PB4L PD 17/09/19

PB4L:
Acknowledgement - we thrive on feedback (what we are doing well/not well).
Children need feedback to know that they are doing the right thing.
Where am I going?
How am I going?
Where to next?
Why develop a school-wide acknowledgement system?

• it increases the likelihood that desired behaviours will be repeated
• focuses staff 

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation (remembering that not all families will necessarily practise these at home, and intrinsic motivation may be quite new to many children).

Fast and frequent feedback is necessary at the start when a new skill is being practised and acquired. Once fluency is taking place, extrinsic reinforcement can be reduced and will be replaced by intrinsic reinforcement.

Anna and Nigel described the new look house point system. Every 2 weeks there will be a winning house (and there will be a small reward for the children in that house), and then at the end of the term, there will be a winning house with the most points. 

The most important thing is the individual recognition of desired and positive behaviour, which will then translate into group behaviour.

Sandy suggested that instead of team rewards, we focus on the individual at this early stage.

Individual ---> winning house within hubs ---> winning house across the whole school

Discussion ensued relating to fortnightly (hub), termly (whole house) and end of year rewards. Jenny recorded. Sandy suggested that this year we just start with the fortnightly rewards, rather than jump in boots and all and end up taking on something that is simply overwhelmingly huge and unmanageable/unsustainable.

Active supervision: new supervision areas shared.

CoL meeting: Transition 11/09/19

The meeting was opened by Sally who introduced:

• Grant, the Across Schools Leader for Maths
• Katrina, the Across Schools Leader for Diverse Learners
• Felicity, the Across Schools Leader for Transition to School and
• Sean, the Across Schools Leader for Wellbeing (wasn't present but was represented by Sally).

Sally described the process the CoL has been following, and will continue to follow over the next 18 months:

• the establishment phase (complete)
• the development phase (Terms 2 and 3 this year)
• the implementation phase (Term 4 this year to Term 2 202)
• the impact phase

Sally mentioned Angus McFarlane, whose name I need to Google! He has published a piece of work related to ECEs and is going to be publishing a similar piece for primary schools.

The CoL is working towards its review date of November 6th, 2019.

Felicity then described where we are at with transition.

Grant discussed Cashmere High's use of DMIC and Carol Butel's work with primary schools. Cashmere High is going to be focusing on Learning Progressions next.

Katrina, from St Marks, discussed Diverse Learners, saying that the most important factors are transition and wellbeing for these students. 

Sally stressed the importance of emailing or phoning if there are any questions or frustrations.

We split into groups.

Primary teachers sat together with Felicity and took turns to describe what is going well in each school.

I described our preschool visits and the value of having Paul to help with our children who present with challenges of one kind or another.

Other schools described their visits out to preschools. Where does the funding come for this, I asked. Some team leaders build it into their release time. Other schools fund time for team leaders, seeing this as being of value.

As a result of this discussion, Felicity has said that:

• she is going to put in a recommendation that time for this valuable aspect of transition be funded by the CoL
• she is going to put in a recommendation that SLT for some students be funded by the CoL, given that applying for funding through the MoE is invariably unsuccessful, and all teachers agreed that they have children with significant Speech Language challenges.