21 st Century Learning Environments at All Saints. Initial steps towards Personalised Learning in the Grade 5/6 Level.

LOOKING AHEAD... Any others?

Things You Should Know: What is best for your children is always at the centre of our thinking, actions and plans. We are taking it slowly – small steps! We are continually reflecting, assessing and modifying. This is contemporary learning.

Our Definition of Personalised Learning at All Saints. Personalised learning means highly structured engagement which is collaborative, negotiated and takes into account individual student learning needs, prior knowledge and interests. Achievement is underpinned by rigorous planning and risk taking from both facilitators and students. It is focused on incorporating elements of student voice and providing opportunities for student choices about their learning. It requires the holistic, consistent, whole community involvement to support the success of each student. Teachers, students and parents will cooperate to provide ongoing detailed feedback, which will provide accurate information for planning and guiding student’s future learning.

Why the Change? Providing opportunities to better meet each student’s learning needs. Students take more ownership and responsibility for their learning – Personal learning skills. Students are more involved in their learning. – Interest based – Engaging to the students – Motivating – both through interests and seeing the possibility for improvement.

Our Learning Centres Foundation – Discovery Centre Grade 1/2 – Inquiry Centre Grade 3/4 – Explore Centre Grade 5/6 – Quest Centre Specialist Areas – Global Centre (Information & Communication Technology, Performing Arts, Physical Education, Science and LOTE)

Grade 5/6 Level Motto: If your actions inspire others to DREAM more, LEARN more, DO more and BECOME more... You are a leader. Symbol: Telescope, Magnifying glass, Map, Backpack.

Specialist Areas All students in the year level are split into three groups: Green group Purple group White group. Each week each group attends a session of PE, Performing Arts and IT or Science. Opportunity for students to develop many personal skills, e.g.; working with different people, coping with different social groups, self-organisation, etc.

Goal Setting We are working towards children being able to identify where they want to work towards and setting some personal goals to achieve this. The key focus is for students to: – Reflect upon their current understanding – With guidance, develop an understanding of knowledge and skills to successfully fulfil an intended goal.

Learning Intentions To ensure students have a clear understanding of set tasks, we are beginning to implement Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. A Learning Intention outlines what the overall knowledge, understanding and/or skills will be covered in a lesson. The Success Criteria states what the student needs to be able to do to successfully complete set task.

Example Learning intention To write a persuasive essay Success criteria I can: – write a paragraph introducing the topic and expressing my opinion – write a paragraph stating a reason that supports my argument with examples – write a concluding paragraph re-stating my opinion with supporting reasons.

Expectations on Students Maintaining neat and organised bookwork. Recording home reading and submitting any set homework/diaries on time. Referring to maths groupings to find out where they need to be...a huge success! We are working towards: Engaging in frequent conferencing between teachers and students to discuss successes/challenges.

Changes in Learning Over the Years Traditional Classroom Current ClassroomPersonalised Learning Teacher directed. Closed tasks. Same lesson for all students. Assessment / data teacher’s responsibility. Teacher guided. Open ended tasks to cater for a wide variety of abilities within the class. Data used for planning / grouping. Differentiated learning in Maths / Spelling. Assessment / Data used as a team. Open, flexible learning spaces variety of teachers and their teaching styles. Better use of data. Flexible groupings. Students move as they gain skills. Teachers plan together.

Future Direction Personalised groupings in mathematics with implementation of workshops. Inquiry curriculum will be explored as an entire learning centre, with teachers conducting workshops covering skills and knowledge required to complete set tasks. Reading and writing to eventually be conducted in a similar format to our maths curriculum.