I wanted to make a shout out to Sally from Watercare services for her fantastic support. Her lesson was captivating in its content. At first she explained how the waste water was treated and where stormwater went along with why it is important to keep these two systems separate. 

Then she moved the class outside for some hands-on experiments around water and geology. She had the students create landforms by arranging rocks and dropping them in plastic sheeting. Then they poured water on them from above to see how rivers and lakes formed and eventually flowed out to the sea. As a final challenge, the students needed to create a landform that could contain a lake of 6 litres of water with no spillage. 

Thanks Sally and Watercare Services for a stand-up afternoon. 

I am currently running 4 writing groups (Voice, Organization and Fluency and Content & Ideas) . These groups were initially self-selected and as students learning develops changes are made. ​I am only 2 weeks into the new term, but already I have been enjoying my writing workshops. They have been highly engaging and tight - done in 10 minutes, so the bulk of the time students still have to be getting on with the actual task of writing. I am making good use of the modeling books for these lessons and also documenting them through ccpensieve.com. I am really looking forward to seeing how these lesson develop and impact on student engagement and learning.

I didn't feel the presentation went very well. I was nervous and stumbled a lot and yet I was approached by several staff afterwards who wanted to know more. We were able to have some very deep conversations around student agency and teacher accountability. ​