Module 2 - WBS 3630

My head hurts after all this reading.....


I have lots of idea flying around in my head and its spinning! I feel like I have a disco ball in my head!

Well, I have lots to think about after a convocation with Paula, I have done a bit more reading of the handbook (in the hope that it will make sense) and I have come up with two line that I would like to look into further before I decide which one to choose.

Something along the lines of.........

' Is having a performance background an advantage when working in a primary school classroom?'

or

'When working with a child with a special need such as Autism or Aspergers, is it an advantage to have a performance background?'


I really cant decide and the titles are , as always, a work in progress..........

Right I am singing off for tonight now, I will be back soon, and I really hope to connect with some of you whom are starting Mod2 with me.

Oliver

Watch this! And what do you think about it?

http://blog.petflow.com/this-is-a-video-everyone-needs-to-see-for-the-first-time-in-my-life-im-speechless/

Flicking through Facebook and have seen this video. 

What are everyone's thoughts on this? Are we missing golden opportunities by constantly been connected to our tablets/phones/laptops? Or are we doing some good as we can branch out and network some more? Or maybe it's a bit of both? I don't know - but what do you think? 

Inquiry

As a line of inquiry, I am feeling something along the lines of….

‘Is it fair that a child with a SEN statement should be expected to achieve national average targets when taking their SAT’s exams?’

‘How is it fair that Ofsted can compare a school with few SEN pupils to a school with over 60% pupil premium students and a much higher number of SEN pupils?’

What are you're thoughts on these? Feel free to post comments below. 

Thanks 

:)

Task 2D

Task 2D – Inquiry

What in your practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?

On looking deeper into myself and really thinking about the above question, I guess the answer has to be ‘The Children’. This may at first seem a little odd, however I find myself thinking ‘if I were not enthusiastic about the children I work with, then why would I be a teacher?’ Working as a HLTA and a SEN ATA, it really is the children that get me enthusiastic about my role. Let’s look at my role as a SEN ATA and how the children have made me more enthusiastic on a daily basis and make me want to research some of their own thoughts and ideas.

            On undertaking recent assessments on ‘Provision Mapping’ with my SEN children, Bertie came up with some very interesting points for me to write down.

Quote from my journal

‘Bertie, can you tell me what it is that you like about school at the moment?’

‘Meerkats’

Looking back at Bertie’s last PM from Jan 2013, the thing he enjoyed most about school at the time was ‘Minions’.

This got me thinking – ‘Why Minions and why Meerkats?’

On the day Bertie’s assessment was done in January, I had just made a ‘pointer’ with him for his reading, from a lollypop stick. He had painted this yellow and made it look like a Minion. For the entirety of last term, Bertie was Minion mad. Quick writes were about Minions. Minions would appear in his Viking tales, there were allegedly at the Viking Village we had visited. They were EVERYWHERE!  Equally so, on the day of Bertie’s latest assessment, we had been learning about Africa, and all the animals we will be seeing on our trip to the safari park later this term. He became fixated on the Meerkats!

This really got my mind spinning with thoughts and ideas about why Bertie becomes fixated on one thing for such a long period of time. I was eager to find out more. Surely there had to be some reason as to why this was a common theme amongst my SEN children? I want to know why this fixation happens and I want to know how, if at all it can be broken.

This lead nicely into the next question…….

‘Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?’

On wanting to know much more about Bertie’s (and others) fixations, I arranged to meet with my SENCO, Lisa. After a lengthy discussion regarding Bertie’s Provision Mapping, we decided to look further in to this. My admiration for Lisa is, I think, because of her wealth of knowledge about SEN children. I often fine myself reaching out to her for inspiration/ideas or help. Our research on reflection of previous years Provision Maps has provided most of the evidence we needed to get Bertie put forward for a statement. Although Bertie shows NO other signs of Asperger’s, the theme we have identified is a fixation on one single thing for a long time, which is one of the biggest leading factors for a diagnosis of Asperger’s. (Bertie has only been at our school since the summer term of 2013. Research came in the form of contacting his previous school for their Provision Maps from foundation stage to KS2)

Fixation on One Activity

Many children with Asperger's syndrome are preoccupied with a single or a few interests and focus on them for hours on end. As Circle of Moms member Karen R. shares: "The most common report from every parent I know . . . is that their kid fixated on something (their cars, their blue toys, their books) and played or attended [to] that thing for an outrageously long time."

My line of enquiry will be something i will have to ponder further. 

Task 2C

Well, Reader 2 really did blow my mind. Without even thinking about the Reflective Theory, I realised that in so many ways I have been using reflective practice for many years now. Whether it be at work, home or even on a journey, I am always ‘reflecting’.

Realising that there were so many different theories of Reflecting, yet again I decided that the best thing I could do was link my own way of reflecting at work with several different theories.

When I very first started to work in a school, I was under the impression that everyone fell under the umbrella Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic learning (VAK, Gardner). This to a larger extent is true; however there are some who sit outside this umbrella. My feelings  were that I was a Visual learner, show me how to deliver a lesson and I will copy – jobs done! I did not realise that my lessons were so different from my mentor. Yes, I have a taken mass instruction from her and used her wealth of knowledge to base my lessons on, however after every lesson, I evaluate (or reflect) and then start to think…….’what went well?’ ‘What went bad?’ ‘How could I do this better next time?’ Looking at Reader 2, I really feel that the way in which I work falls best under Honey and Mumford’s Four Stage Model (1992) adapted from Klob’s four point cycle.

Let’s look at an example

Having an experience.

I have a child with severe SEN needs, however in the modern day we live in, he is still expected to be at National Average when the dreaded Ofsted come knocking. So, its exam week at school, I have been assigned the task of levelling Bert (name changed there). Bert cannot sit in a regular test environment as his concentration span will not allow him to. After this first half an hour of him sat in such conditions he had not even managed to write his name on the paper, let alone open the booklet and start reading. (I feel I must point out here that Bert did not have a cast iron Statement so has little in the means of ‘help’ on a 1-2-1 basis due to funding etc)  Frustration set in for myself as there MUST be something I can do to help to get Bert a level. THIS WAS MY EXPERIENCE

Reviewing the experience.

With these test been internal and for ‘setting’ next terms classed, I pondered on how on earth I would even ‘level’ Bert. Talking to the numeracy leader we reviewed Bert’s work from the last few assessments, and started to draw a conclusion.

Concluding from the experience.

The conclusion was plain and simple – Bert could not sit in regular assessments with his peers, however he has to be assessed, but how………

Planning the next step

This took several hours of research to find an answer. We planned to take Bert into a room where there would be just me and him. We would work through the curriculum with me using such things like teddies, counters, 2D and 3D shapes etc. If the curriculum stated ‘level 1A, Sort shapes in a variety of ways, colour, sides and angles. Rather than having to draw lines from shapes to the set they belonged to in a booklet, we would see if Bert could do this using aids. Such was the same for counting up, one more one less, ten more and ten less. To record the results, I would highlight the things he could do. To evaluate what we had recorded, this would be assigned to the numeracy leader, for her to conclude a level of where Bert was.

I have also noticed that I have been using RIA and ROA (Schon’s Reflection IN action and Reflection ON action) are also things that I use on a daily basis. SO, reflection IN action happens when you reflect/respond to what is happening as it is happening. For example, my Year3/4’s have just done  a Viking Musical called ‘Hey! Hey! We’re The Vikings’. Dering rehearsals I had done extensive planning of the script and choreography, however, when it came round to blocking the staging and learning the choreography, this was not an easy task. Responding to what was happening right NOW, was the result of me tweeking/changing/re blocking some of the numbers and scenes. Without even knowing I was RIA’ing! 

Task 2A and 2B - Keeping a Journal

Keeping a journal…….

Well this is something that I have never done successfully before. On reading that I had to start a journal, initial panic set in. I always feel that by the time I get home from school, get things sorted in the house (Dog, tea, cleaning, washing etc etc) that I will have forgotten about what I have done during the day. My thoughts on what I should do didn't materialise until about day four, more on that later.

I started by following the ‘list’ set out in the BAPP Handbook, I started on Day 1 with Method 1 ‘Description’, followed by Day 2 with Method 2 ‘Initial Reflection’ and so on and so forth.

Here are some quick thoughts on the various methods.

Description

This I found easy to do. Writing about one, two or several events that happened during my day, I found the events easy to recall and easy to write about.

Initial Reflection

This method I found a little more difficult. Trying to recall at my feelings, thoughts, mood and if anything unexpected happened at the end of the day was a harder task for me. I did manage this but it took longer than day 1’s task.

List

Making lists is something that I love to do, however this list would prove to be the longest list I have ever written, and by far the most complicated. My list became very complicate because as I write it I added bit here and there, then added some more, and then maybe another bit here…! Oh good lord, it looked a right mess with arrows and circles round different sections, and far too difficult to follow! It looked more like an extract from the Graph and Chart day coming up. An epic fail on my behalf.

Graph, Chart and Diagram

After yesterday’s list disaster, I decided to try these methods next. I found this a real challenge as making a graph or diagram is something that does not come easily to me. I started by writing my thoughts down and trying to think about how I would relate them to my thoughts from yesterday.  I chose three aspects of my day and compared my stress levels on these three different occasions.  It wasn't as successful as I would have liked.

Evaluation

This came easy to me, as I have to evaluate every lesson/group/performance of my day. I generally find this an easy task, and I must say that this method was by far my favourite one.

What if…….?

Good lord, this one went on a bit. After choosing an particular difficult incident of my day to this section, I did find that I rambled on and on and on, and then on a bit more….! The outcome was totally unrealistic and I got far too carried away.

Another View

I pondered this for a day before choosing an object that was with me for the whole working day, saw everything that I did and was something that was a little ‘off the wall’. I chose The Whiteboard. Didn't work very well, partly because I felt silly writing about my day from the perspective of a Whiteboard, and partly because I couldn't think of what the Whiteboard would have seen from myself and others in the room. All in all not very successful.

As I said earlier, I did have a slight light bulb moment about day four. Why don’t I amalgamate two or three of the styles of writing my journal that I find the easiest to write and that I feel will suit my day best. I decided to blend the styles of Description and Evaluation together.

                This work so much better for me. My journal is easier to follow, I can update with short bursts during my day and the elaborate later in the evening. I found it easy to write lots about one or two incidents during the day and also include feeling in these. Feelings are something that I do not normally write about in my daily evaluations and this took a little more thought and patience than I expected, but once I got going it became almost a second nature when writing my daily journal. 

Task 1D -2D Images

Here is the address for my Instagram  www.instagram.com/oliverhajba1985

There not very exciting images....... but there relevant to me today :)