Staff Professional Development

Teachers at Tirimoana School have regular staff meetings. These meetings are an opportunity for staff to engage in powerful professional learning on a range of subjects and issues.

During 2009 teachers participated in whole-school professional learning to more effectively teach children who have non-english speaking backgrounds.

Our whole-school professional development focus during 2010 was the teaching of Mathematics as well as a focus on Teaching as Inquiry.  Outside facilitators from the university have worked with our staff in classrooms to upskill practice and strategies in the teaching of Mathematics.

Of course our staff is continuing to develop more knowledge and strategies around the implementation of the NZ Curriculum and National Standards. This is ongoing work as we work towards a stronger student voice at our school. At the end of Term 2 our children will participate with parents and teachers in 3-Way Conferences about their learning.

Our whole school focus for professional development during 2011 is Inquiry-based learning. This is not new to Tirimoana staff as we have always approached our studies of topics with a view to using good questioning and allowing students to have a voice when learning in class. We are developing a shared language across the school to further encourage independent learning and study skills. We are fostering a Tirimoana Learning Pathway and building a repertoire of thinking skills from Year 1-6. We will have a Teacher Only Day on June 3rd to do more work on this.

Our staff also participate in Professional Learning Groups (PLG) here at school. We meet to have rubust learning conversations on a range of topics that relate to classroom teaching and educational pedagogy. The groups have a teacher from junior, middle and senior school as well as a leader who is a recognised leader in our school.  Our last PLG discussed the theme of 'differentiation'. This is the way that teachers adjust teaching strategies, content and environments for different learners in the same class.

At the end of Term 1 a report will go home to parents. This is a report on how children have settled into their classes and will give the latest achievement data from testing as well as comment on observed effort in class.

 At our most recent staff meeting on Tuesday 22nd March we looked at Effective Marking and Feedback to students as a theme. This was a very popular staff meeting and we all learned new strategies from each other on strategies to give more quality feedback to our students both orally and in books.

Below are some photos of teachers taken during our recent staff meetings.