Discussions

= 2015 =

December
hmm, haven't used this forum for a while. Slipping! Anyone that has trained as a Group Leader for the Incredible Years Programme will be excited to hear that Massey, Canterbury and the Werry Centre are hosting an IY Forum in Wellington in March next year. It's a combined Parent and Teacher forum which will be a great opportunity to see how home-school partnerships in this programme can work for children. Registrations are open now and I encourage you to get in early. Carolyn Webster-Stratton is the keynote for this so you won't want to miss it. Theme: Inspire, Innovate, Impact. It won't be a boring talk-fest that's for sure. Click on the image below to find out more and to register for the forum. 

We have recently had workshops where we invited FASD parents to talk to us. These were hugely successful, we were strongly affected by the parent voice and it will make a difference to the way we plan for our children. Thanks to Claire Gyde and Lisa Smith for working with us and sharing their personal FASD stories, it was particularly good to hear the parent perspective and important to help us understand the lived reality of families of FASD children. We also worked on developing behaviour plans today. Thanks Robyn (Taranaki MoE) for showing us the escalation graphing, triggers and strategies for helping children who have difficulties with self management. I look forward to hearing how this is applied in your schools. Napier also saw these plans and found them a useful tool. Please let us all know how you share these experiences and learnings back in your schools so we can all learn from each other. Spreading the word will be especially good reward for Claire and Lisa I'm sure you'll agree. Last word to one of our participants "It was very intense and brought to light a lot of preconceptions and misunderstandings. I have a lot to take back to my staff and am wondering how to do it all justice at the moment!"Thanks Ra. Resources will go up in the bookmarks & resources sections of our private Inclusive Education CoP VLN. Taranaki Sencos 2015

April
18th I'm heading to Tokelau in the morning to work with schools there. A really exciting prospect as we work with them to shift learning outcomes for their children. I am keen to see the parallels and the differences as the culture is quite different to what New Zealanders know. Embedding myself in that is the first step. Getting to know the way things operate in such a different context and with different practices and beliefs will underpin decisions we make about how to progress this work together. I'll keep you posted but not while there as the internet is not the best.

This year I am really encouraging people to form a community of practice so we can share our knowledge across the groups. Keep thinking about the things that you are puzzled about and want help with, ask questions and inquire into them, keep a brief record of your progress, and all this becomes something that will help you improve your own practice, the learning outcomes for your students and staff, and the bonus is that it's perfect evidence for your teacher registration without any extra work.

Cheers, Heather

= = = 2014 =

October
media type="custom" key="26648556" 2nd Some of you may have attended the recent PB4L conference in Hamilton. It was a real buzz to see schools being so excited about their shifts in practice and the impact it was having on school culture and on their communities. George Sugai was one of the keynote speakers - PBIS (PB4L) is his baby and he certainly showed his passion. If you want to see his presentations, click here. For a more accessible overview, George was interviewed on National Radio yesterday so if you'd like to hear him, here's the audio. media type="custom" key="26627896" Take care Heather

1st Hi Team. Just received this from the MoE - a new set of modules developed by BLENNZ in collaboration with MoE. These are for teachers and TAs working with students who are blind, deaf or have low vision. They are based on the original TA modules that we have explored already this year (see screen shots below) but they have a BLENNZ context so you wouldn't use both. I know some of you have students with these needs in your schools so I hope you find them useful. Enjoy your holidays. See you next term. Cheers, Heather

August
29th Great round 3 of workshops this month. It's particularly exciting to see the sharing of expertise that is happening now that we really know each other's talents. Thanks for the offers. A particular thanks to Melissa (Inglewood) for her PECS session in NP. Really useful to see how this works - now you can decide whether you want to explore this further and who to contact. Melissa on a roll! || Attentive audience :) || Christine, Mark and Carol (our latest newbie:) || And of course our wonderful Nita looking on ||
 * [[image:photo[3].JPG width="445" height="333"]]
 * [[image:photo[5].JPG width="443" height="335"]]

In this round i've been encouraging you to explore Universal Design for Learning. There are resources for this on our workshops page also on the UDL page. There is a discussion thread on the VLN now about this so please go and see what people are saying and suggesting. You may need to join the group to see it - not sure. But it won't cause and anxiety attack I promise so have a go. Had another great week in NP this week, finally turned on the sunshine for me. Take care folks. Heather

July
Hope you're all having a great break. I'm curled up in front of the fire working on our next session.

I found the NZ Disability Strategy online today and it's got a nice provocative quote that i thought i'd share.
 * ‘Disability is in society, not in me.’** Disability is the process which happens when one group of people create barriers by designing a world only for their way of living, taking no account of the impairments other people have. Our society is built in a way that assumes that we can all move quickly from one side of the road to the other; that we can all see signs, read directions, hear announcements, reach buttons, have the strength to open heavy doors and have stable moods and perceptions.

The strategy has 15 objectives and suggested actions, with these two objectives particularly aimed at us. Worth thinking about with regard to how your current school setting enables (or hinders) this... 3.1 Ensure that no child is denied access to their local, regular school because of their impairment. 3.2 Support the development of effective communication by providing access to education in New Zealand Sign Language, communication technologies and human aids. 3.3 Ensure that teachers and other educators understand the learning needs of disabled people. 3.4 Ensure that disabled students, families, teachers and other educators have equitable access to the resources available to meet their needs. 3.5 Facilitate opportunities for disabled students to make contact with their disabled peers in other schools. 3.6 Improve schools’ responsiveness to and accountability for the needs of disabled students. 3.7 Promote appropriate and effective inclusive educational settings that will meet individual educational needs. 3.8 Improve post-compulsory education options for disabled people, including: promoting best practice, providing career guidance, increasing lifelong opportunities for learning and better aligning financial support with educational opportunities.
 * Objective 3: Provide the best education for disabled people**
 * Improve education so that all children, youth and adult learners will have **equal opportunities to learn and develop** in their local, regular educational centres.
 * Actions**

13.1 Ensure all agencies that support children, youth and families work collaboratively to ensure that their services are accessible, appropriate and welcoming to disabled children, youth and their families. 13.2 Ensure that the Youth Development Strategy recognises the needs of disabled children and youth 13.3 Conduct anti-discrimination and education campaigns that are age-appropriate and effective. 13.4 Establish a process for including advice from disabled people on disability issues for children and youth within relevant government agencies and Commissioners’ offices. 13.5 Provide access for disabled children, youth and their families to child, youth and family-focused support, education, health care services, rehabilitation services, recreation opportunities and training. 13.6 Improve support for disabled children and youth during transition between early childhood education, primary school, secondary school, tertiary education and employment. 13.7 Introduce ways of involving disabled children and youth in decision-making and giving them greater control over their lives. 13.8 Develop a range of accommodation options so that disabled young people can live independently 13.9 Provide and evaluate educational initiatives about sexuality, safety and relationships for disabled children and youth. 13.10 Ensure the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Ministry of Social Policy undertake a leadership role in promoting the participation of disabled children and youth.
 * Objective 13: Enable disabled children and youth to lead full and active lives**
 * Disabled children and youth should enjoy full and active lives, in conditions that prepare them for adulthood and which:
 * ensure their dignity
 * affirm their right to a good future and to participate in education, relationships, leisure, work and political processes
 * recognise their emerging identities as individuals and reinforce their sense of self
 * promote self-reliance
 * recognise their important links with family, friends and school
 * facilitate their active participation in the community.
 * Actions**

OK now that i've prodded, relax and enjoy the remaining time off folks.

cheers, heather

June
11th Chocolate fish (well sort of) for Ra. She has started a discussion about a new resource available for teacher's aides. At the top of this page is an icon with speech bubbles in it. Click there and look for Ra's question. Thanks. Great workshop in Napier today, thanks everyone. I enjoyed the challenges you threw back at me :)

We really dug into the teacher aide material - our own ways of operating in schools, the MoE's new resource and the Giangrecco readings that linked. I look forward to seeing what you manage to do with the new knowledge gained from the collaboration that flowed today.

May
17th Workshop 2 Outline is up on the workshops page everyone. If you want to alter this, let me know.

I've also made a shared folder in Google with all the readings for this year. I'll upload them there so they will automatically become part of your own google drive folders. 14th Another really good story heard on my drive this morning. This one from from Kapai Wilson - the Chief Imagination Officer (Professional Dreamer:) working with students who come to his centre as a last stop shop before incarceration. A good tale. media type="custom" key="25908596"
 * Universal Design for Learning** is a concept that Dr Alison Kearney has recently introduced to me. I did as i was told and Googled it. I think it will strike a chord with you. We will have a look at this at our next workshop so if you're interested you might want to look it up beforehand. Click on the image below to go to the CAST website.

Hi Team. Hope the holidays went well. Our next workshops are coming up soon and we will be looking at the ways we use our precious teachers aides, along with a few other things. Please have a think about what this looks like in your school so we can share practice and learn from each other - good and not so good practice all challenges our position which is our aim. If you have any job descriptions, appraisal processes, communication strategies, etc, it would be great to bring this along to the session. If you don't, hopefully we will be able to do the work with you on the day.

International summit on the teaching profession
Last week I listened to Insight on sunday morning (as you do) because there was a segment about this conference being held in Wellington. Education reporter, John Gerritsen talked to world leaders in education to find out what makes a top school system so good. Worth listening to, although as usual with these things it slowly but powerfully winds up to the end. media type="custom" key="25796328"

Rita Pierson
I saw this inspirational TED talk today and although it's not specifically about your Senco work, it is a nice reminder of why we teach.

April
13th If you want to know what i do in the rest of my life, have a look at this. Alec and I are the third story - 14mins into the programme. Sorry, but you don't get to be on TV often in a lifetime :) If you're keen to have a camp with us, let me know.


 * [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.20.55 am.png width="298" height="189"]] || [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.26.03 am.png width="297" height="191"]] ||
 * [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.25.48 am.png width="296" height="191"]] || [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.23.30 am.png width="297" height="198"]] ||
 * [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.26.09 am.png width="304" height="191"]] || [[image:Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 9.26.16 am.png width="301" height="192"]] ||

12th This interview was on Radio NZ national programme last month and i managed to catch the tail end so went searching to hear more. Katrina Sneath has just gained NZCE Level 2 in algebra and calculus as well as winning a national achievement award. So? Katrina has Down Syndrome. Go on, be inspired :) media type="custom" key="25623598"

8th Lynne Silcock from the Ministry of Education discusses how Universal Design for Learning theory and technology together can support success for all. If you are thinking about assistive technology and how it can be useful for your students, listen to this. Lyn sounds like a person after my own heart :) Maybe we should invite her to one of our sessions :)

7th Hi All. At a recent workshop there was a discussion about development stages children go through and how these can be used to help determine cognitive behaviour. I recently watched John Hattie go through the things that most impact on learning and noticed that Piagetian Programmes is ranked the second in his list as having the most impact. Here's a short video that demonstrates Piaget's stages, it may help you to recognise where some of your at risk students are and how to help them move along.

March (already!)
25th NP workshop today - thank so much everyone for all your contributions.It's great to come away having learned so much. Special thanks to the dream team from the local MoE office. First time we've kept you all day, I know your time is precious so we all appreciate you giving it so freely. Diana Hoskin has put some resources up on the WORKSHOPS page for those of you thinking about applying for HLN funding - must be done through your RTLBs and the deadline is very soon so get on to it now. Thanks to the google note takers - amazing notes! I'll add to these where i think i can.

On my way over on Monday i heard an interview with Prof Matthew Parsons who has been exploring how synchronising a soundtrack to stories might increase reading comprehension and engagement among children. Long story short - having sound tracks increases the reading time / engagement time by 30% and ... comprehension by 30%. He also has some really interesting reasons why children prefer reading ebooks if they are struggling readers. You may have seen this as a brief story on TV monday evening too but this is worth listening too. Transfer this learning to how you can use the smart devices everyone. These lend themselves beautifully to creating sound enhanced stories. Why not think of setting a group the task of creating the sound effects for stories and recording these for others to use? I'm sure the Garage Band app would be perfect for this. media type="custom" key="25456810"

I've checked with One Burgess Hill and we have a clash for the August date so it may need to change. Will let you know as soon as his other booking confirms or cancels.

Cheers, Heather

23rd NP workshop this week and it will be fantastic to get the old group back together again. We've grown, there are 21 registered this year!!! Apparently we will still fit into One Burgess Hill, but we may have to be a bit more up close and personal :) I've spoken to a few people in my travels and have some guidelines for this first workshop. Have a think about what you want from this year and come along ready to challenge me into drawing things out of the bag to meet your needs. Meantime ...
 * Teacher Aides - If you get a chance, please bring along any material you have about your TA job descriptions or any form of appraisal you have for this group of paraprofessionals. Many of you wont have this so don't stress. Our goal will be to share current practice and develop our ideas in this field.
 * Differentiation - we can explore these themes further, I have some material that we can look at, so if you have any evidence or themes in this area, bring them along. I have some material relating to maths (thanks to Loti) that may be of interest.
 * Assessment - we can continue to strengthen our approaches to fair and equitable assessment for students with learning needs.
 * MoE – as usual, we have the team from your local Moe office coming along to mix and mingle. Any questions that you want answered, bring along.

Bring
 * smart devices if you have them, and remember your laptops.
 * NZC
 * evidence of learning from a student you are working with
 * TA stuff
 * anything you want to share

I have a very happy man today - 57 mls of rain overnight. That should settle him for a while.

Kia pai rawa to ra Heather.

7th Been checking out Twitter lately (slipped a bit over the holidays) and Found that Derek Wenmoth has posted this clip about student agency. Mention is made of the role of agency within IEPs and it made me think. As did the rest of the video. media type="custom" key="25302980"

5th Thought you'd like this one. There's a challenge - who can make a connection to working with students with learning needs? Chocolate fish if you can - a real one if you post your thoughts here :) Apart from that, I'm sure you'll all be nodding your heads and smiling when you view it. Heather media type="custom" key="25283010"

4th Hi everyone. Planning is underway for this year's Senco workshops, I hope you are able to come along. Our first session will have a math section so bring along your frameworks if you can and of course your NZ Curriculum so we can adapt and modify tasks to suit needs. Loti will come along to the Napier workshop, I'll deliver her thinking to the PN and NP ones. Smart devices (phones, ipads, tablets etc.) will be useful too so bring these with you if you have them. See you all soon. Heather media type="custom" key="25272396"

Welcome to 2014 everyone. I suspect by now your students will have started so I hope everything is going smoothly. The workshops this year begin on the 11th March in Napier, 18th March in Palmerston North and the 25th March in New Plymouth. I hope as many of you as possible are able to attend this year so our networks can continue to grow. I've added Napier in this year as they were left off the list for 2013.

I've just had a week in NP and the weather was stunning (apart from the torrential downpour on the way over on Sunday). I did 4 TODs last week and loved every school i worked in. Nice way to start the year. I even had time to see the sights this time as a school cancelled at the last minute (yay). I have been arm-twisting one of my colleagues to help out with the first workshop so that one will have a numeracy focus. I often embed my thinking in literacy so it will be really good to break this pattern and answer some of those tough questions. Loti is really keen to work with us and is already working in several schools around the Taranaki region, getting quite a reputation.
 * [[image:IMG_4217.jpg width="327" height="408" caption="Tupare Gardens"]] || [[image:IMG_4228.jpg width="306" height="405" caption="Rewarewa Bridge"]] || [[image:IMG_4209.jpg width="320" height="406" caption="Dawson's Falls"]] ||

iPad hint. Just watched this video about how to set up guided access to reduce what children can do within an app. If you want them to focus on a particular aspect, or not switch to other apps when your back is turned, this is your answer. Diana Kerslake used to use this last year so talk to her about how useful it was. All you want to know - click here for the video

See you in March. Heather

= 2013 =

November
December 3rd-thanks for the grids Sheila, Cheers, Donna 19th Diana H has just reminded me that I need to put a link to my two page Learning Story template up here. It's on the workshop resources page now too. Please save a copy or download it as a word doc before you write on it. Cheers, Heather

Poor Diana. I offered to play my violin but was declined :) At the final workshop in NP i took notes when we were discussing how we run IEPs. Just found them so here they are folks. There is a rich set of ideas and prompts contained here so i hope you find them useful. There is a great discussion thread on the cirtual learning network at the moment about using ipads etc for special needs students. Worth following. Not sure if this link will work if you're not signed in, but try it and let me know. You should all be a member of the VLN (doesn't hurt) and should be in the ipad/ipod user group. It's well worth following. http://www.vln.school.nz/discussion/view/844307 cheers, heather

October
30th OMG!!!!!! Im too old for this. Just learned how to save my passwords, create google docs and share them and drive Heather mad. Have found useful matrix on Heathers power point will be useful when tracking and for teachers to be prepared for IEP's. It is a daily tracking sheet showing how you are planning for each goal for the student. We wouldn't expect each one to be covered every day but lets you see what is being covered. She made me do this with my arm twisted behind my back. Diana K 28th How do we access the docs posted on here. If I click on it, I just get a blue box. I'm still learning! At least I can at last type in a comment. Christine O'K Have just found out how to download docs thanks. Thankyou to Sheila and Diana for their input. C.O'K 23rd Diana Hoskin - RTLB - sent me this last time and i forgot to put it up on the wiki. It's an application for funding for iPads. Sorry Di.

Great to work with you all again - I just love my job! Thanks for all your lovely comments, I will be putting together a flyer really soon so keep an eye out for it.

So far - Donna, Lorraine, Jocelyn, Sheila, Judy, and Liz, are allowed to attend next year. I just know the rest of you will move mountains to make sure you are allowed to come too :) For those of you who need the steps to be a wee bit smaller, here is the 'how to' - let's hope i get the starting point right. I've even included pictures to make it less scary for you possums.

Task Analysis: Writing on the Wiki
If you are not signed in, you can read the wiki but you won't be able to write on it. || ||
 * 1. Check to see if you are signed in. Top right of the page should have your name.
 * If your name is not at the top right and it says 'guest' ...


 * This is the biggest barrier that came up today ... **


 * Either: **
 * If you are already a member of WIKISPACES (not Google) **
 * If you are not signed in, please do this. Click on the 'sign in' word near where it says 'guest'.
 * Enter your wiki name or the email you used to set up your WIKISPACES account - this is NOT your google account. If you can't remember - click on the 'forgot my whatever' link on the sign in box. An email will go to the email address you used to set up your account. YOU NEED TO USE THIS EMAIL - CLICK ON THE LINK IT SENDS YOU!!!


 * Or**
 * If you are not a member of WIKISPACES you will need to join. ** It doesn't hurt.
 * beside the word 'guest' you need to click on 'join'
 * complete the form - you don't need to make a wiki.
 * ** Write the email, username and password down somewhere you will always have access to. Pretty please - with sugar on top :) ** || [[image:Screen Shot 2013-10-23 at 5.38.11 PM.png]]

||
 * 2. Once your name comes up on the top right of the page, you will see the 'edit' button. || [[image:Screen Shot 2013-10-23 at 7.49.05 PM.png]] ||
 * 3. Click 'edit' and the page will change and you'll now see a toolbar across the top. ||  ||
 * 4. If you want to write, just write. You can play with the tools if you want, but for now, just write. ||  ||
 * 5. If you want to upload a file to share with others
 * put your cursor where you want the file to go first
 * click on the File icon on the toolbar
 * click 'upload files'
 * find the file / picture that you want and click on it
 * when the words have an icon beside them, click on that and it will load onto the page
 * use the tool bar that comes with the file to resize or position it (if it's a picture) || [[image:inclusivemassey/Screen Shot 2013-10-23 at 5.05.06 PM.png width="347" height="246" align="left"]] ||
 * 6. Write something terrible exciting next to the file so we know what it is about || Heather is lovely ||
 * 7. When you have finished, click on save - top right of the toolbar || [[image:inclusivemassey/Screen Shot 2013-10-23 at 5.14.31 PM.png]] ||

23rd October NP participants' input. Here are some ways of quickly showing student growth. easy to set up, easy to use and easy to monitor. We use this through our syndicate. Sheila

Where oh where did my last entry go? Donna Great day. Good to share ideas and resources.Lorraine Hi from Jocelyn. Fantastic day. Always lots of food for thought. Would love to attend 2014 SENCO group. Judy Phillips

Another great day and sunshine as a bonus!! Roll on the 2014 SENCO gatherings. Sheila What a great day. Out of my comfort zone as usual. Would love to attend 2014 SENCO Group.-Liz Hi all. I've found it - Wikispaces. Thanks for another great day Heather. Definitely want to be part of the 2014 SENCO group. Thanks. Christine O'K

22nd

Massey Study awards Click here to find out more about study awards for PG Dip Special Ed. There are still spaces available if you want to do the Autism PG DipSpecEd. Deadline is now november but act quickly. Padlet Wall

19th Morning all. I'm still refining the Senco workshop this week so I thought I'd let you know a bit more detail than what was included in the letter from Trish. Although these activities are planned, you will decide on the day what actually happens for your group. If you can't make it, watch the wiki http://inclusivemassey.wikispaces.com/ as the resources will be put up there along with what comes out of the days.

I've had some input from some of you last week about what you want from this session. I've also had some time with Jill Bevan Brown - one of Massey's big stars in the field of Special Ed, and finally, I had a great chat to Lisa Parker (MoE in NP) who sadly is not able to come this time but some of her team will.
 * 1) As a result of watching Jill in action (with Indonesian SN principals with 2 weeks of English!), I will include some material in about differentiation/adaptation strategies which are always good to make us refocus on the child rather than the issue. Many of you have mentioned behaviour vs learning needs concerns this year so i will show you some of Jill's really simple stuff about some simple behaviour theory to help you make sense of some of the things you see your students doing.
 * 2) From talking to Lisa, I have useful activities that will help you think about your TAs and will inform any thinking about job descriptions and appraisals of them. Please bring along any JDs and appraisal you have for your TAs so we can get a really useful outcome. Even if you are a small school, this will still help to ensure you make the best use of your TAs who are an expensive resource so let's not waste them.
 * 3) From listening to you, I hear that people want to find out more about the Wellbeing website's Inclusive School survey material (Vogeltown have now done this) and Lorraine's school survey, and more about student assessment. Remember to bring some student material along to share, particularly any learning stories you may have had a go at.
 * 4) And the voice in my head wants to weave in iPads/tablets/smartphones/whatever. I will be making connections throughout the day to suitable ways to use these, without them being a very expensive colouring in book.

The workshops will be in the same venues as last time – 22nd - Caccia Birch in PN, and 23rd - One Burgess Hill in NP. Hopefully without the rain this time.

See you soon Heather

15th Good afternoon troops. Well this next session has crept up on me so apologies for not being in touch earlier. Blame the holidays - please :) In the next session which is next week, it will be the last chance this year to bring along some of your student evidence and get some help to understand what to do next for particular children who you have concerns about. I would like you to bring along your teacher aide job descriptions and any systems for their appraisal that you have. Also your Senco JDs. I want us to share these and learn from each other, and perhaps some of you will go away with new thinking. I also want to really explore the aspect of capturing students learning in smart ways. We can dig into best use of the technologies you have available so please bring anything you have with you. I have been saying this all year and paying it lipservice so this time we will make sure it really has time dedicated to it. I have learnt a lot this year about this so it's time to test the old girl. finally i want to explore the IEP material that is available now from MoE. Bring any structures you have in place in your schools so we can explore these and match up the thinking. Or change it :)

Looking forward to catching up again next week.

Cheers, Heather

August
28th Thanks for your input today and for the contributions to the discussion below. My phone's been pinging all evening (Wikispaces emails me when people comment on the wiki) as you brave people are showing you can do it! Something i forgot to say today - Wiki etiquette is that you add your comments to the top of the page so they are immediately obvious. Just find the date - or write it yourself - and then post beneath that. Then sign your name so people can address any comments to you and share the love :). I have taken the liberty of rearranging your comments to fit this - hope you don't mind. Also someone (who is Jackyboy?) has asked a question in the threaded discussion section so if you want to follow that one and contribute, [|click on the little speech bubbles towards the top right of the page] - near the edit button.

As promised, I have started to put the resources used in this week's sessions up on the Workshop resources page of the wiki.

See you all in October Heather

It is interesting to hear the voice of the child. It helps us as practictioners understand how they process and what it feels like to them. It is so important as educators that we know our learners well and we listen to what they are telling us about what it is like. I like the way we can build on their strengths and have our programmes made especially for that particular individual. We may need to look at group programmes and the effectiveness of these with pupils with SLD. This is something we will need to consider when planning intervention programmes in the future. Judy

Sheila
Thanks Sheila, glad it gave you what you wanted. Heather

The 'voice' of children is amazing, we should listen and learn. How empowering for them to understand __ their __ learning needs. Diana K Agreed Diana, if they can voice what they do next they understand it. We need to provide the opportunities for this to happen regularly. Heather

Like this. Very interesting

This is highlights the need for advocacy and working in partnership to achieve the best outcomes for our students and our families. Keeping communication channels open and listening is so important.

24th monday
You hear a lot of things when you spend as much time on the road as I do ... I was listening to RadioNZ yesterday and heard an interview, part 2 of a series, about children with challenges and what our education system is doing for them. It is a great session, so i then found the earlier part one and think highly of that one too. Worth taking 10 mins to hear these stories. If you have trouble getting the audio to play, click on the link to the website and use the OGG option to hear it - Mac users will probably have this issue.

[|NZ Society - Children with Challenges (Part 1)] ( 11′ 18″ )

 * 14:20** Lynda Chanwai-Earle meets school children with specific learning challenges and looks at whether our education system is supporting or failing these vulnerable youth.

media type="custom" key="23690896"

[|NZ Society - Children with Challenges (Part 2)] ( 11′ 10″ )

 * 14:30** Lynda Chanwai-Earle reports on how children with learning challenges are doing in our education system. How are their parents coping with the decreases in subsidised support and teacher aide time?

media type="custom" key="23690898"

21st Hi All. As i said earlier, we are going to look at analysing data for one part of our upcoming session. It sounds odd, but once you know how to do this, you can use the strategy to for a wide range of things such things as unpacking student voice, parent feedback, collaborating with your teams, and also help your students to be able to collect and interpret written data instead of just working with number data all the time. In our workshop we will be working out the inclusive themes so we can make valid suggestions for next steps - for us, the school, community etc. I've created a survey so that we have some data to work with next week. Lorraine will be bringing some but we may need a bit more to really show you how to do this analysis. We need it before the meetings so it can be printed off and you can get scribbling on paper. media type="custom" key="23646652" cheers, Heather
 * PLEASE put aside 10 mins and fill in the survey. ** And i would be delighted if you conned some of your staff into completing it too :)

Morning all (from New Plymouth and it's //not// raining - yet).

I am planning for our next workshop in a few weeks and need to get some material to work with. Lisa Parker and I put our heads together yesterday and we have decided that one thing we will explore is some of the issues around Inclusive Schools, particularly as this material is being rolled out across the country very soon. The NP group asked last time if we could show them how to work with data and make sense of it so they knew what to do next. One school has agreed to share its data with us so we can all get a feel for this (and give them a start on their next steps :), but we want some other data as well. I will create a short survey and send you a link to this very soon. PLEASE give 5 mins to this when it comes so i can get it printed off for our workshops.

I would like to see how the learning stories are working for you so please bring along your experiences with these to share. I know they are being used and teachers tell me that talking about them really helps them to make better use of them. I will also share some videos of students to show how these fit into this formative assessment framework and include the child in decisions about what needs to happen next.

The workshops will be in the same venues as last time - Caccia Birch and One Burgess Hill and both are lovely.

Let me know if there is something particular that you want to look at.

Heather

June
19th Great sessions in both PN and NP this week, thanks everyone. I really look forward to reading the learning stories that you create after the sessions, I'm happy to give you feedback and feedforward to help you develop your skills in this great area of assessment for your focus students. Special thanks to Lisa and Robyn from MoE for joining us in NP. Lisa mentioned that there is a new MoE site called Wellbeing at School that all schools have access to. According to the website, "The Wellbeing@School website provides schools with two toolkits to use for self-review: Wellbeing@School (W@S) tools and Inclusive Practices Tools (IPT). These tools can be used within the W@S self-review cycle." Of particular interest is the section about inclusive practices tools. Lisa told us that you can get access to banks of survey questions that you can use to identify how inclusive your schools really are. Although this is a site backed by the MoE, no data is gathered from it, your school data is totally your school's so don't worry about this. "Schools can use this website to confidentially store data, access reports of their data, find suggestions for next steps actions, and track changes over time."

"New Zealand schools can register to use the tools. The principal must agree to the [|terms of use] for the website and tools."

One of the NP participants mentioned that Spectronics had a list of iPad apps for learning support students. Here 'tis.



17th This story was on the TV! programme 'Attitude' yesterday. Worth having a look for some inspiration. 15th Hmm, it's been a while since i used this page, sorry folks. The round of workshops this week is going to mainly focus on developing our thinking about assessment for students with learning and behavioural needs. The materials we will be using are on the Workshop resources page so if you want a sneak preview, go there. The basic outline for this workshop is:
 * 1) Some of you will have done some work to find out how inclusive your school is. We will share this and make sense of it, then develop some plans of action to make sure your findings are used effectively. Please bring any findings you have with you, i forgot to put this in the email and letter so I do hope some of you remember.
 * 2) Assessment for students who don't do well with traditional methods of gathering data. We will be digging into Narrative Assessment so bring along some stories (in your heads) about your focus students. If you have any photos, short videos (less than a minute) or copies of their work to back up your stories, even better.
 * 3) Integrating smart technologies into your programmes. this will be a theme all year so today we will mainly look at how to use these throughout the assessment process. Bring them with you if you have them - smart phones, ipods, ipads, androids, tablets, etc. No favourites here, although i have ipads so will be using these to demonstrate.


 * As well as your smart devices (if you have them) please bring the following with you (again, if you have them). All will be accessible online **** during the session **** (depending on the internet and the PN venue can be difficult). **** I will also have some hard copies to share if you can't find them, **** but it's great to have your own, especially if you want to write all over them :-). **
 * NZC
 * Narrative Assessment book (download here)
 * Literacy Progressions or whatever your school uses to assess school wide literacy.

See you soon Heather

April
26th Morning All. Hope you're having a great break. Just discovered a website called The Inclusive Class. US based, but has some really useful material that you should all look through. I would love you to be able to share what you find at our next meeting. There is also a link there to a website full of resources. Headings such as Teaching Strategies, Forms/Checklists, Resources for Classrooms etc make this one a must visit. Hard to find so here's the link

There are also regular podcasts on the site. Here is a short excerpt from one that you will connect with. media type="file" key="Sheldon Horowitz" width="300" height="50" Sheldon Horowitz, Ed.D., director of Learning Disabilities resources and information at the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), says we know about teaching the academic subjects, but we need to identify the 'soft skills' children with learning disabilities need rather than focusing on the things they are perhaps not so good at. He says we need to get children to recognise their strengths and things that they are not so good at. There is a whole other thing besides math and reading. Learning Disabilities is not who I am, it's what I have. Let them find the accommodations that work for them and give them the tools to be successful.

Cheers, Heather

March
26th

Hi All. I've just received a copy of a new book called ** Inclusive Education: Perspectives on Practice ** published by Massey. There is a section in it about narrative assessment which is worth reading. I will get copies for all of you for the next meeting but in the meantime, here is an explanation of narrative assessment which is an easy one to understand.

15th Dilemma activities have been typed up - they are available on the workshop resources page as word files. Please download these and put them on your walls (I know, what walls). Even if you only throw darts at them, at least you are thinking about the issue of Building Inclusive Schools. Have a great weekend. Heather

14th As promised, the handouts from our first workshops are now online. The page is called Workshop Resources. If there is anything i have forgotten, can you let me know please? Thanks, Heather

7th

And another fantastic day in NP. I am so lucky to be able to work with such amazing people. Great ideas for stepping up the ante and really getting 'inclusive' happening in your schools. We worked with some ideas for a school wide review on this topic too. This group is thinking about questions they can use to really identify current practice, and will use these to observe what is happening before the next meeting in June. Hopefully they will share these questions with me as i am happy to refine these (gotta use that masters knowledge somehow) and build something we can all use. That would be really useful.

Beautiful morning walk on your stunning walkway this morning. What a way to start the day. Thanks everyone Heather

5th Great Senco and Learning Support teacher workshop in Palmerston.today. I will get this activity typed up as soon as i get back to Napier and will post it on this wiki. It would be great to put on your wall and see how many extra ideas you can group around the creative solutions we generated today. And remember to number those compromises so you can smile to yourself when you see them happening.We danced the dilemma dance (Ewan McIntosh-@http://www.notosh.com/) around creating truly inclusive schools and created some really innovative ideas to work with. Thanks, Heather

=February= 28th Workshop letters will be emailed and posted out today. Apologies for the delay - technical issues at our end.
 * 5th March. Palmerston North people. ** We have now moved up to the Turitea Campus with the main university. We will be having our session in the Social Sciences Tower - Room 4.45. Which means, get the lift up to level 4, then start looking for room 4.45. If you come into the campus from the main entrance, take the right fork and head up the hill. Best parking will be at the bottom of the hill before the road forks - to the right towards what used to be Bennetts Bookshop. Park and wander up the hill - it's a 5 min walk at most. The Social Sciences Tower is opposite Wharerata, the old house that is sometimes used for mini conferences. We can sneak over there for coffee if we need to. They are supplying lunch too.
 * 6th March. New Plymouth people. ** We will be meeting at Brougham Heights Motel in the centre of town. There is a meeting room there and we can wander down for real coffee if required. Lunch supplied too.

15th The first workshops are about to start for 2013 everyone and we have several people already registered for these in both NP and PN. If you haven't signed up yet, get onto your principals so you can come along. Dates are March 5th (PN) and 6th (NP). Registration forms and further information here on the Centre for Educational Development website.



January
Is it too soon to welcome everyone back? I'm sure you're all anxious to get back into your schools and reconnect with those stunning kids so best wishes for a great year everyone. I'm certainly looking forward to catching up with you in March for the first round of this year's workshops. Cheers, Heather

= 2012 =

November
22nd Hi Everyone. You'll all be counting the weeks by now, perhaps even counting the days, so i do hope things are going smoothly for you. Tongariro decided to unite the region by including napier students in it's little show - amazing and a bit scary, but what a story they will have to tell.

Google Apps for Education
This site explains everything you need to know about using Google Apps for Education - the one stop in-school suite of Google applications such as gmail, docs, forms, presentations, maps, etc. I have been encouraging schools to explore this system as it is totally cloud based and therefore removes the issues you tend to have with school servers and internet providers This site has links to templates, support pages, tutorials, etc that will really be helpful if you are considering using this system. Well worth bookmarking this site and keeping up with it. ps, if you are considering getting this suite for your school, i really recommend you get Watchdog to set it up for you. it's not easy as it is US based and asks questions that apply to their system not ours. Watchdog are the NZ experts.

14th Two more great workshops done. thanks PN and NP people, and thanks Lisa and the MoE team for your great work on the IEP material. It has been really good working with everyone this year, and a wonderful addition today to have several RTLBs come along to the session and add their perspectives. We will have to make this a regular addition next year i think. I'm playing with ideas to continue these groups in 2013 as there has been a strong indication that the collaboration has been really important to you all. Pressure is on to concoct something before your PD budgets are spent, but i'll see what can be done. Cheers, Heather

2nd Gorgeous day in Hawke's Bay, hope it's the same in your home town. And it's Friday so that's making the day seem even better. Lisa (our lovely MoE person) and I planned the upcoming workshop on Wednesday so watch out, two of us will be playing tag team at the NP session. Our focus is the Collaboration for Success material which is all about successful IEPs in an inclusive environment. We may also get MoE extras for the PN one to help out too. The IEP material is all available online but the purpose of this workshop is to clear away the jargon and make it so clear it's actually useful. Nice thought. Even though some of you will not be doing IEPs that frequently (none of you should be), the workshop is full of fundamental stuff that everyone will see a connection to. It's all about clarifying your roles (Senco, TA, teacher, parent, student, ...), giving you scaffolds, showing you how to act inclusively, but not telling you what you have to do. That's where you come in - you have to make sense of it for your context, so it will be able to be put in place in your school. I know it's a really bad time of year to hold a workshop so i really hope you can make it. We are doing our best to make it worth your while. cheers, heather

October
28th Hi Everyone. Well in a couple of weeks we are going to have the final workshop of 2012. I've been in conversation with Lisa Parker from MoE and she is very keen to support this one by using us as guinea pigs for the new IEP roll out. There will be a venue change in New Plymouth as a result - we're going to use the conference room at MoE instead. More information to come soon. I've discovered that there are some case study videos on IEP Online that are really nice to watch so i've put the link up on the Narrative Assessment page. Missy Morton's off-sider Annie Guerin (I think she's a PhD student of hers) was interviewing students and parents and TAs for these so it all ties in nicely with our thinking. Also discovered a lot of new material on that site so have a look through our wiki and see where it's been planted. (that's just to get you using this site, cunning trick eh :). See you all soon. cheers, Heather 14th Yes, it is Sunday and I am working. Supposed to be helping my son create gardens and compost heaps in Wellington, but he kept me updated with the metservice reports (he's studying to be a meteorologist) so luckily we didn't go. Now i'm watching the rain here instead :) I've updated the Apps for Smart Devices page with several new sites. Useful to any of you who have these tools available to you, and more and more schools seem to be heading this way now. Apple are about to launch a $300 education iPad so that will be available very soon - this month is what i've heard. Some of the local schools are using tablets (e.g. Galaxy) instead of the Apple iPads and really want to connect with others who have gone that way. If you have thumbed your noses at the iPad takeover, please let me know so i can introduce you. We have another workshop planned for next month so details will be with you all shortly. I have a meeting with a couple of 'big Massey' people this week to pick their brains, and MoE are interested in using our groups to test the IEP roll out material. Please let me know if there are some burning issues that you want to explore so we can make sure the sessions are for you, not other people's needs :) Enjoy your first day back everyone. Cheers, Heather

3rd I found this PhD thesis by Gill Rutherford who investigated 'disabled students' and teacher aides' school experiences. Gill has created these diagrams that show the continuum from the inclusive to the exclusive classroom. Note the lovely progression from the 'teacher aide' to the 'student aide' to the 'band aide' :) How does this resonate with you all?
 * Questions to think about while reading:**
 * Where is your school on this continuum? Have you asked the school leaders? The teachers?
 * Where is your classroom? Could you justify your decision?
 * How does your TA feel? Have you asked her/him?
 * What do your students think? Have you asked them?
 * **Inclusive educational contexts (p 209)** || **Assimilationist educational contexts (p 211)** || **Exclusive educational contexts (p 214)** ||
 * [[image:Screen Shot 2012-10-04 at 3.19.34 PM.png width="351" height="261"]] || [[image:inclusivemassey/Screen Shot 2012-10-04 at 3.27.17 PM.png width="352" height="263"]] || [[image:Screen Shot 2012-10-04 at 3.27.33 PM.png width="353" height="264"]] ||

2nd Recently there has been an international review done about special needs and i have put some relevant sections up in the Senco, Assessment and TA pages. I encourage you to check these out and have a think about how this could be useful to you.

September
Just found a nice little wiki that has a lot of stuff that could be really useful to you. Here's a link to a page that has apps listed for specific learning needs

August
23rd New Page for Teacher Aides - check it out and give me feedback or add things to it yourselves.

23rd Riverslea School in Hastings are using their 23 brand new iPads and have offered to be the venue for our first iPad in Education Afcare session. If you are interested in spending an hour ish sharing how smart devices can be used to support learning, let me know ASAP so i can arrange a date. You can BYOD (bring your own device) to this session if you have them or use the school's - it's really about showing each other what you are using and how it's being used. This one is free although a koha to Riverslea for coffee and bikkies would be appreciated. cheers, heather If you want something similar, let me know and i'll see what i can arrange. Especially if anyone is offering to be the host school to get it kicked off. cheers, heather
 * Hawke's Bay people... **
 * PN and NP people **

20th And another video that is specifically about our super ** teacher aides ** and how they are most effectively utilised in our classrooms ! // "This programme follows the progress of an experienced English teacher as she spends one day working as a teaching assistant. //// Sarah Powell of Tanbridge House School in Horsham regularly works with a TA in her class but feels that she could get more from the relationship. //// In order to discover more, Sarah spends a day working as a TA at local East Sussex school, Bexhill High, learning first-hand about the methods used to ensure teachers and TAs work together effectively. //// Sarah's experience provides a valuable insight into the role of the TA and offers some great ideas on how to make their relationship with teachers as effective as possible." // Essentially, this one is the story of Sarah, a teacher who is put into the role of TA for a day in a school with really effective practices. She tells of the difficulties she has as well as identifying the practices that the school uses. There is a fair bit of background leading into this clip, but at about 5 mins it focuses on strategies and effective practice. At 8 mins there is a good discussion about the value of planning meetings. Sarah's reflection at the end is really useful, her thinking about what she will do differently in her own school, what is manageable for her, and what she took from the experience that really hit the mark. I'll set up another discussion thread for this one too. 19th Thanks Michael, great to see some new material coming from the real expert group.

Here's a British video about a day in the life of a ** SENCO ** that will strike a chord with you all, including the TAs amongst us. Fantastic description of what a SENCO does to create an inclusive school.

// From the site: // // "Claire explains the importance of time management, organisation and communication skills as she spends the morning in a series of meetings with outside agencies. Her invaluable insights into strategies for dealing with outside agencies are also expressed as well as how she actively works with parents and the local community to achieve SEN support for her students. // // Claire is not only a SENCO but also assistant head and a member of the senior management team. This is a role she strongly recommends to all SENCOs as it puts inclusion at the heart of school planning. // // Key areas covered: // Claire sees her role as enabling the student to succeed alongside the others in the school. Interesting comment about the use of LSAs (Teacher Aides) at 9:00 mins, Claire talks about the learning support adviser working for the whole class because it "doesn't distinguish the child or mark them out as being different". When the TA is alongside the child she feels it "doesn't actually support their independence ... and they need to have time with the LSAs to learn specific skills, but have to have a range of opportunities to explore their independence". I've set up a discussion on the threaded discussion tab (click on the speech bubbles top right of the page) so please share your thoughts about what this video covers. Heather
 * // Top tips for organising your time as a SENCO //
 * // Planning additional support for SEN students //
 * // Separating school from a SENCO's personal life" //

This book is a great resource to have a look at if you get the chance.



Michael. 12th And I guess you'll all be talking about the latest upcoming move around publication of the national standards results online, so there should be a bit to talk about this week when we get together. Hopefully the MoE people will be able to explain the implications for the students you have in your learning support programmes here. Click on the image below to go the MoE page where all the information is located.

July
23rd Did you see the Campbell Live story 'Educating Charlotte' tonight? It might touch a few nerves for you all. Heather 22nd There are some short demo videos available that show you what the apps can do now so for those of you who have been thinking about using these, you don't have to buy before you know what they offer. Click the pic to go to the site. cheers, heather

19th News Flash! We have MoE Regional Managers coming to the next round of workshops in all regions. They have agreed to be there for your questions, so please come prepared by asking your colleagues and leadership team if there is anything they wish to get a better understanding of. I have talked to them about the MoE's strategic direction of creating inclusive schools so this will be their key focus, and they will also tell you what support they are offering in the regions that you can tap into. This is very broad though so we will steer it to suit the groups on the day. Hope the first week back is going smoothly. Kia pai rawa tō rā Heather

16th Hi All. This change to include ORS etc students in your reporting happened in March, not sure if you are all aware of it. //Board reporting for students with very significant learning disabilities // //Boards will report school-level progress and achievement for ** all ** students, including those with special education needs, in relation to the National Standards. // // In addition  to their National Standards reporting for all students, boards can also report the progress and achievement of students with very significant learning disabilities separately. //

There's a fact sheet available on the link that would be really useful to print for your leadership / BoT information. Great to support your thinking around Narrative Assessment - notice MoE are all over NA if you see the links on this sheet. Heather

11th Thanks Hana - yes it worked, well done. Have a chocolate fish for doing this - guaranteed non fattening:) This is a really nice, useful way of showing the process. It ensures all the bases are covered and nothing is left out. Anyone else use an approach that could be useful? Everyone thinks differently so all ways of solving the problem are great to have. I would like to encourage everyone to bring their school models along to our next meeting as this could be the basis of some really good discussion.

I have invited a representative from the moe along to our next session in PN and Napier (NP already have had this) so be thinking about what your needs are and get them to me so i can brief them - if i'm successful in getting them. On that note, what are the burning issues for you at the moment? Please email me or put them up on the wiki so we can really meet your needs. Thoughts (thanks Hana for these) so far are; Heather
 * How to establish yourself so that the SENCO role/ processes are easy to follow and understand by all
 * Knowing where to go when a student presents with a specific need e.g. There is suspicion in the air that a child is having processing issues, maybe dyslexia? There are so many needs that I struggle with how to get to a diagnosis quickly so that my whānau don't get frustrated waiting? //(hopefully the moe may be useful here)//

11th Kia ora everyone. I have found the 3 R's of Diversity sheet I shared at the last session. A few of you were interested in seeing this. Now I have to figure out how to post it up on here properly. Hope it works. Hana

June
28th Many of you showed interest in using Voicethreads over the latest series of workshops. Here is a VT that shows you how to get a VT account and then upgrade it to Educator so you can have lots of them for free. Cheers, Heather media type="custom" key="19675246" 21st Another great workshop in New Plymouth yesterday, the room was just buzzing with experience and enthusiasm. And a visit from Nita Coward, the Special Education Adviser from MoE, was the icing on the cake. Resources by the bin load! I'll try and organise that for the next round in Napier and PN so don't feel you have missed out. Nita is a strong advocate of Narrative Assessment (Learning stories) and yesterday we were lucky enough to hear from people at two local schools who have been using Narrative Assessment for quite some time. Lorraine from Stratford Primary said that teachers are really enthusiastic about the process and wouldn't consider going back, and that as a result of using NA, teachers are more informed and IEPs are better evidenced and focused. Trish (just one of our Super TAs) from Highlands talked about how easy it is for her as she writes the learning stories and identifies the KCs and Learning Areas from these. It would be really powerful to hear how these work in the secondary environment which has real logistical constraints, but i hear some in the region are using them so if you hear of these, let me know and we'll encourage them to share too. Yesterday's group did the 'Super TA' activity which we didn't have time for in other workshops. this involved doing some 'backwards mapping' to develop Senco goals for their personal appraisal documents. I will write these up next week. We spun off from this and looked at how your in-school appraisals and the Teachers Council's Registered Teacher Criteria can both be evidenced through //Teacher// Learning Stories (stories focussing on //your teaching//) rather than laboriously trying to think of things you have done and match them to each individual RTC. One of the NP people as already risen to that challenge so I'm really keen to see how it goes. In the meantime, here are some photos to show that we were indeed working really hard. media type="custom" key="19476626" Cheers, Heather

19th
 * [[image:IMG_2347.JPG width="160" height="119"]] || [[image:IMG_2346.JPG width="160" height="119"]] || [[image:IMG_2345.JPG width="160" height="119"]] || [[image:IMG_2344.JPG width="160" height="119"]] || [[image:IMG_2343.JPG width="160" height="119"]] ||

Fantastic day today at Caccia Birch House in PN (fantastic venue), thanks so much to the team who contributed to a successful outcome. Some of you have already managed to get your learning stories up online, well done. If you get stuck, use this page to ask questions and together we will see if we can solve them for you.

Notes from PN group
Here is the link to the google doc notes page that was created today. Gaye can you add your notes too please? Ta. Frances shared her information about the new ways of accessing Learning Support funding. Scary, I recommend you print this one off.

Homework - in case you forget :)
Heather
 * 1) write a learning story and put it up online on your page.
 * 2) find some 'evidence' to support your story, or another one that can be developed. Remember, observations and conversations are valid evidence if we can then pull the data from them. So they need to be recorded. For example, photos of student's work or of them working, videos (30 - 60 secs is fine), not stored in your heads.
 * 3) Share some of your modification and accommodation strategies on our shared page. That way everyone benefits. Industrial espionage at its best!

14th Thanks Alice, that looks like it will be a great resource for us all Cheers, Heather

AVAIL
13th Hi everyone

This is a link to a literacy programme which we use at hastings girls, which I think works amazingly well. I mentioned it at the napier course last week and everyone seemed interested so thought I would share the link. Its called AVAIL and it uses movies and subtitles to get students reading. We use it with our year 9 and 10 students and I have seen amazing progress in their literacy because of it. So have a look and hope it hopes gives you some ideas on the types of programmes out there. []

Alice Drake

11th Hi All. i've been sharing your work with Missy Morton from University of Canterbury and she's really encouraging of what you've achieved. Here's some feedback: // "Just a note that we use the background in the exemplars because the exemplars are written for an audience that won’t know the student. Narrative assessments/learning stories written for use by student, teacher, other students, educators and families won’t need the background. // // BUT, it’s useful to be able to catch ourselves in the act of how we frame students and their learning. And, if some of these do end up on the exemplars website, then some background would be useful. What I am finding particularly interesting is the range of possible students, age groups, curriculum learning areas and levels these assessments can prove useful for. // // You might like to prompt your team to see what happens when they share even these early stories with students, parents and other teachers." //

So, the challenge is there team, have a go at writing one each and using them with your students and their team. cheers, heather

9th June again I've made a set of easy note cards for weather and NZ forest. pretty easy! Have a look on the our resources page Click on Quiz Me or Matching Game underneath the cards and play along. cheers, Heather media type="custom" key="19150980" 9th june Morning All. I have just stumbled across this Easynote site and think it could be useful. We spoke about creating shared resources for our students and these flash cards could be one to start with. Have a look through the ones on the site using 'spelling' or 'multiplication' as your search terms to get an idea. We could create a whole range of cards for our students to help them show their learning alongside their peers in their general classes. And if they are shared online we pool our resources! Heres the site. Let me know what you think oh, by the way, it's totally free. Bonus! http://www.easynotecards.com/index Cheers, heather

7th June Just to kick things off after a great session today (thanks everyone)... I saw this video come through and felt that we all should see it. hope you get something from it :) Heather media type="youtube" key="livzJTIWlmY" height="360" width="640"