grade 6's

This year, the grade sixes were gathered in the MPR to celebrate graduating and leaving primary school. Their ceremony had food, drinks and speeches presented by the teachers, Hannah and the students.

The grade sixes watched a film clip of them talking about their favourite memories from BNWPS. They were instantly amazed to see a blacked-out room with fairy lights, photos, taken by Bessie Lang and an arch made out of sticks, lights and dried flowers - all decorated by the grade 5’s.

After the ceremony, the grade sixes were delighted to see food, drinks and their own disco with funny decorations and dress-ups. After the disco, the class of 2019 gathered around in the playground to throw their decorated graduation hats in the air.

The ceremony ended with joyous, exhausted smiles on parents and graduates’ faces.

maths

Something magical happened on the weekend. I was thinking about how to finish the newsletter for the year, to celebrate how amazing everyone has been over the first leg of our maths journey and to celebrate how much we have changed and embraced maths.

And then it happened. It was time to mow the lawn. You may remember a previous article where I spoke about my dad always stepping in to help when something gets tough. He has been doing this for my whole life (the curse or blessing of being an only child, not to mention an IVF baby!). He does it out of pure love, but this has also stopped me from learning skills that will help me later in life. This is just like the urge as teacher and parents to jump in the moment a student is struggling with a concept. You can’t stand to see that furrowed brow or that upset face! You want to jump in, give them the answer and make everything better. You don’t want them in the zone of confusion because it can be scary in there and not feel good.

But the zone of confusion, the learning put, the struggle, whatever you want to call it, is actually the best place for students to be! It means they are about to learn something new and they are being resilient and riding the wave of uncomfortableness to ultimately learn something they didn’t know before. As Peter Sullivan said, “if you’re confused it means you’re learning something new”.

All year we have asked teachers and parents to embrace the struggle and to be okay with not giving up the answer. It’s okay if your child is struggling, because it means they get to have that ‘AHA!’ moment, without being spoon fed the answer. They feel proud, in fact, you can see it in their face when the have persisted through something tricky and learnt something they didn’t know before or have something click in their mind that previously seemed like it was forever out of their reach. It is a wonderful feeling and something that I love seeing as a teacher.

Even though this way of thinking means that lots of us have had to shift our mindset, I’m so proud to see that lots of teachers and parents are doing this. Of course, this is a huge shift in the way that we learnt as students and the way that teachers were taught how to teach. Through Uni we were taught whole-part-whole, which is where the teacher introduces the lesson, explains the expectations and models (repeatedly) the formula or how to answer the upcoming questions. The part is then when the kids peel off into either different groups or mixed ability groups where they are asked to do similar things to the whole, therefore they are just copying the strategy the teacher showed them and not really experimenting with anything new. The last whole is where everyone comes together and shares their answers.

However we have asked teachers to flip that idea on its head and instead ask students to do all the thinking. They are in charge of what strategy they use, and they have the ability to experience and see what suits their learning the best. The students are the ones with the answers, and the teachers are just there to guide the learning NOT provide the lifelines (or answers!)

So, back to my lawn mower story. The lawn mower I was using was old and rickety. It wasn’t efficient to mow with (similarly to a strategy taught in the ‘whole’ part of the lesson that a student doesn’t understand and then the whole lesson is based on that strategy leaving the student stranded!) so thankfully, my wonderful mum bought me a new lawn mower. It was easy to use, super-efficient and was made for small humans with not a lot of upper body strength (this is of course an analogy for a student finding their own efficient strategy to use to solve a problem. It may not be the same one as the person next to them but they are allowed to experiment and try something new that suits them and their learning style). Now, dad was there to watch my first mow of the new mower. I had a little bit of trouble starting it, which is true of students starting to think for themselves and now have a lessons dictated by the teacher, but with persistence, off it roared and off I trotted with my new lawn mower cutting the lawn…with dad watching on! No jumping in to help or take over. Just watching from a distance. It reminded me of teachers wandering the classroom asking prompting questions about the strategies that were chosen or why this has worked or hasn’t. No jumping in, no saving, no long introductions where you model something to death and all students are really doing is coping your strategy. Just independent, persistent, resilient learners!

As a sweated in the hot sun, I felt incredibly proud that I not only had an awesome tool to use, but I was also doing it myself. It must be how the kids feel when they are left alone to solve a problem. Proud!

Thank you for an incredible 2019. Jessie and I have been really surprised (in the best possible way!) with all the feedback and support as well as a shift in culture and thinking. Maths seems to be part of the daily conversation at BNWPS now and we are really proud of that!

Have a restful summer break, do lots of incidental maths! And we will see you for another jam packed year of maths in 2020.

Thank you again, so much!

Jessie and Alice

PS) quite coincidently, Jessie and I received this email from the PMSS administrators. It is a great article about teacher and student enjoyment during numeracy lessons and how letting students lead often makes for a happier teacher. Check it out here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X18315130

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