Agency Agenda #3

Vine & View

It was so nice to go in to everyone's spaces and see how we are all promoting student agency in writing! We were blown away by what people are doing and it was great that we were able to get new ideas from each other. The variety of ways that we are teaching writing is very valuable, as it gives the children different experiences as they progress through the school, and we are very keen to hold on to that. Next term we are hoping to organise another Vine & View with Westmere so we can see what other schools are doing too.

Student Voice

We were so impressed with the students that we spoke to and the passion that they had for writing. Most of them were able to articulate what they were currently learning and how they could make progress. It came through how much they loved free writing as well as teacher-led writing and it is great that we have a balance of both.

Here is the student voice continuum that we mentioned at the staff meeting:

We consulted the students this time around and next term are hoping to start up a writing group that would be activists and leaders for writing back in your spaces. It was nice to see examples of students as stakeholders in some teams already with students generating future ideas for their writing. 

Developing a hunch

Thank you for sharing your hunches with us. There were definite themes that came across from all of the teams including:

·       Links could be stronger between learning goals in writing and reading

·       Surface features with capital letters and full stops not automatic, still an issue with many

·       Handwriting automaticity important so that other skills can be taught successfully

·       Second drafts helpful - crafting the writing for an authentic purpose

If you come up with anymore hunches feel free to send them through to us!

After wrapping up our scanning and looking at these hunches we will work with you on narrowing this down to a focus for the school and collaborate with you in your teams on how we can continue to improve writing and student agency at Bayfield, with your current collaborative writing inquiry in mind.  Kerri has developed a framework/guideline for our role which we will also send out to you. 

Teacher Survey

Over the holidays we will send out a survey. We've realised it will be better to complete this as a team so there is no rush to get it back to us.

Happy holidays!

A & M xx