2022 Inquiry Update

This term, our staff came back together to rethink our Inquiry topics for 2022 now that we are in yet again another "new normal" school year. During the discussion, I shared how my focus has been working with my Year 4 students, who are attending school regularly, to understand the importance of completing their learning tasks. With all of the interruptions to their school year the past few years, these students have never had the opportunity to work in a classroom environment for multiple terms without interruption and as a result the importance of completing ALL learning tasks has rarely been at the forefront of thier learning journey. 

I found it interesting that back in March, I indicated that a "Masks Off" classroom goal would be having responsible participants. This is exactlly what I am trying to create in my classroom at this time. 

At this time, I have chosen a group of five students from my homeclass that I teach across all subject areas. I will be working closely with these students to set up learning and completion goals for the remainder of the term. I have also started indicated FIOP (Finish It Off Properly) Blogging Goals across my three classes (Literacy, Maths, Homeclass). For this, I make a list on the front whiteboard of the students who have yet to complete a task and once they have completed it, they rub off their name. This helps those who are still learning to manage themselves focus on what to accomplish when they have spare time in class or before school.

A New Normal

 Teaching the past two years have been anything but normal, and this year is proving to be much of the same. I was challenged recently when I saw a social media post that showed a table of comparing a student's current school year with the last "normal" school year they attended. This made me stop and reflect about our Year 3/4 students. The year 4 students have not attended a "normal" school year since year 1 and the year 3 students have not attended a "normal" school year since they were in an ECE programme. This led me to question myself about what is normal. 

School for our year 3/4 students in a Covid world IS normal. They have never really attended school any other way. One of the things that is not normal is the norms that we generally would have used to compare student acheivement and classroom success in the past. Thinking of the things that we need to change in our teaching practice to help focus on where are students are now our staff used the analogy of a face mask. 

We have been asked to wear a mask at school from nose to chin, which presents many problems in a classroom setting. So, as we move from a Mask On to a Mask Off society, we explored what challenges we are now face with the goals that we have for our "new normal" classroom.