Commitment to Learners

Working in a West Auckland school presents the wonderful opportunity to work with a very diverse community. At Tirimoana, we begin each year with a Diversity Day parade and have celebrations throughout the year for varying language weeks. During these weeks, I make sure to include activities that allow learners who belong to that culture (as well as learners who don't) to connect with the material and feel seen and validated. This year many of my learners have been Chinese or Indian, so we have celebrated Chinese New Year and Diwali in our class with a range of literacy, art and maths activities. I believe that it is important to expose children to a variety of cultures and experiences and to make good use of the vast knowledge these children have about their heritage and family. I encourage my learners who go to ESOL or Mandarin class to share their learning once they return. This promotes a sense of pride and individualism, rather than just being separate to our in-class program and something that no other learners are aware of. During Term 1, I invite all of my learners to share things about their lives, their families, their cultures during our 'show and tell' morning oral language rotations.

I have always strived to create an inclusive and inviting classroom environment where my learners feel safe and happy. This begins before my learners have started their first term when I am preparing my classroom. I ensure that they can find their names and photos around the work and I display any artwork done previously from our 'Meet the Teacher' day as a way to help them feel connected to the space. The classroom is a space for them to share their learning and watch as it progresses - the walls are there to assist learning and display the things we are proud of. It certainly is nice to have a beautiful, well-presented classroom but at the end of the day, that's not the main purpose. I also want it to be representative of the learners inside of the 4 walls. I have always wanted my learners to feel proud to be a member of Room 21 and to want to invite others in to see what they have done. During our walk-through early in the year, I was very touched to recieve so many compliments about my teaching space.

Having an attractive classroom is one thing, but creating a good classroom culture is no easy feat. There is no simple recipe to guarantee success. During my two years as a PRT, I have used different strategies to create a positive environment in my room utilising the school CARE values, reward systems and my  strong relationships with ākonga. I have incredibly high expectations for my learners and I encourage them to take ownership of their learning, have agency and make independent choices. Other staff and relievers have praised my learners on their respect for others, sense of humour and love of learning but it definitely takes a lot of effort and persistence to maintain. Every year I learn more and more strategies as to how to create the culture that learners deserve to experience in their classroom. I hope to continue this learning throughout my career.

Part of ensuring that my learners engaged is to ensure that the learning is suitable for their needs. I mostly teach whole-class mixed-ability (except for some structured literacy reading groups which are levelled), so it is vital that I differentiate my planning to suit the needs of all. When it comes to group work I sometimes let my learners choose their groups, I choose them (if it is a task that I think requires a particular mix of skill sets) or I will randomise the groups. This ensures that they get to meet and work with different people, stops cliques from forming and stops them seeing each other as 'high' or 'low' achievers. I always have extension and acceleration activities on hand and have begun to outline these clearly in my planning. I really enjoy the rewards that come from this style of teaching as it is wonderful to see a student who may have been labelled at Early Level 1 in Maths grasp the concept of skip counting to solve their times tables, for example. I personally do not believe that this knowledge should be 'witheld' from them. While I do sometimes run more focused 'workshops' or levelled reading groups, I do think its important to expose all children to the level that they are 'supposed' to be working at and not just limit them to what we 'think' they are able to do. The great thing about children is that they will (more often than not) surprise and amaze us if we give them the space to do so!