Student Voice
The need for the use of more student voice was identified as an area for development in last year's Mantar Cluster student survey. At the end of last year, St James' teachers asked their students what they would like to learn about. The popular choice in the Middle Team was dinosaurs and in the Senior Team it was animals. Teachers have used this student voice to develop inquiry units with deep understandings which were drawn from the National Curriculum subject areas of science (Living World) and design technology, that will developed in the context of dinosaurs and endangered animals.
Evidence of this learning can be see in the blog links from the different classes below.
Middle Team
Room 2: http://room22012.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/tuning-in-term-2.html
Room 6: http://starsixessjs.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/visit-to-te-manawa.html
Senior Team
Room 3: http://room3stjames2012.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/walt-generate-our-first-ideas-using.html
Room 4: http://learningfourusall.blogspot.co.nz/search?updated-max=2012-04-03T10:36:00%2B12:00&max-results=7
Room 5: http://roomfivesjs.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/endangered-species_30.html
Comments
The use of authentic student voice and choice is also an area of development at Somerset. Student voice is currently used throughout the school to varying degrees. The Junior Discovery Programme allows high levels of choice for students in terms of activities they take part in and middle/senior teams are encouraging more student voice, particularly through Inquiry Learning focuses. Recent PD with Kath Murdoch highlighted the importance for regular and authentic opportunities for this to really stand out in an inquiry environement. All teams, upon follow up discussions re Kath PD, identified the need to promote this more within student learning. An initial guide has been created to assist teachers to implement strong student voice for next term's inquiry focuses. Moving away from the teacher initiated inquiry, hopefully this will not only allow for more student voice during learning but also allow the student voice to directly guide and develop the planning and topics that are investigated.
Inquiry student voice ideas.docx