End of year reflections

JAM Testing Data- June and November for 2017 (Year 1).

From the data above we can see that some children have made huge progress compared to when they first started school.They have made progress not only academically but in terms of their confidence and conversations around number talk. They have grown in confidence and are taking more risks now. Students having a go at working out problems without the fear of getting it wrong. They talking about the strategies they used and are becoming confident in using the mathematical terms and language. High level of engagement in the classroom: Working within a group. Peer to peer teaching Completing follow up tasks on their iPad. Developing digital fluency and making connections with the digital language: Copy paste, duplicate, add a page, save your work, close the tabs. All these essential skills and language that will needed as they move up through the school. They are making connections to mathematical terms and language across the curriculum areas for example: In reading page 3 comes before page 4. In writing conversations would be around what happened first, then next and finally. The data shows that when they began school many of the learners where at a stage 0-1(Emergent) in some modules whereas now some children they are at a stage 2-3(At) and even a stage 4(above). The children have come a long way this this learning journey and I am so very proud of each one of them

On Monday at our Staff meeting, the CoL teachers had the opportunity to present to the staff and talk about their Inquiry for this Term. It was really interesting to see that every teacher mentioned some of the concerns I have been experiencing with my juniors. I could make connections to what they presented to my inquiry. For example, Rob mentioned about how he had to go back to using materials when he found that his group of children did not understand a maths concept. Andrea talked about learners enjoyment when given tasks to complete. Another teacher talked about mathematical terms and language that our children struggle with completely given a problem to work out.

Teaching and learning

Some of the learners in my group struggle with understanding mathematical language and terms.
I discussed this problem with a colleague(Rachel) that I am presently job sharing with. She talked about a warm up activity that she played with her older children and explained how we could use it in a Year 1 class.

We practised counting backwards with support of materials.

Hypothesis and trends

Children are quite confident in counting forwards. With my teaching experience over the years I have always found that they always struggle when it comes to counting backwards, saying the number that comes before. I think that they may not understand the term before, backward, or that it means one less. Not only have I heard this in the junior school but across most year levels.