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  • Using Google Docs for Teacher Planning

    Earlier this year I wrote about the benefits of using Microsoft OneNote as a planning tool (Part 1, Part 2) for teachers to use with their class, week in and week out. I liked how the OneNote folder system could be flexible enough to include both Unit Plans and weekly plans in one place, and link between each of the subjects and daily plans. It is definitely a model that works really well.

    However, after using it for a term, I have decided to revert back to planning using Google Docs. There are a number of reasons for this, which I won’t go into great deal with, but which include:

    • Schoolwide use of Google Docs – with students using Chromebooks, and other teachers finally using Google Docs more widely, to suddenly swap to Microsoft is likely to confuse things.
    • Familiarity of Google Drive – All my other files and documents are in Google Drive, and I spent most of 2015 integrating all my resources, files, planning etc into Google Docs.
    • Access across devices – While OneNote is available for Mac, iPhone, and online, it’s certainly not as available as Google Docs, which just requires a browser. The Mac version for example looks much different, and even has some differences in opening different Notebooks.
    • Actual Files, not Notebooks – One problem with Microsoft is they’ve built the whole package. Unfortunately, I quite like making archives and organised folders of topics and date based backups of my teaching, allowing me to find Units or lessons by subject, but also in a date based format so that if you want to know what we did in Term 3 of 2011, I can show you. However, because OneNote creates its own files, which can only open in OneNote, organising them into folders is not very easy.

    Google Sheets

    The title of this post is slightly misleading in that I don’t really use Google Docs for week to week planning. Instead, I built a template using Google Sheets. But for search engine benefits, Google Docs is a lot more prominent for what people mean by the Google Apps suite.

    Firstly, I do use Google Docs to build my Unit plans. But for the weekly plan, the use of a grid is very much the basis for the plan, that using Google Sheets is a no brainer.

    In addition to this, much like Excel, Google Sheets has the ability to create different sheets. This allows the teacher to create different weeks plans and overviews throughout the term, and therefore only have one Google Sheet for the term, and include in it all the different weekly plans.

    Below I’ve attached a few examples of the way I’ve used Google Sheets for my planning. Hopefully this will give you a pretty good idea of how I use it.

    Each day has a column, and then a guide of times throughout the day run down the left.

    I’ve colour coded each subject, to make it more visual for my design aesthetic tendencies. Adding links into the plan is an awesome way of including resources, as Google Sheets is already in the browser, so having a link right there to the resource is a no brainer.

    Each subject gets added to and can take more than a page each depending on the activity. Group work and other plans are also added into the whole week plan, rather than having separate plans to jump between all the time.

    For another cool feature, for Maths groups I made a “Display” version which pulls the same data as my weekly plan, but puts it in a bigger font so I can display it on the screen and the students can refer to it so they know what work their group is doing each day.

     

  • I wish David would see more…

    Today Chris Hipkins’ bill was drawn out of a hat in parliament to undergo vigorous debate as to the abolishment of the charter school policy brought in by ACT, even though all historic evidence and international examples of this have all been failures.

    It’s interesting that at the same time the Labour bill to abolish charter schools comes out, that the education world in the UK prepares for EVERY public school to become a charter school (called ‘academies’ over there).

    So, this comes with welcome news. The abhorrent dealings of charter schools in this country have been well documented. It has been an utter disaster despite what the politicians who want it to succeed will say.

    Needless to say, I was pretty disgusted with this tweet from the ACT party.

    Needless to say, it received a pretty swift response:

    Well, that’s awesome. Nice one.

    What’s more, and as has been pointed out, Chris Hipkins also gained more support from his electorate than the entire ACT party did around the country. Chris Hipkins: 19,286. ACT Party: 16,689. Just saying!

    As I went deeper into the conversation I suddenly found one DBSeymour piping up into the conversation.

    If I was unimpressed before, my impressions are now severely lacking. The lack of actual intelligence begins to show that the puppet in front of us running the country as Undersecretary of Education is little more than a the blubbering buffoon that we all thought was an act. Turns out no; its actually true. We may have just found the long tail of underachievement in this country.

    The conversation that precedes this screenshot is all centred around the privatisation of education, the choice of integrated schools for those that want choice, and the question of why tax payers should be paying for charter schools where there is no accountability and that any land, property, resources, etc… are all kept by the company behind the particular charter school.

    However, despite this all being in clear view on Twitter, and being written in basic English, and as grammatically correct as one can be in 140 characters, DBSeymour seems to think that this particular question doesn’t make sense.

    Sorry David. The question makes perfect sense. The problem isn’t the question. It is you. Obviously it’s well above your level of understanding.

    Then to make things worse; the Member of Parliament; a person who should be holding the public with some kind of respect and regard because they are the ones who may vote for you, instead of continuing to attack the question, turns personal and now says that the person asking the question doesn’t make sense.

    And this is the person entrusted with implementing changes within our Education system.

    Maybe David actually needs to go back to school and learn how to comprehend basic sentences. I’m sure that this will no doubt hold him in good stead to begin entering into the public sector such as Twitter. Ah – I mean, parliament.

     

    There is a very small chance that DBSeymour actually only wanted to reply to @actparty with “You just don’t make any sense”. In which case; it’s about time someone brought that question up!

     

  • Problem Parenting

    Through the course of my career, I’ve come across them all. I’ve met the over-protective mother, the stern but busy father, the parents who we never see (for various reasons) and the parents who are as flaky as a puff pastry.

    At all times, I try and maintain a professional attitude when dealing with all parents, regardless of which category I might think they fit into, and I certainly endeavour to do the same here in this article. As always, confidentiality is paramount, and no examples in this are intended to identify any particular parent or family.

    Too Soft

    Over the course of the mid 2000’s, the culture of society changed, and the lawmakers began putting child rights to the top of all law making. Domestic violence cases where punishment and beatings to keep children ‘in-line’ were the target, but ultimately covered every kind of physical discipline for children within the home, and outlawed parents who were discouraging certain behaviours through use of smacking (most of whom will have only ever seen and used this form of discipline, as it was how they were disciplined as a child as well). I don’t advocate the use of physical discipline in any way, but when you remove the one strategy that parents use, you completely de-power them. Some parents stepped up their game and use other discipline methods. Many were left with nothing, so did nothing, in fear of being ‘caught’.

    The result of this has lead to two things. 1) Children are now well aware that parents can’t do ‘anything’ to them, and 2) Parents left without any discipline strategies to keep their children in line.

    Ultimately, these kids who rule the roost in every setting they are introduced to, beit school, home, shops, wherever – are immune to boundaries, purely because none have ever been put in place for them.

    However, as soon as they hit school and they are confronted with rules and boundaries, and a teacher who is going to enforce them, then the problems start arising. The child who is “untouchable” and has an ego to go with it constantly challenges the authority, often using “You’re not the boss of me” phrase which we can only come to expect.

    Unfortunately they have been taught, directly or indirectly, that no one is the boss of them. You can do what ever you want in life. Rules don’t matter. People can’t tell you what to do.

    So when someone does try to tell them what to do; like – do your handwriting, this becomes a challenge on their authority and troubles ensue.

    However; instead of the parents (often solo mum’s) coming up and laying down the law for the child and telling them in no uncertain terms that the rules at school are above everything else, that you do as you’re told, and that any consequence is followed through with, they often come in and say okay, okay, and take the child home. After a short talk, maybe a smack because they’re out of strategies, a sending to their room, the child is then back out and about, and rides their bike around the school grounds well into the late stages of daylight, in some sort of reclaiming of their territory. None of the consequence is remembered, acted upon, or even means anything to the child and so the process continues, albeit escalated. Eventually, the school has the “5 stand downs in a term” chat with the parent/s, and the decision is made to jump before they are pushed, and the child moves to a different school, rather than face up to the actual facts, the actual consequences of the behaviour and actually trying to change the child for the better. Restarting at another school (where the same process is likely to be repeated) is the easy way out; less confrontational, and less traumatic for the child. However, the child goes on to learn that they can do whatever they want, and that they can get away with anything because at the end of the day I’ll just change schools. The long term effects of this however, are staggering.

    Fighting every fight for them

    The other worry is of course those parents who treat their darling like the fount of all things true, will go in to bat for their child, and will fight every fight. They enable them through allowing them to stay home rather than face the bully, call meetings with school leadership instead of with the teacher, see their child as blameless in every situation, regardless of the all-too-common phrase “Oh I know he/she’s no angel…”, and encourage the drama of otherwise very small and meaningless situations that other children deal with on their own in the course of a day. Anxiety levels are raised for all involved, until eventually, instead of fighting, they take flight – uprooting that child from one class and finding another school that will take them for a fresh start, where all to often the process is repeated because the child has not learned how to actually deal with the situation. The only thing the child learns from this is not resilience (the one thing that child needs more than anything else), but that it doesn’t matter what happens, I can go to Mummy and it will all be fixed.

    “Celia Lashlie has lashed out at mothers who mollycoddle their sons, saying many teenage boys are killed on the roads because their mums smother them and refuse to let them discover the consequences of their own actions.

    Speaking to a Traffic Institute conference in Hamilton yesterday, the former prison officer turned author admonished wealthy, so-called “helicopter mums”, who “hover” over their sons, refusing to accept they can be blamed for anything.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/5981627/Too-soft-mums-put-sons-at-risk

    I’m not suggesting here that these kinds of students are heading down this path. I’m a primary teacher, and driving is a way off for the majority of my students. But if the only way you are going to teach your son or daughter about resilience and perseverance, and standing up for yourself, is by running away from the trouble and going somewhere else; then that is what they will do for the rest of their lives. Come running to mummy.

    The Power of Mothers – Celia Lashlie

     

    The reality is that these parents have no strategies. No ideas about what to do. Many of them have given up because it’s all too hard, purely because they didn’t lay the groundwork back in infancy. When parents give up, the schools suffer. The 29 other students in the class suffer. The teachers suffer. But ultimately society suffers. These kids who don’t have ‘parents’ will become parents and will have no idea of how to be one, because they haven’t actually been parented themselves.

     

    Not all is lost.

    But you have to make an effort. It’s not going to be easy. But nowhere ever worth going is easy to get to. Here are a list of parenting supports in New Zealand that you should get in touch with.

  • How Teachers See Children

    I was thinking today about the different professional views on how we should be seeing children, and how completely different that is from any kind of reality that actually faces us in the classroom.

    The only way to try and illustrate that, is in picture form.

  • Troubled Behaviour

    Over the years I have seen many different behaviours, and many different children struggling to cope with the myriad of expectations, rules, and consequences that they are faced with from place to place. Dad has different rules to Mum, and then School is completely different again; especially since it’s the 5th school in 5 years.

    In 2013 I had some insight from RTLB into ‘Restorative Practise’. I went to see Margaret Thorsborne run her workshops, as well as a behavioural workshop for traumatised children. Whilst our school remains sceptical of a complete restorative approach, I maintain most of the practises within my classroom where possible.

    My focus on behaviours comes about because of the students in my class, and I want to be able to better reach them and do something productive with their views on school, rules, and consequences; before it becomes too late. I have had a fair few students who have left before I’ve had the chance to help, and this does plague my mind a bit.

    I also am not a ‘growly’ teacher. I’ve had students say I need to be ‘madder’ at them to sort out their behaviour. But my personal opinion is that being mad doesn’t make anyone better. Certainly not me. I refuse (for the most part) to raise my voice, and instead will go for a quiet word off to the side, than a stand-up-the-front performance. At the end of the day, what I require from the kids is respect. Once there is respect, then there is listening, and there is learning. I would much rather have the students do what I ask because they respect me than because they fear me.

    As part of this, I began looking into what happens when these ‘trauma students’ find themselves in that downward spiral where they get to the point of not caring about the consequences; why it happens, what causes it, and how restorative practise might help in the situation.

    As always, I kinda went overboard and presented this in an infographic of sorts.

    View the full version here

     

  • Male teachers outnumber females at Hamilton school | Stuff.co.nz


    Male teachers outnumber females at Hamilton’s Rhode Street School, bucking the national trend.

    Source: Male teachers outnumber females at Hamilton’s Rhode Street School | Stuff.co.nz

    Those that have been with Unleash Education from the start know that this is an incredibly important topic for us. One of our earliest posts focussed around the number of male teachers in primary education, and quickly followed up by an in-depth investigation into the subject of males teaching males.

    It’s great to see other schools thriving in important male teachers.

  • John Hattie: It is time to be rid of deciles – Education – NZ Herald News

    The decile system was introduced to guide equity funding to schools and in general it has worked very well. But there are two distinct aspects of deciles that need to be looked at separately.Firstly…

    Source: John Hattie: It is time to be rid of deciles – Education – NZ Herald News

     

    Deciles have long been under attack. Schools complain going up and down, parents are misguided as to what they mean, and the whole system is destined for an overhaul.

    However, I tend to agree (surprisingly) with Hattie’s comments regarding it. Let’s not completely throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    “It is time to be rid of deciles, but please find a way to have equity funding without the stigma that students in poorer areas receive a poor education. It needs to be based on a “basket of measures” and not be a single measure.”

    The reality is, that the key focus is around deciles being mis-interpreted as the quality of education at that particular school.

    Surely a little bit of public education would go a long way as to expelling this myth? Maybe then the government might come to realise just how difficult teaching actually is!

  • Big drop in teacher graduates getting a job prompting a return to bonding | Stuff.co.nz

    Just 15% of first-time teachers are landing permanent posts after graduating.

    Source: Big drop in teacher graduates getting a job prompting a return to bonding | Stuff.co.nz

  • Primary School changes uniform due to Health and Safety risks

    On the eve of changes to the Health & Safety Act, schools are in a panic with the liabilities they might face should children in their care be injured in any way. With the changes, school Principal’s can be held personally liable, with some trying to place their homes and assets into trusts to avoid losing them in possible legal battles over the Act.

    One school has worked out the way forward.

    They’ve changed their entire uniform to advance current safety standards throughout the entire school.

    The school has already had climbing trees and bullrush on their banned behaviours list for some years now. But with injuries still happening because kids will be, well you know, kids; drastic times called for drastic measures.

    After the Board meeting in which the new legislation around Health and Safety was discussed, the school decided that changing their uniform was the only option for the school as they move forward into the future.

    The Uniform

    The current uniform sports the typical school grey, with an optional green or black jumper. Black shoes are expected, and socks should be pulled up at all times.

    The new uniform does away with this, and looks to function over form and comfort. The school has sourced the material to make the change as low-impact on struggling families as possible, but say that the new uniform will come in handy at home after school as well. The polymer fabric is designed so that students remain well wrapped up in winter, and with it’s clear outer coat, students can now express their individuality with their clothes visible underneath.

    The uniform is a one-size fits all model, and can be worn by both the boys and the girls at the school. The school community, including it’s Board of Trustees is encouraging all schools to revise their uniforms, and says that their design will not only revolutionise the idea behind uniforms in schools, but also bring down the back-to-school costs for all parents. Any school wishing to use their uniform design should get in touch with the school so that details can be passed on to each interested party. Even the powers that be in the ‘Beehive’ have been encouraged by the idea, and is considering the possibility of making the uniform compulsory for all schools in the near future.

    We have managed to attain an early photo of the uniform as it is now. While it is still in the development phase, the main design of the uniform will remain largely the same. Please see attached photo.

    As you can see, the children are also modeling the optional sun hat, which are important in the summer terms.

    What are your thoughts? Do you like the new look?

     

     

    Actual Article

    A school has stopped its kids climbing trees because of fears it will be slapped with a hefty fine.

    Source: Primary schoolkids banned from climbing trees because of liability fears | Stuff.co.nz

  • Porirua children benefit from lawyers helping with homework | Stuff.co.nz

    Porirua children get homework help from a group of Wellington lawyers.

    Source: Porirua children benefit from lawyers helping with homework | Stuff.co.nz

     

    I actually can’t think of why such initiatives haven’t been encouraged or set up prior to this. Good on the workplaces that do allow its employees to give back to the community in different ways.