‘Top of the South’
Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough, Kaikoura, Buller, West Coast
Names of Contributing Clusters: / Nelson Bays, Nga Pouwhirinaki o Whakatu
Marlborough, Nga Pouwhirinaki o Arapaoa ki Kaikoura
West Coast, Nga Pou Whakawhirinaki o Te Tai Poutini
Strength and support in unity and collaboration. /
Location: / Top of the South (Island)
Compiled by: / Terry Sheffield / Date: / Wednesday, 10 March 2016
Celebrations /
- The Specialist Teaching Programme (Massey and Canterbury) has had its biggest intake this year (lots of new RTLB coming on to the market?).
- Moving to central location this year.
- Looking forward to top of south regional day.
- Our year has begun positively.
- Andrea Hutchings has been appointed Practice Leader. Andrea is a trained and experienced RTLB. She is well known to us all and has co-worked with most members of our team in her role as a MOE SE Education Psychologist. Andrea has taken on the Practice Leader role previously held by Jan Bentley. The transition has been noticeably smooth and seamless.
- Jan Bentley and Lois Mead- McEwan both retired from their full-time positions at the end of 2015. They have not been lost to our service. Lois has been contracted back to our cluster in her role as IYT Group Leader to deliver the IYT Programme with Vicki. Jan has also agreed to do some administration work from time to time to support the Cluster Manager. Both are funded by our Term 1: FTE vacancy.
- The Blenheim Community of Schools is up and running in our region. Two communities of eleven are working together as one large group. The Cluster Manager met recently with the two leaders to look at how our service might dovetail into the COS. There are very clear links and alignments between our priority groups and cluster priorities and the COS goals, aspirations and targets. As a member of the Marlborough Principals Association our CM has been included in the COS community of school principals. Two other COLs are currently being established in our region; one in the Picton area and one in Kaikoura.
- Bern Hocquard was accepted to train as a TIPS facilitator after a rigorous selection process. She will be working country-wide.
- Vicki Green is completing accreditation as an IYT Peer Coach. Vicki will be working across the NMW District.
- Jenny Davison is undertaking the CORE Education Modern Learning Practices Training. She will facilitate team learning with RTLB in a COP.
- We have five RTLB trained as Lead Professionals for the Children’s Team. Four currently have active cases. Children’s Team directors are providing comprehensive training and support as our RTLB begin to work with this cross sector initiative. Our CM is on the Children’s Team Panel that oversees LP work and allocates requests to the CT.
- We continue with our Seamless Service Pilot moving towards an additional support for teaching and learning model in Marlborough Kaikoura that is seamless.
- Currently:
- We have eleven co-worked cases.
- SENCO meetings are jointly facilitated,
- Most outsourced PL is shared
- Intake and Allocation meetings are held weekly (MOE Service Manager & RTLB Service Manager).
- There was serendipity in the timing of our local pilot with the SE Update Trial.
- Our SCHOOLGATE case management system is currently being revised to better meet our team’s needs.
- We have purchased a car for the cluster. Our brand new high-specked luminous blue Suzuki Swift arrived last week. It has all the bells and whistles. It is on the road most days to Kaikoura or the Sounds, and at times travels further afield to Christchurch or the Coast. We appreciate the significant discount WADSCO motors and SUZUKI NZ gave us.
- Petros Kapralos is in his second year of training and is looking forward to completing his qualification and restoring some level of work life balance. He achieved some impressive results last year.
- We have an IYT programme beginning in a term.
- Improvements in two offices have enhanced our working environment. The school is about to be re-roofed and painted.
- The CM is part of a working group looking at developing a National Strategic Plan for the RTLB Service.
- Natalie has –
o been appointed as a Whānau Group Facilitator at Massey University.
- The Māori Working Party on the Coast have had requests for the Te Rarangi Aroturuki Self-Management bi-lingual strategy charts advertised in the TRUMPET.
- Several local schools are investing time and resources into Chrome Books with Ministry guidance. RTLB are aware of the extra time and stress this puts teachers under.
Concerns
(if any) / MARLBOROUGH:
- In 2015 a first time principal was appointed at our Lead School. Learning to manage property, operations and staff while leading teaching and learning was a challenging task. Finding time for the added LSP responsibilities was almost impossible. We have had a positive start to this year with regular meeting and communication.
- Unfair Treatment of RTLB in the selection process for ACET Teachers. There has been concern expressed among some local RTLB that the management unit for RTLB should equal the payment set for ACET Teachers. To date the MoE have not provided a satisfactory response to this issue despite knowing that apart from general in-service courses available to all, RTLB also undertake 2 years specialist training which they have to pass, ACET teachers are required to receive and pass Nil.
- The WEBSITE: Two recent emails: 3 Feb/25 Feb (different people)
Hi Terry, Do you know when the RTLB Association site will be up and running again as l would like to access some templates.
tome
Oh Thanks,
I have been hunting for it for a while and wondered what had happened to it.
- When attending local NZEI meetings and ask about RTLB, we receive little positive response as ‘they (union reps)’ present don’t appear to know much in relation to RTLB and their conditions of work, re-numeration and allowances, or job satisfaction. We still don’t know where we stand.
Professional Development Undertaken /
Planned
Include an
Evaluative Comment
/ NELSON:
- We have attended two excellent FASD & Glasser training days.
- “Vulnerable immediate response (VIRT) project trial’ has started and is going well, RTLB and MoE SES working together.
- Practice embedded learning underpins professional growth and development in our cluster. Learning opportunities are grounded in inquiry and reflection, they are participant-driven, focus on improving individual and team practice, are aligned with RTC s, cluster priorities, national priorities (and more recently COS priorities) and our cluster capability and capacity.
- On-going learning is supported by a COP, PLGs and collective problem solving (using an appreciative, strength based focus). We use peer review structures at the analysis and goal phases of intervention and peer supervision groups to support RTLB case management. All structures are designed to support RTLB to implement their learning and sustain changes in practice. Coaching, mentoring and supervision support RTLB on an individual level.
- This year RTLB will undertake two inquiries. The first half of the year RTLB will focus on Registered Teacher Standards. The inquiry is essentially individual and involves indepth specific learning aligned to a RTC. Working in an inquiry model, learning will be evidenced in a number of ways: observation, portfolio, PPT, documents, reflective journal etc. The second half of the year learning is designed to enhance day to day practice and will focus on practice processes ie: leadership, intervention sequence fidelity, strength of evidence, outcomes, case management. RTLB will show clear links to Taiaiako, Pasifika Plan, Cluster priorities and processes in their day to day practice with cluster teachers, whanau, students and school systems.
- Our year began with a mini conference organised by the Blenheim COS. An EdAventure day. Over 600 teachers from Marlborough and Kaikoura joined together to attend keynotes and workshops relating to future focussed learning.
- MKRTLBS travelled to Wellington in Week 1 to join the Upper Hutt Cluster. Tanya from Positive Change and Development Pty Ltd, Australia facilitated a day on Developing Practice with Teachers using Appreciate Inquiry. The day was inspiring and set a very positive direction for the year. We intend to follow up with another day looking at embedding appreciative inquiry (as a tool) into the intervention process.
- Lead Professionals for the Children’s Team have recently undertaken traIning on Tuituia Assessment.
- MoE Early Childhood Transition National Trial in Greymouth is progressing well and data will be presented soon.
- We have invited the CEO of Te Taura Whiri (The Māori Language Commission) to come down to the Coast to visit schools and talk to school staff (an open invitation to all) at an afternoon meeting about what is available to support schools and students on their website. He then will attend the RTLB Regional Day on 24 March to have the same discussion with us all.
- Two RTLB will be attending a ‘GAFE’ (Google Apps For Education) day, 18/3/2016.
- Compass Seminar on ‘Trauma Triggered Behaviour’ with Helen Oakwater (UK) attended by GB & TV (Hokitika Office) in ChCh on 15/2/15. Excellent and relevant PD-would recommend. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2EX3G
- Compass Seminar on ‘The Social Brain & The Neuroscience of Relationships’-A 2 day Intensive Skills-based workshop with Dr Pieter Roussouw-GB (Hokitika Office) to attend this in Auckland on 7 & 8/4/16
- SPEC Course 29th Feb-1st March in ChCh being attended by TV and JG (as well as SENCO from WHS). BM is going to the SPEC course in Nelson, 7 April.
- ‘Play is the Way’ PD to be attended by TVin Hokitika.
- PB4L Expo to be attended by IJ (CM) plus TS, SI (Practice Leaders) & TV and JG in Nelson. 18/3/2016.
Resources / Interventions
i.e.
Assessment, Interventions
Projects, Research, Use of LSF
etc / NELSON:
MARLBOROUGH:
- LSF 11-13 is allocated on a yearly basis. All secondary schools applied for funding support this year.
- Y1-10 funding in 2015 mostly supported In - Class teaching and learning and programme implementation. We placed an emphasis on supporting the class teacher to work with students who needed additional support.
o SENCO COP were other uses of the funding.
o Digital tools to support learning such as iPads and Notebooks and MacBooks were also a notable feature.
THE COAST:
- http://www.starters.co.nz/bpchallenge-index.html
Topical Comment
(may vary each time) / NELSON:
MARLBOROUGH:
- We will be advertising next week and appointing another position at the end of this term (if a suitable applicant applies).
- Our Update Trial is progressing well. We are looking at EI to School transitions. RTLB begin up to 6months before the child begins school and work collaboratively with the team supporting the child to ensure a confident transition for all (pre-school centre, the child, parents, whanau and school).
- One person’s readings – Research vs popular belief – where do you stand?
(underlining present in blue, added in normal text)
People like Baroness Greenfield, a leading British Scientist, regard the whole philosophy as a ‘waste of time and teaching’. In an article attributed to her views, this:
A leading scientist has dismissed the latest approach to teaching that has been endorsed by the Government and embraced by teachers.
. . .
She said that the method of classifying pupils on the basis of "learning styles" is a waste of valuable time and resources.
. . .
According to Susan Greenfield, however, the practice is "nonsense" from a neuro-scientific point of view:
. . .
"The rationale for employing Vak learning styles appears to be weak. After more than 30 years of educational research in to learning styles there is no independent evidence that Vak, or indeed any other learning style inventory, has any direct educational benefits."
. . .
Frank Coffield, a professor at London University's Institute of Education, who reviewed 13 models of learning styles, insists that the approach is theoretically incoherent and confused.
"As well as Vak, I came across labelling such as 'activists' versus 'reflectors', 'globalists' versus 'analysts' and 'left brainers' versus 'right brainers'. There is no scientific justification for any of these terms," he said.
. . .
And this, part of a posting from a person called Tessa Matthews:
Learning styles don’t exist
The enigma of learning styles is best explained by American cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham. This video explains the problems with the theory so clearly that even dopey old me can get my head around it. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that learning styles do not exist, and that therefore we should not be instructing students according to these false preferences.
And again – in an article published 01.05.15.
. . .
Is there any evidence to support the learning styles concept?
Yes there is a little, but experts on the topic like Harold Pashler and Doug Rohrer point out that most of this evidence is weak. Convincing evidence for learning styles would show that people of one preferred learning style learned better when taught material in their favored way, whereas a different group with a different preference learned the same material better when taught in their favored fashion. Yet surprisingly few studies of this format have produced supporting evidence for learning styles; far more evidence (such as this study) runs counter to the myth. What often happens is that both groups perform better when taught by one particular style. This makes sense because although each of us is unique, usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught – just try learning French grammar pictorially, or learning geometry purely verbally.