Goal Three

Plan contextually appropriate, connected lessons, with relevant learning intentions and success criteria, that relate to the learners involved, providing appropriate assessment and feedback and basing the next lessons off the next steps for each learner.

The school runs a structured literacy programme, which I followed for each group. Groups were based on the stages of the programme. Each group had a box containing the book they were working on, heart words and cards with the sounds for that stage (and the previous stages) and words made out of these sounds.

I would plan my lesson based on what we had done the previous day, and areas I had noted that needed more focus. For example, two children in a group of three were pausing before saying ‘b’ and ‘d’, showing me that they were thinking hard about which letter they were looking at. For the next day’s lesson, I used lots of words starting with ‘b’ and ‘d’ when we were working on words. I also went through some strategies to help remember which is which, including drawing a bed with a distinct b and d and connecting the sounds to the letters in the picture. When reading the book, I got them to look for words that started with ‘b’ on one page and ‘d’ on another page.

Writing was integrated into the reading lesson, and I would use this to build on next steps for the children’s learning. For example, if children were having difficulty remembering their heart words one day, I would make the focus of the next lesson heart words, including the written component of the lesson. In this way, they would be able to practice reading and writing their heart words during the same lesson.

I would try to contextualise learning, so that the children were working with things that were familiar to them. For example, one child talked about going on his family’s boat at the weekend, which led to many other children talking about their experiences on boats. I had already planned a series of science lessons on floating and sinking. One lesson was to make a structure out of plasticine and see if it would float. I decided to introduce this lesson by starting with a discussion about boats and the children’s experiences on them. All children had experience of boats, as we had used inflatable boats as part of a swimming lesson the previous week, other boats discussed included ferries to the South Island, family boats, dinghies and canoes. I then drew a boat on the board, with direction and input from the children and discussed the features that make such a big item float. They then went on to build ‘boats’ from plasticine, which they tested and adapted to see if they could get them to float.

I taught a series of maths lessons, initially connected to a book “The Very Cranky Bear” that one of the children was given as a prize in Assembly. I read the story on Friday, then on Monday the children worked on the following problem, using materials ‘There are 12 bears and three caves. If there are two bears in one cave, how many could be in the other caves?”. We started by talking about the book, caves and bears. The children then drew caves on large pieces of paper and worked out solutions to the problem. The intention was that they would then draw the picture in their maths book, but only two children did that – one continued working on it during play to complete it. I then decided to carry on the following day with a similar problem, culminating in drawing in their maths books. I related it to gardening (growing strawberries in pots), as a child had recently brought in some flowers that she had grown. When outlining the problem, I used children’s names from the class.

I realise that it’s important to give feedback to children, and I tried to do this one-on-one, with specific comments about what they had done well and what their next steps could be. I also gave feedback to the whole class when appropriate, for example, we did pictures based on the book “Giraffes Can’t Dance” and a growth mindset theme – the children did fantastic work. I told them that and also discussed the steps they had taken and skills they had used while creating their pictures. I did this so that they realised what they had done so that they could talk about their work on Seesaw.

"Finda has integrated learner reflection and feedback to plan and improve future lessons. She also used this information to critically reflect on her own professional learning for personal improvement."

Lesley Blackmore, Associate Teacher

"Finda demonstrated consistency with planning documents and linked activities and lessons to meet curriculum expectations. She gained a greater understanding of Maths expectations with regard to the CNS Professional Development with Dinah Harvey and utilised essential documents to keep in front of the learning progress."

Lesley Blackmore, Associate Teacher