What is Success and Why?

2016 was a really big year for the Senior School at Hornby Primary School. Lots of new learning for teachers and students and more importantly, students and teachers getting out of their comfort zones.

So what is the 1:1 digital classrooms and the learning model of  Learn, Create share doing for our learners?   The answer, 'Bucket loads' and the best thing is that we have the data to show this!

The data from our E-asttle results shows us that we have accelerated learning and our Year 5 and 6 students are now achieving above the national norms.   Our Year 4's have also made significant gains.

But what was more pleasing and satisfying for me, was our 'Me and my School survey results that all of our year 4, 5 and 6 students completed.   The results were outstanding especially in our year 6 group.

Year 6 (n=38)

Scored higher on 27 of the 28 questions than NZ norms

The one question was 1% point lower than NZ norm

Significant responses - agree/strongly agree

• I have a lot of respect for my teachers: 100%
• My teachers help me learn: 100%
• Doing well at school is very important to me: 98%
• At school I always try to do my best: 98%
• I feel like I am making progress at school: 95%
• When I’m learning something that’s hard I keep on trying until I get it: 94%
• I feel my culture is valued and respected at my school: 92%

So what's happening at our school that is causing children to accelerate their learning and also be extremely happy to attend school.    I took my time to reflect on this and have come to a couple of conclusions.  Our children are hooked.   The digital platform that we have created  caters for all students.  They are engaged but more importantly teachers are activating learning.

As teachers we are spending more time teacher and less time managing the class.  The learning is authentic and has a purpose.  The students see themselves as teachers and learners and the have a voice with a world wide audience.  This directly relates to Learn, Create, Share and the affordances of digital technologies.

So what does learning look like?  why are we making significant shift?

I created this presentation after discussions with the other teachers in the senior school team, which is essentially a reflection of our writing practice.

We had a really good reflection session at our last staff meeting run by Kate Mclachlan our literacy leader.  What got me really excited was that although we have had significant success, everyone of our staff was reflecting on what they could do to improve their practice.  We all had a clear idea of what our next steps were.

That in my books is a recipe for success.  Not being happy with status quo,  but striving to better ones practice collectively.  A great example of teacher as inquiry.