Learning from Eachother

Senior Hub Visits the Junior Hub

We are now teaching in two significant hubs, being junior and senior.  With the move of the Years 0-3 students being moved to the open space within the hall, the senior school teachers have felt the need to understand what is happening within the junior hub and gain some understanding of programmes and structures in place.  

We see this as being important so we know what students have been learning and can make connections for when they come to the senior hub.  It is also good to have consistency across the school and will help develop our learning programmes.

For all of us, this visit was very positive and informative.  We were able to see the beginning of the day routine, Numeracy and Writing.  We are intending to visit again in term 3 as three interns were teaching so we need to see how things are managed when just the four teachers present.  

Here are a few snippets from what we observed:

Teachers situated in different parts of the room.  One child chosen for karakia.  One student says the first line and hub repeats.  Hub then sings waiata Ko Mātou.  Sounds so lovely.

Children work independently one to one on iPads with Mathletics.  Children are still in the learning stage so are working out what to do with some activities.  Some swapped and asked each other for answers.  

All instructional groups had a high level of engagement.  These are not currently indicative of how the hub normally operates as there are currently three extra people.  Average of 6 kids per group.  Follow up type work is done at the instructional group.

Actions stations are levelled at three different levels. Activities include:  Peg boards to develop fine motor skills and making patterns, missing number whiteboard sheets, forming numbers.  A buzzer goes and children move to their next station.  Some move to a mat area and then a teacher directs them where to go.  As they change fortnightly, as groups change and teacher role changes.

Some students working on the mat using text books.  Setting out of books is being put in place and some are neater than seniors.  This is deliberate in getting students ready for senior school expectations.

Building Blocks- This is significant for us as we are looking at implementing some aspects of this programme to help tend to needs of out senior school learners.

A mammoth chart of skills needed to be curriculum ready.  Action stations are designed to develop these skills.  Domains are focussed on each term.  These include Talking, Print, Listening, Looking, Moving.

Where to next?

Our next step in understanding and working collaboratively across the school, will be for the junior teachers to visit the senior hub and for us to visit the juniors again and look specifically at how literacy is covered and organised.