New Learning Spaces at Freemans Bay School

Last year we demolished a large 1970's open plan building because it was subsiding. This gave us an opportunity to innovate with the design of the our new classroom block. We wanted the design of our learning environment to support the design of our curriculum vision.

http://http//freemansbay.school.nz/freemans-bay-school/school-vision/

We wanted the new learning spaces to support flexible learning and teacher collaboration to support student learning. We wish the physical environment to support assessment for learning principles, e-learning and our thinking curriculum - habits of mind.

The new classroom block has a large atrium space being utilised in a variety of ways. Teachers are experimenting with the use of it. We purchased a range of furniture that is colourful, at different levels and can be moved around. This has supported the flexibility of these spaces.

We only moved into the building last April and the furniture for the Atrium space was purchased in November. Teachers report that this open learning space has strengthened collaboration in their teams and encouraged creativity in the way the environment is used. It has created opportunities that were not considered in the "single classroom setting". The new open learning environment has encouraged teacher collaboration around the way teaching is done as well as collaboration among the students. This is a new journey for us and teachers continue to explore different ways than can use these spaces.

Goal sharing Conferences

At Freemans Bay School we embrace the concept of students being in charge of their learning. Feuerstein promotes that planning for and reflecting on learning experiences deepens the students learning experience. We have a holistic approach that puts the locus of control as much as possible with the learner. We believe in the importance of encouraging students to reflect on and analyse their learning so that their learning is meaningful to them.

We have just had our goal sharing conferences. Students were supported by their teachers to share their learning goals with their parents through Knowledge Net - our online learning management system.

The next steps for students is to provide some evidence on how they are working towards achieving their goal. This can be written, spoken, a video, a photograph or a picture of their work.

Parents have access to the goal reflections and can support their students at home, through the "Cloud". Thus supporting the home / school partnership around learning.

At the conference each student and their parents had a 15 minute slot with the teacher. This was a valuable time for all, strengthening the partnership between the school and the family around learning.

This goal sharing event reinforced the importance of reflection to maximise learning in a meaningful way for students and their families.

Junior Engineers Collaboration project

I really enjoyed working with two Infotech Engineers with a team of teachers and students to development of water collection and distribution system. This project included everything we believe in: E-Learning, Collaboration, Higher Order Thinking, Team, Authentic Learning, Reflecting, developing a solution to an authenitic challange and reaching out to our school communities.

We developed this Prezi which summerises this project.


http://prezi.com/zlrce8qcwe6_/copy-of-fbs-engineers/

Enjoy the presentation. Prezi is my current favourite presentation tool and our students love it!

Parent Portal is launched at Freemans Bay School

This week we launched our Caregiver Area on our online learning environment - Knowledge Net. This is a screen shot of the home page of our parent portal.

Parents can:

-View their childs learning goals and learning journals.
- View their child's attendance records.
- View their child's school records,
- See their child's profile, class and groups that the child belongs to
- Visit websites to support thier child on their learning journey

Parents can put in their on reflections on forums about school activities as well as comments on their childrens learning pages about how they see their child in doing with their learning goals.

This is very interactive and supports parents to support their children in their learning. It helps to strengthen the learning partnership between parent, child and school.

Student Led Conferences at Freemans Bay School

Student Led Conferences Freemans Bay School 2011 on PhotoPeach

2011 Student Led Conferences

Student led conferences provide an opportunity for students to talk about their learning goals and have parents find out what these are and consider ways to support their students learning at home. Students are able to open up their goals on a classroom computer to access our on-line learning environment “Knowledge Net” and talk to parents about their goals and next learning steps. Parents interact with their students in the classroom and take part in some learning activites both online and in the classroom.

The focus of our student led conferences includes:
■Literacy goals
■Numeracy goals
■Habits of Mind (work habits)

What does a student led conference look like?

■A conversation between the students and their parent about learning
■Other families are present in the room at the same time
■The teacher is present but the student is doing the talking about their learning

Student learning artifacts:

Portfolios provide documentation of your child’s learning. Exercise books, digital files, drawings and classroom displays also represent student learning. The information in each student’s portfolio, along with other classroom working documents, clearly informs parents about their child’s expectations, actual progress and achievement. Portfolios also provide a curriculum expectation checkpoint. This enables parents to see information that details:

■The student’s actual level of attainment in key curriculum areas (literacy, numeracy and habits of mind)
■The student’s current achievement level compared to the age expected level

Parents are always welcome to make a time to have an individual appointment with the class teacher to talk about their students learning.

Students and parents find this process very engaging and compelling!

Knowledge Net Parent Portal to be launched at Freemans Bay School

We are looking forward to launching our parent portal next week at our student led conferences.

The Prezi presentation by Sarah Ingram of Knowledge Net gives you an idea of how parent portal assists parents to support their students learning.

We are looking forward to having feedback from our parents on how they find our parent portal and how it helps to support student learning.

KnowledgeNET Parent Portal on Prezi