“Get yourself sorted out!” Your blog, that is, get your blog sorted out. This week we need to start getting serious with our blogs. What I want to see this week is a new page added, an “About Me” page which explains all the information people may need about you and stays in place permanently. The difference between a page and a post is that a page stays as it is, whereas the posts change each time a new one is added. Next, make sure you’ve deleted any widgets you aren’t going to use and that you’ve added the Class Blogs widget. You’ll also need to delete the “Hello World” post and replace it with one of your own. Finally, I’d like everyone to post a comment on any of my posts from this year. We’re quite late starting our blogs but we’ll soon have them all flying.

How can the modern teacher keep a classful of modern, social media-minded students engaged? It’s very tricky, btu we’ve really got to get imaginative with the content we provide to the students. I’ve been using the TV show My Place in the classroom for a few years now, but mostly with my year 6 students. This year, with me again having a mixed year 5/6 class, it becomes a touch trickier, but I’m still using this excellent, valuable resource. While it’s an essential teaching resource for my year 6 students and their studies of 20th Century history, I’m also showing the same episodes to my year 5 students. However, the year 5s aren’t using it for History, they (along with the year 6s) are using it as a visual novel study, looking at topics such as characterisation, symbolism, director’s intentions, and so much more. The series has also stimulated ideas for Health, Maths and technology. It’s such a great Australian resource that I just may do it all over again next year.

I’m not already counting down – honest! Six weeks have gone (still not counting) and it’s been a busy six weeks. We’ve plunged head first into this term and tried to get the foundations in place that will support the rest of what we do throughout the year. We’ve already written a compare and contrast text on two characters from our visual text; we’ve revisited place value, location and timelines in maths; we’ve looked at the Stolen Generation, early penal colonies and the Industrial Revolution; we’ve even created works of art (see pictures below), influenced by Julian Opie, the artist who created the iconic art on the famous Blur album cover. The one thing we have certainly struggled with, though, is our technology! Our fabulous Department of Education now requires us to do more in-depth permission requests (quite rightly) for all the technology we use in class. This all takes time, and it doesn’t help that my Edublogs permissions were left off the list. Consequently, we’re not quite ready to start posting yet; hopefully very soon!

Welcome to yet another year in LA14. The Australian school year runs from February to December, unlike many other nations around the world, which means we’re into our third week of 2025. I’ve changed classrooms on several occasions, but LA14 has been my home away from home for a number of years (on and off), so I was pretty happy to be allowed to stay put this year. Once again, we’re a split year 5/6 class and we’ll be juggling the curriculum to suit all the students in our class. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the blogs up and running again soon, although it’s even taken myself quite some time to get a new post written; if you’re a teacher, you’ll know how quickly time can get away from you and leave you chasing yourself in circles. Anyway, it’s time, once again, to watch this space as we begin a new year of learning and fun.

Have you ever heard the story about busses? How you can wait for ages for one to come along, and then they all come along at the same time? Well, LA14 had our own “busses” moment this week. At our assemblies (which happen every fortnight) the specialist teachers (Art, Science, Music, Phys. Ed.) hand out an award for the best class for that week. Strangely, we hadn’t won anything all year, so you can imagine how totally shocked we were when we made a clean sweep of the whole assembly; yes, we won the lot! We won Vincent’s Sunflowers (Art), the School Record (Music), the Golden Boot (Phys. Ed.) and the Electric Award (Science). Crazy! All this was thoroughly deserved, naturally, and it put a huge smile on the students faces – the best award of all!

Ugh, pass me a couple of matchsticks, I need something to keep my eyes open with. The first week back, the first day back, is a tough ask; it’s like travelling overseas and trying to cope with jet lag from the change in timezones. I could sooo easily get used to long lie-ins, sleepy mornings and lazy days, especially at my “advanced” time of life. But, duty called and I answered.

We’re now into term 4, the last of the year and the ten week run up to the summer break. It’s a big term for all of us, but in particular for the year 6s who will be leaving the school in December to begin their new lives as highschoolers in February. It’s a daunting move, but we have some great kids and I’m sure they’ll do just fine. It’s going to be a crazy term, with so much learning to get through and a whole host of axtras (including graduation practice). However, it’ll all go smoothly, I’m not sure how, but I’m sure it will.

 

We’re still at it! The previous post highlighted the work we’ve been doing in T & E in making our peg game (naughts and crosses) along with designing and making a box. Well, that work is still ongoing and we’re really down to our last week before we break for our end of term holiday. The game itself has been made using saws and a drill, and the pegs are simply small dowells. However, the box to keep everything in can only be made using pop-sticks and glue. This has made the whole design and production process very tricky, even for the fabulously enthusiastic students of LA14. The images below will give some idea as to what we’re doing, and hopefully, fingers crossed, everything will go well with the final countdown already ticking steadily down.

In these modern, tech driven times, the school days are so overcrowded now that we hardly ever get a chance to simply do something just for the experience of it. Too many things we are asked to do as teachers are driven by test results, and too many of these things are difficult to turn into exciting, enjoyable or motivational lessons. We need to remember, not everyone will go to university and neither do we want them to. We need all the skills, all the trades and all the specialists in our society and, as a school, we need all the students to know that too. For the last week or so we’ve been dipping our toes (metaphorically) into the world of wood work by making a “noughts and crosses” game. It’s not overly complicated but for many of the students it’s their first experience of using real tools and materials to create something. Of course, the curriculum lies behind it and the students have to design and build a box for their game. However, the most satisfying part for a teacher is watching the students build something of their own; a new connection to their world, opening new perspectives through a new experience. Sometimes the old ways are the best!

Hot on the heels of the Olymics came an even more important and prestigious competition – our school faction carnival! Last week we were engulfed in colourful clouds of hairspray and tutus as far as the eyes could see. Our faction carnival is always an exiting day, and the students go all out to demonstrate their loyalty to their colours (red, blue, yellow and green). It’s an iconic day for the whole school, although the poor old (old being the main word) teachers suffer for it for the following weeks with aching bones and sore muscles. It’s all worth it, of course, and the best part is seeing the community come together to celebrate something positive and joyful. Unfortunately, our perennial losing faction (green) still didn’t win, but the yellows preserved their dominant streak with another successful campaign.

Social media, it’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s brought so many creative outlets right into our hands, yet it can cause more conflict than it’s worth. Many teachers will tell you that the attention span of students has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, possibly as a result of YouTube and TikTok. However, it’s a fact of life and has become the new normal for the students in our care. Love it or loathe it, social media has also opened up new possibilities for teachers in their search for motivational tools to use in the classroom.

In LA14 we’ve been very creative lately, making something special out of wood (see below). This activity integrated photography, digital file management and above all, care and patience; it was also very “hands on” which suits those students with a more practical nature. The next step will be the one that matters most. The students now have to plan a video presentation of the process they used to create their special gift. This will require digital technology, sequencing and oral language and should end up with something akin to a TikTok video (watch this space). It’s essential we, as techers, try to develop connections to the real world, and in this case the real world of social media, the world the students inhabit. As they say, “If you can’t beat them…”