Reflection Introduction
To assist with the successful implemention of the Learning Curve planners and this website, familiarity of both is necessary with your students, parents and teachers.
In order to enable a whole school approach, ask your staff to do the quizzes for the Primary, Middle and Senior planners, which the students do to familiarise themselves with the layout of the planners.
Teacher (and Student) familiararity with the planners and website will show the value of the content in assisting with learning and teaching in the classroom.
The Student Planner Reflection and Teacher Planner Reflection are very constructive and effective professional development exercises for staff, as well as further assisting to embed the planners and website.
As we know, it is important to encourage teachers to obtain feedback from their colleagues and students in order to reflect on their professional practice and then make adjustments to their pedagogy; these reflections enable this.
If you used the planners last year, the best approach would be for Home group/Form teachers to ask their students to complete the student reflection and then for all classroom teachers to do so themselves for the teacher reflection early in Term1.
The next step would be for them to compare what the students have answered to what they have said themselves; it could be quite a revealing exercise for staff. A beneficial strategy would be to work in groups at a staff meeting analysing the responses from all student and staff reflections and arrive at a whole school approach to adopt. Teachers first hand could see the variation or lack of between expectations and practices of their colleagues and themselves.
It would be a very meaningful professional development exercise for all staff and that staff consensus is obtained to do the reflections again at the end of Term 1 2012 as a source of feedback to measure progress.
If 2012 is your first year using the planners, it is a good idea to complete the reflections at the end of Term1 to build momentum towards establishing a whole school approach.