Jane Clifford Professional Blog

 A summary - Teaching to the North-East by Russell Bishop focuses on the importance of strong, caring relationships between teachers and students.  Bishop argues that students, especially Māori and other under-served groups, learn best when they feel respected, valued, and supported. He describes the "North-East" zone as the ideal teaching space—where teachers combine warm, trusting relationships with high expectations and effective teaching.  In this approach, teachers build classroom environments like families, listen to students' voices, and work together with them to plan learning. The book highlights that when teachers truly connect with students, they can make a real difference in their success. I always felt having my classroom relationships and environment have a 'family feel' was important. This book and the research of Russel Bishop in the Kotahitanga project and subsequent work has confirmed this for me. I have also seen this with my now Year 13 son wh...

 The highlight for me of our 2024 Pasifika Fiafia was making a wee collaboration with South Hornby School work. We had the Fa'ataupati working well with our Pasifika TA teaching our tama.  We wanted to share our performance with the tama from Manu Tukutuku- South Hornby, to perform a joint fa'ataupati at Fiafia. Great experience and energy, and a real community effort. I think the practice was even more fun than the performance!

I found this mahi I completed for a University Post Grad paper a couple of years ago- Engaging Pasifika Communities.  Here is the link to the slides  

 

  Chapter 7: Meeting of the minds Big Question - How are we going to reduce the negative impact of the challenging student  on the learning and safety of their classmates? What I took from this chapter is the idea of Plan B for every student. 24 brains are better than one when deciding on ways of solving a problem. For example - problems moving from one task to another - we all have this feeling of annoyance when we are 'into' some task and the teacher says it is time to put that away. By engaging the whole class in creating the solution to a problem - it empowers the whole class to participate in the solution they have constructed. In this example of 'task changing' - it may be that the class decide the teacher needs to give more warning of this, and also tell the class when they will be able to return to the task they wanted to continue. "Fair does not mean equal." - "In our classroom everyone gets what they need, " and In our classroom, we help ea...

 I have the task of reflecting on Chapter 3 Lesson Plans. A quick review of the plans: Plan A -Adults solve the problem typically by imposing a solution Plan B -Adults and kids solve a problem collaboratively  Plan C -Setting aside a particular unsolved problem temporarily until a more suitable time available to enact Plan B. There is also Emergency Plan B when the timing may not be best to work collaboratively with the clearest thinking for all parties - but you try and do it anyway. This may not bring forth the best solutions, and it is better to Use Plan C and wait until you can enact Proactive Plan B which is the best plan. My reflections: I think all kaiako at this school collaboratively construct expectations for the classroom at the start of the year. Many ākonga are happy to remind each other of these expectations for the smooth running of their class, and are aware that by meeting them, the environment will be fair, and a great one to learn and have fun. Page 55/...

 Learn Create Share is the Manaiakalani philosophy. Today we put the lens on the create. Link to Structured Literacy & Create Tasks https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/171Kb74Y9-myjqQtj3C91Zgl5uvSrszqpbxYUjTpqqyk/edit#slide=id.g1feee22dd2f_0_58 Link to Manaiakalani resource.