Changes!

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This year I have moved 1.5km up the road to teach a year 7 and 8 class at Point England School. I was really excited to have the chance to teach year eights again and to gain the opportunity to teach in a hub with four other teachers.

I feel absolutely honoured to be able to work with these strong kaiako, as despite finding the move pretty challenging, I have felt really supported by my team. It is taking me a little while to adjust to the routines and differences between the schools, but I am enjoying the journey and I can already feel myself learning a lot because of this.

This year I would like to develop strategies that I can carry with me from class to class, as I realised that a lot of my management techniques relied on my strong relationships with my students. This year I will have three different classes and I will be interacting with over a hundred and fourty students on a regular basis, so this will be an important skill to develop. I would also like to continue to develop my classroom management strategies as I adjust to the different policies and strategies that are put in place at PES. Moving away from PB4L for example has been a bit of a change, but I am developing my own strategies instead.

I am also adjusting to changes in teaching policies. For example, the students rotate between the teachers for different lessons, so I see a different maths, literacy and homeroom class each day. Within that the school also supports different teaching approaches to what I have used and had professional development in before. For example, we are currently having training in DMIC or Bobbie Maths; a problem solving approach to teaching mathematics. While this is similar to what I have done before, there are several differences between this approach and the one I had PD in at Glenbrae.

I can see that this will be a great year of growth for me and I look forward to reflecting on my learning throughout the year.

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