even if it is not what they are interested in.  Children are largely taught to people please, from the moment they pick up a book and get a huge smile from their mother or father and copious amounts of praise...