My Early Years Practitioner

I have once again enjoyed teaching in Year 2 and developing myself as an early years practitioner. In my second year, I have gained a much better understanding of early years pedagogy. I have appreciated the support of my team members and senior leader, Therese Gallen to help me continue to develop and strengthen my teaching and learning practise. I have also sought out professional development to help me understand the developmental stages of this age group as well as how to support children with individual needs. I have continued to develop myself as a leader by working again with a new team and by completing the ESF Emerging Leaders course.

The whole school goal was to develop our own professional knowledge around science and technology
This involved building the team to work collaboratively to enhance teaching and learning. I began this process by building trust and implementing meeting protocols. Building trust allowed me to establish strengths and weaknesses before delegating appropriate curriculum areas to the team. Having new team members means a lot of time is spent managing rather than leading. Despite the experience of new staff a lot of the planning time is allocated to explaining school policy and procedures. Once again I don't feel we have had time to develop new initiatives. I have found this year challenging and I would like a focus for next year to be how to have the more difficult conversations with a team member and maintain a professional relationship (should the need arise). For this reason, I am grateful to Sandra for understanding my desire to continue my early years' journey. I would like to focus on excelling as an early years teacher and ensuring more time is spent developing teaching and learning for the students rather than ensuring the correct paperwork and administration is completed. I would also like to be able to implement more procedures and strategies that I have learned on the Emerging Leaders Course at ESF.

Another personal goal was to continue to develop understandings and skills around early childhood pedagogy. In order to achieve this goal, I have used resources and readings to help me understand developmental stages of reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics. I have undertaken online PD - PD in PJs - seesaw/ early literacy. Kath Brodie - Importance of outdoor play and learning online. I have continued to seek help from IN department to develop reluctant readers. Additional PD was Kath Murdoch - develop WALTS as a question - The question of learning intentions and
Dyslexia - STOP