Home Learning
We understand the wide
range of activities and learning children engage in outside of school and we
consider that this as a part of home learning. We also understand that there
are many differing opinions as to the expectations around home learning in our
community. Therefore it is personal to you as a family as to when and how home
learning occurs within your family context.
Learning opportunities offered through the
neighbourhood blogs that are specific to the year level.
Connect maths and literacy to their interests:
Many children see the point of maths when it helps them with something they are
interested in. Look for the maths that is connected with something they care
about, whether that's sport, cooking, animals, or choosing the best package for
their next mobile phone. Set tasks those have some flexibility, so that the
challenge (such as working out the perimeter of a rectangle) can be set in a
context that appeals to the individual child. A rectangle can be a soccer
field, a map, a TV screen or a poster. Games are also a fantastic way of
engaging in maths– set these for home-learning and encourage your children to
teach you how to play.
Literacy is prevalent in all learning. There are so
many opportunities for literacy learning in everyday life in activities such as
writing lists, reading signs, having an opinion and expressing an idea.
Engaging in learning is to be literate.
Real-life problem solving:
At school we do what we can to make maths real, the artificial settings of
maths questions asked in many textbooks that are for sale and computer homework
programs don't always compare with the reality of everyday problems such
planning a journey, choosing the best phone package or figuring out the layout
of a new bedroom. So consider having your child working on maths problems that reinforce
a message about the link between maths and everyday life.
Ideas
for home learning can be found on neighbourhood blogs.
Tracking and Assessment
·
The
purpose of assessment is to understand where a child is in an aspect of their
learning, so what they know, what they can do, what they understand and where
to next.
·
We
regularly assess at the whole-group, small-group and at the individual level.
·
There
are two categories of assessment:
o
FORMATIVE
ASSESSMENT, which is based on day-to-day observations and assessments made by
teachers. We undertake this at various points during a learning situation.
§ This form of assessment guides our planning
of workshops, target teaching, and learning agreement provocations in authentic
ways. It allows us to respond to what children need in order to develop new
thinking and understanding. It also allows us to spontaneously target children
at their point of need during a learning situation.
o
SUMMATIVE
ASSESSMENTS are based on more formal, sometimes externally developed tests and
are used mostly used at the end of a period of learning. This helps us evaluate
progress and growth.
·
Assessments
we most commonly use include;
· Conferencing with the children
· Observation and anecdotal notes
· Rubrics and checklists
· Peer feedback
· Photos and videos that we reflect
upon
· Work sample evidence
· Diagnostic tests such as PAT(reading
and maths)[progressive achievement tests], Fountas and Pinnell Running Records
for reading, MOLI for maths and the Assessment for common misunderstandings for
major math concepts.
·
It
is important to remember that children’s learning is not lock step and linear.
At times children make large gains in understanding yet they can plateau with a
concept at other times. Each child will need varying lengths of time to develop
and consolidate their understanding.
·
We
make our assessment visible through the learning profiles for reading, writing
and number. These can be viewed in your child’s portfolio. Individual school
reports on all curriculum areas are produced twice a year in term 2 and 4.
Our Environment
Our Environment
The Neighbourhood is designed purposefully to support the school’s philosophy and we work continually with the students to ensure they understand how to use the spaces. This includes how to take care of them!
We also have ongoing discussions about expectations: The Neighbourhood is a respectful, democratic and happy learning environment.
Although the Year Neighbourhood 2 is quite an open space, it does have very defined areas, including: art, performance, reading, discussion, learning commons and construction spaces.
Having these defined spaces enables the children to move fluidly during their learning agreement time. Children can choose how they respond to different learning provocations by utilizing the different spaces.
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