Clearview Observation

Observation at Clearview School

Layout and resources

In the middle school block they use cubbies for children’s bags and tote trays for their books and other belongings. Both of these storage spaces are kept inside the homebase classroom. In the senior school (yr 5/6) they have cupboards lining one wall of the shared space and each student has a shelf (3 to a cupboard) in which they keep their bag and all their belongings. Students then access these throughout the day as needed. After talking to a couple of the teachers the cupboards we definitely preferable as they kept all the students belongings in one place with a door, cubbies tended to overflow and spill on to the classroom floor. This is something interesting to consider as we move to change our classrooms into modern learning spaces. Could we install cupboards/lockers out on our deck area or behind our classrooms to free up space but have belongings secure?

In the middle school classrooms are grouped into 3s with a shared space in the middle. This shared space is carpeted and has tables and seating in as well as a sink and art/cooking supplies kept here. The bookshelves for each class are kept out here as well which frees up space in the classrooms themselves. All laptops were pooled together and set up at desks in the shared space. This meant there were 12 laptops between three homebases of about 20 children each. The children could then self manage when to use these laptops as part of the maths rotation. I am now thinking we could do something similar with our shared cloakroom space between 25 and 26. If we carpeted this area it would be a great learning space that the children could comfortably work in. also if we could remove the walls currently screening the toilets the space would be opened up hugely and become a real workable space. The children’s bags would have to be moved out of these areas but could possibly go out on the deck or back steps in dry weather?

Maths

Maths is taught to the power of three in the middle school here which works really well to address all of the children’s needs. Two teachers work with groups (on a rotation basis) in the homebase classrooms while the third teacher is the roamer and works in the third homebase classroom with the children working on follow up activities and games. If the children are not working with a teacher they can work on follow up activities in their homebase classroom but must go and see the roaming teacher for help NOT the teacher working with a group. This model seemed to work really well as the teacher could focus on the group they were teaching and not be interrupted by other students needing help. Likewise the independent students were still receiving the help they needed from a teacher if they were stuck rather than loosing valuable learning time because they didn’t understand an activity. This is something I struggle to manage in my own classroom as often my group teaching time is interrupted by other students or students working independently do not complete much work because they needed help. I would like to try and use this model in our current year four classes as we have three teachers which would enable the model to work successfully. One of our biggest hurdles will be the amount of children we need to manage in this time (78 rather than 60 ish) although with carefully planning and routines I think this could be done.

Flexible teaching

As described above maths is taught to the power of three whereas writing was taught power of two. This kind of flexible teaching and combination teaching was really effective in meeting all the children’s needs. The teachers felt that the writing levels were better split into three different groups so therefore decided to teach power of two in three areas whereas maths levels were more similar so two pods of power of three worked well. This also came into play with small group teaching which was more prevalent in maths than writing.

Management of students

Students undertook learning style and self management tasks in term one to decide what kind of learner they were. Over the term/year the classrooms are run on a trust basis where students gain trust to work in various areas of the classroom or school. When students reach the trusted stage they are given a lanyard to wear all the time which outlines the behaviours expected. These students are then allowed to work anywhere in the school or room. Other students work in groups or near a teacher depending on levels of trust. I really like this system as the children get a chance to earn their freedom and trust. It is also a fantastic way of rewarding those children who do consistently work well no matter what environment they are in.

Advice from teachers

- view students as a whole group not individual classes when grouping and working together. This could be an interesting thought to bring up when discussing class structures for next year, do we view all yr 4s together and all yr 3s separately or do we look at middle as a whole and group accordingly? 
- go all in from the start, don’t try one subject at a time. This was interesting advice to me as we have talked as a team about collaborative maths teaching but it would be interesting to discuss other teaching areas together too. By going all in from the start of the year/term students pick up on routines and expectations quickly and develop self-management skills faster rather than just using them for a small portion of the day.

- Routine, routine, routine!

- All based around managing self – trust and reward models work well. Students need to be taught these skills at the start of the year.

Interesting points

Overall this model showed me how resources and spaces can be used more efficiently. At the moment in each classroom we have a maths wall, a writing wall and reading space etc however in the collaborative model more space is freed up as it becomes a team wall rather than trying to cram everything into one space. In the middle school at Clearview they have a maths focus room and a literacy focus room. This allows one set of resources to be purchased and used in one space for everyone to access rather than individual sets for each teacher. There was still plenty of space for student work to be displayed without having to resort to hanging things from the ceiling or sticking on to windows. Same goes with ICT resources. They were actually practical and useable as all the classes pooled together in a central space so more computers could be accessed by the children.