NZEI

New Educators Hui 2017

This 2 day Hui was organised by NZEI for new educators (within their first 5 years of teaching). It was an opportunity for new educators to connect, reflect and learn together. There was mini workshops on topics like behaviour management, acknowledging the Treaty of Waitangi, and workload.

New Educators Activist Hui 2018

This hui was run with a much smaller group than last year. This group of new educators was chosen as being people who can be activists for new educators across the country. We were involved in discussions with the National Executive Committee including the President of NZEI, Lynda Stewart. These discussions were based around how the primary and ECE sectors are from the perspective of beginning teachers and those in their first few years. As this is both a negotiation year and an election year we came up with a few ways that we can ensure that new educators are not forgotten within the teaching sector and within the union.

As a group we also put steps in place in order to better support other new educators in our respective areas, these included the setup and running of the 'Beginning Better' workshops and social events. These events are designed to help build a support network around new educators.

Worksite Rep @ DPS

With our worksite rep heading off on maternity leave part way through Term 2, I stepped into this position. This included attending branch meetings, and being available to answer questions form staff. A huge part of this has been deciphering and forwarding information regarding the August industrial action as well as the voting process beforehand. This also included creating signs for staff members.

Beginning Better Workshop (Wellington)

This was a workshop that I was involved in deciding what topics of discussion would be important to beginning teacher and student. This included sessions which helped to explain the purpose of the union and the process of the current negotiations.

There was a session on behaviour management which outlined some key strategies not only for dealing with difficult children but also colleagues and parents. I found this session helpful as often behaviour management talks are solely targeted at children when I have found that often the parents are a bigger issue than the children or harder to deal with.

A session with tips to manage workload and stress was really helpful. A lot of this session was based on ways to identify what the stressor actually is, and evaluating whether it is something that is as important as you initially think it is. A suggestion was splitting a to do list into a quadrant. as shown below. This helps to organise what is the most important and prioritise your time. This can also help with the overload that is often felt when looking at a massive list of things to do, when in reality a lot of the things on your list could wait for another day.

Play Based Learning Workshop Term 3, 2018

This workshop was hosted by Avalon Intermediate in Lower Hutt. It was lead by Bronwyn Olds who is a play-based learning expert. I found that due to her background being in play centre and new entrant level this workshop was also geared towards these levels without covering how these concepts can be used in upper primary. I found this to be a great opportunity to network with others who are in a similar position to me, teaching upper primary and experimenting with introducing more play-based pedagogy into our classes. Many were trialling things similar to the Click, Make, Build, Learn sessions that we already run in our spaces. It is a set time often only once a week when students can try something new and 'play' rather than something that is integrated into the rest of the program as it is in the junior school.

National Conference 2018