Walkthroughs

The Year Begins...

Term One started off busy with many new children and their families arriving at Parkland. I tested the Literacy and Numeracy of these children to ensure that they were well placed into their classroom programmes. Many children come with no records from their previous school, and it can take a number of weeks for that to arrive. By testing them we can quickly establish Maths and Reading level. It’s also a nice way to meet many new faces!

Walkthroughs - Round One...

I spent two weeks of Term One conducting Walkthroughs; four walkthroughs per classroom. This system was set up by Richelle McDonald last year and followed a similar format. Each teacher was ‘visited’ by me (unannounced for 4-10 minutes) at a different time of the day four times. I gave them feedback in relation to student orientation, curriculum content, instructional strategies, school-wide initiatives, classroom environment and health and safety. From the data I gathered I was able to make some school-wide judgements based on what I had seen. I put this together in a report which was shared with the staff.

We can be very proud knowing that there are many consistencies in our classrooms and high-quality staff with a passion for teaching!

Walkthroughs - Round Two...

I spent the first two weeks of Term Three conducting Walkthroughs. This time the focus was on Literacy; in particular written language. I gathered a lot of information on Literacy programmes in our school and was able to mark this against our document, Deliberate Acts of Teaching Writing at Parkland School. The results were very pleasing and it is good to know that there is a real sense of urgency in the way we are teaching written language to our students. Also it was great to notice the many school-wide consistencies in our professional practice; the use of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria, modelling books and use of feedback to name a few. It also highlighted the things that we want to get better at and to find out more about, like Think Alouds ( where we demonstrate to children how a writer's mind works by literally 'thinking aloud' so that they can 'see' the thought process). I was very impressed at how determined all staff were to ensure that every child in their class became a more successful writer. They are not afriad to ask if they don't know and willingly share ideas amongst each other. 