Talking Matters - Korerotia mai

The Talking Matters Summit was a day of multiple opportunities to be reminded about the importance of Oral Language.


 Alison Sutton the Founder of Talking Matters set the scene for the day with - Why does talk matter? 
I loved this expression she used "Reading and Writing floats on a sea of talk" She highlighted, like many others the importance of those  connections between the brain and oral language and that it provides the platform for learning in life, it's importance in relationships and health and wellbeing.

Oral Language for Pre schoolers is an equity issue. We need to ensure all of our children are flourishing as thinkers - talkers and readers. 

One of the big take outs or reminders from the day was that not all talk is equal ...

We have an important role as educators to ensure that we are gifting our children a rich diet on a daily basis. We must ensure that our talk is varied and that our kids have multiple opportunities to serve and respond, to contribute.
Along with this children need positive talk, they need to be affirmed and encouraged and learn the language around this.
The richness of language in books was highlighted and reminded me once again of the importance of 'Reading To' our kids as this language is rich and varied and often much more complex than our every day speech. The example used was the language in Hairy Maclary, certainly not regular everyday language but language that is deliciously rich and most certainly complex.

2017 Inquiry - Sustainability

The last couple of years have been huge - we have done heaps and along with our kids have learnt so much, and with the closing of 2016 and the movement of Staff I was left wondering about sustainability!
When I first came in to my job as an AP I was lucky enough to have been included in many of the aspects of this job already. So whilst it was a huge learning curve and big shoes to fill, I had been involved enough at that level that I was aware of a lot of what  needed to be done. But it led me to reflect on the enormity of the learning for a new teacher in our school. There is so much to get their head around all at once.
Therefore my big question for this year is ... How can we use the affordances of the Technology to ensure that what we have learnt is not lost when a person or people leave? Or if you have not been present for the rich and varied PD we have received to help us towards raising student achievement where can you access this? This coupled with some great reminders  ...
"If it's worth teaching it's worth capturing"  "Ubiquitous Learning is Rewindable" ...has helped me to shape my inquiry.

I have been thinking particularly about our PD. We have received much over the years and need to ensure that the best of this is retained so that in our continual drive to hone our Pedagogy we have gathered and are able to share the learnings.

So my mission for this year is to create a site to capture our PD and the particular gems that we have gleaned along the way and make sure that it is 'rewindable'. Along with this to capture some of the expert practitioners that we have doing what they do best to illustrate what this might look like in our classroom to produce the best possible outcomes for our learners.