We’re back!!!!!!!

How exciting to be sharing another action-packed, exciting year @ Kunyung with your families!

You have entered our Blogs site where we share all things curriculum with the school community!

We are a proud International Baccalaureate World School and we value the social, emotional and academic strengths of our students, parents and staff!

We understand that all of our community members are individuals and we work very hard to cater for all of our students!

These blogs will keep you informed and up to date with what is happening in the classrooms and all other learning environments within and outside our school facility.

So……don’t be a stranger to this site- staff have set a goal to keep their level team blogs updated weekly and we would love you and your students to add posts and comment on what we are writing about and sharing!

All other administrative communication will be done through our new communication- stay tuned to the newsletter for further details!

The clip below illustrates how we feel about the need to treat our students as individuals @ Kunyung! ‘Animal School’ is NOT what we want and the clip below illustrates why!!

Go Team Kunyung! 🙂

 

 

Good Day Kunyung Families! I have just returned to our wonderful school after spending 5 days at the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) located in Beijing, China. I conducted an IB Workshop for 36 participants from across the Chinese Region. As always, I learn from these experiences and bring back to Kunyung more ways to improve us all to be the best we can be! This is becoming increasingly difficult as, the more I see, the more I know that our teachers are among the best in Asia Pacific. I do not say this lightly nor with ‘rose coloured’ glasses on! I say this because it is what I see and, after spending 3 days at a wonderful school that has facilities beyond belief and a reputation to match, I left their classrooms seeing the teaching and learning that we have at Kunyung and, in many cases, I saw classrooms that haven’t yet reached the level of teaching and learning that you see on a tour of our school. Through conversations with many of the International teachers and leadership team members participating in the workshop, the pillars that we have at Kunyung are closely aligned with WAB and many other International Schools. These schools are all focussed on areas similar to ours- Learner Agency, Personalised Learning and Inquiry and are at the beginning of a journey we have been on for a few years! Sharing ideas and best practice was a highlight of the workshop and using many examples of what we do at Kunyung was of great interest to many participants in the course. The Western Academy of Beijing have a saying……. ‘This is my WAB’………..as I travelled home, I thought- this idea so suits our school!! So……..  ‘This is my Kunyung’ has been born!!!! I love it because it doesn’t matter if you are a student, staff member, parent, family member, community member, volunteer or a past student….we want everyone to feel that…………. ‘This is my Kunyung!’ Cheers and have a great week! Kim Please see below for our final  ‘Units of Inquiry’ for 2016! As always…..please see your child’s class teacher if you would like to be involved in any way!

 

Dear Kunyung Families 🙂

The Seniors’ Exhibition has come and gone and for the students involved in the inquiry it was successful in so many brilliant ways! as Elaine has outlined above!

The success of the Exhibition is not only limited to the Senior School Staff and Students however…………staff from all year levels walked around in awe at the level of engagement, learning, development and pride our students displayed- this is the best Professional learning our staff could ever get!!!

At the end of their class session in the Exhibition some quotes made by Prep, Junior and Middle School staff included:

‘I can clearly see what I need to do to prepare students for this quality learning…..’

‘What can we do to make our Units of Inquiry even better?’

‘It’s clear that it is so important to develop skills as well as knowledge and understanding’

These are questions and understandings that will drive our future planning of Units of Inquiry across the school- that is very cool!

50 Toorak College Year 6 students attended our Exhibition and I have included an email we received from their students on their return to school! It was lovely to see our students so proud to share their learning and the Toorak students asked some fabulous questions and were so engaged in what our students were talking about.
Dear Mrs Jackson

Thank you for inviting Toorak College to Kunyung Primary School to see the PYP Exhibition. It gave us a great view of what we have to look forward to next term. We now have a greater understanding of what is expected of us. We all had a great time exploring all of the different and diverse displays. The main skill that everyone said was important was time management and organisation, which we will definitely take into consideration in our Exhibition process.

We look forward to inviting Kunyung Primary School to our Exhibition in November.

Thank you from Lili and Lucy on behalf of the Year 6 cohort of Toorak College

For those who would like a taster of what the Exhibition was about, please click on the very short clip below!

Happy Days @ Kunyung!

by Milly and Sassy SB

The Central Idea for the Exhibition this year is ‘People use creativity and innovation to solve global issues and support the sharing of the planet’.

So far in the Exhibition the Seniors have been focusing on one of the four lines of inquiry. These are:
1. The rights and responsibilities to share finite resources with all living things.
2. Communities and the relationships within and between them.
3. Access to equal opportunities.
4. Peace and conflict resolution.

First we brainstormed what we already knew about the lines of inquiry so we could choose the ones we wanted to focus on a bit more.

We generated questions to guide us through the Exhibition and our research. We have been researching these questions in our reading sessions and responding to them in our writing sessions.

In Maths sessions we have been looking into Data Representation so we can interpret information related to our inquiries and represent data that we have found in a more organised way. To help us understand our inquiry more we have been searching up data related to our problem and then analysing it, or we can also research our own information and make our own graph from the information we have found.

Members of the school community have been holding workshops for things we need to focus on more.

Workshops are when a group of students go to another area and meet a teacher to work on their point of needs throughout the Exhibition. These workshops are based on different things such as How to create a prototype, research skills, the end presentation, solutions people have already come up with to help our problems, time management skills, book covers etc.

Before the workshops the students came up with ideas for what they would like to see the workshops focus on.

The feedback so far has been that the workshops have been very helpful.

At this point of the Exhibition we are learning about how to design prototypes that can help to solve our issues.

We are researching the design process and what goes into designing prototypes.

We are looking forward to what’s to come and showing you our final presentation! 

Today I was reminded of how important it is to for students to have fun and be excited about school!

Our Prep students came to school this morning ready for their bus trip to Scienceworks! Well…….you would have thought they were about to go to Disneyland!!! The excitement was infectious and the smiling faces, giggling voices and energetic skipping, jogging and running into school was gorgeous!

Parents reported that their children were awake as early as 5.30 to be ready to leave school at 8.30 on the dot!

Their faces were just a joy to see and, it was a reminder, that little things can mean so much to these little people!

It can also be quite overwhelming when you think about the fact that, as educators, we are responsible for maintaining this excitement and eagerness to learn new things, go on new adventures and develop and grow these small children into responsible, articulate and energised teenagers (if energised and teenagers can actually go in the same sentence!!)

WOW……what an awesome reminder to all of us about the beauty and excitement of innocence and the responsibility we have to ensure it stays like this for as long as possible! 🙂

Kim Jackson 🙂

 

Good Day Kunyung Families! Busy, Busy, Busy……..classrooms are alive and still full of enthusiasm- even heading into the final two weeks of term. This week is planning week and teams of teachers have spent time preparing for an extremely ‘full’ term 3 whilst students have continued completing their current units of inquiry and working on their maths and literacy goals! As we approach the end of term, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful holiday break with your families! It is time to recharge the batteries and prepare for more engaging and exciting learning after the break! This week we wanted to outline one area of classroom practice that we have worked very hard to make consistent across our school. We have developed lesson structures that each class teacher uses to pace out their lessons throughout the day. These lesson structures are evidence-based models that take into account research studies of the length of student attention spans and peak concentration times within an hour’s duration. The lesson structure components operate in a Whole –Part – Whole cycle that is common to all lessons. This report outlines a further breakdown of an area from the lesson structure that we are working very hard to develop consistently in Kunyung classrooms. It is what actually happens in the ‘part’ section of the lesson structure…………can also be referred to as the‘Independent task/independent working time’ of the session. This part of the lesson structure generally runs for approximately 30 minutes out of each hour session. As with all aspects of our learning- Learner Agency, Inquiry and Personalised Learning is promoted and developed. INDEPENDENT WORKING TIME What is the teacher doing? During this time teachers are explicitly teaching 1-2 focus groups of between 2-6 students. These 10-15 minute focus groups are a time for students to have explicit work on their learning focus. It is a chance to address any misconceptions that the students may have and to monitor if any students have, in fact, achieved their goal.  It is also an opportunity for teachers to provide examples and ideas for the students topractice their goal/s when they continue with their independent work. Once the focus groups have been conducted, teachers rove around the room and support students in their independent work, if required, before starting a 10-minute demonstration of learning time, where students can demonstrate their learning and negotiate any future learning. Demonstrations are a vital part of our teaching as they are opportunities for teachers to see if the students really understand the concept they are working on, and if they can apply this understanding to a problem or other situation. What are the students doing? During this time, students are able to demonstrate, and are supported to develop, commitment and independence with their learning. Students use this time to work towards their goal/goals. They have a range of ways to best work on their goals that have been developed by the class and focus groups. Students are supported by other students and have the opportunity to talk with other students to share thinking. They can use resources such as materials, tools to develop their understanding (ie. Notebooks, learning cycle books and THRASS chart). Students are busy and engaged in their learning, discussions arefocused on learning and supporting each other. There are thinking routines being used, students developing their own interpretation of tasks to use and LOTS of use of materials to support learning. Students are thinking, creating, discussing and being critical of each other. Peer coaching is a highlight. There is a calm working noise in the room that signifies engagement and learning. There is also a motivation to achieve the next stage of learning through the active use of goals and exemplars around the room. What is the nature of the task? No longer are students all working on the same’ activity’. They are all working on tasks that best support their learning. Sometimes the task is determined by the focus group, the class or by the individual students. Tasks are no longer prescribed and determined by the teacher but inspired from examples and suggestions from the teacher or peers. Tasks have rubrics and exemplars that enable students to know how to improve their responses and deepen their thinking. Students rely on immediate and authentic teacher and peer feedback to see their growth and development and next steps. Feedback is the key and you won’t see books filled with red ticks and words like ‘well done’ or ‘good effort’. Students receive feedback such as ‘to really lift the interest in your sentence let’s try adding some more descriptive language’. Reflective parts of the sessions allow for students to share their learning and receive feedback on their responses, to hear other students’ responses and to add to their own work to improve it. Will this part of each session always look the same everyday? Will it look the same in every classroom? The answer to these questions is ‘not really’……it’s about the students and how they choose to learn which would be different in every classroom…… ……BUT……..the philosophy and understanding of what happens during this time is what is consistent. Our collaborative discussions are about ‘what are students doing in this time and what are the teachers doing during explicit focus groups’ that make their learning better……..which is a change from the ‘old days’ when planning was about ‘here….this is a great worksheet I used the other day’……….. Please just ask if you have any questions! 🙂 Kim Jackson

 

Good Day Kunyung Families

Just to get people thinking this week I am asking you to consider the following questions………..do classrooms look and sound different to years gone by? Has the role of the teacher, student and the nature of the task changed? Has learning changed to meet the needs of our future learners?
It’s a huge YES to all of these things……..

I’m going to use an idea called ‘The Golden Circle’ by Simon Sinek to explain our developing curriculum and why it is important to change and adjust the way we teach and the way students learn?!

Why..…….because people require more than just knowledge to survive in the world as we know it and in a world that is ever evolving…….our students require so many skills, attitudes and learner attributes to live in a world that requires problem solving, innovation, creativity, curious and collaboration to be the successful global citizens they will be.

Why.…….because we want our students to ‘know how to learn’ and not just what they are learning!

Why.……we want our school to be providing the best education possible for our students!

The following is our WHAT and our HOW!!

WHAT.….We now use the Victorian Curriculum and PYP Essential Elements as our ‘What do we want to learn’.
This is what we want to achieve at the end of our journey- it is the result of our why- our proof!

HOW.…….’We learn best through’: INQUIRY LEARNING, PERSONALISED LEARNING, LEARNER AGENCY and we have a variety of ways to ‘now what we have learned’.

Not only are teachers aware of this but so are our students and, more importantly, they are involved in many of these choices and decisions.

By the sheer nature of this thinking, the role of the teacher is vastly different to what it used to be, the students have so much buy in, and engagement, in the learning that involvement and role is no where near what it used to look like when students were ’empty vessels that needed filling’. The task can no longer be the same as it was years ago purely because worksheets and repetitive activities just don’t make the grade if students are to have Learner Agency and tasks don’t work if they are aimed at ‘one size fits all’ learning.

Do we still teach Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Maths, History, Geography, Science, Personal development……absolutely…….it’s the how that has moved into the 21st Century!

PYP Coordinators Day- The Buzz……

Melanie Woodland and myself shared an exciting experience at the PYP Victorian Coordinators Day spent with ‘Tracey Ezard’- author of the book ‘The Buzz’. Tracey was inspirational and gave us time to reflect on the learning environment we have created at Kunyung for staff! We were able to identify what we need to do to support staff and inspire them to want to be the best they can be…………we shared our thinking with many other PYP schools and were so happy with the learning environment we currently have at Kunyung. We are certainly not a compliant staff- we disagree on occasions and have stimulating and engaging discussions. We push ourselves out of our comfort zone- always looking to improve ourselves. Many other schools sit nicely in the comfortable zone and maintain the status quo………we are always questioning and dipping into the confused state of thinking, just so we can discuss, share and move back into the transformative zone!

We took a lot out of the day that has since been shared with staff but one thing we really thought was worth sharing with the whole school community was:

‘Emotions are contagious………what infection are you spreading?’

What an incredibly exciting time to be in teaching and to be at Kunyung!

Kim Jackson

Good Day Kunyung Families!

I hope your week is travelling well! 

This week is Education Week and, at Kunyung, we celebrate by inviting our families into school to participate in Student Led Tours……..the tours take place over a two week period and give our students the opportunity to share their learning and growth with their families.

Other events happening around the school over the past week include the Preps participating in PMP and beginning their new unit of work on ‘Who we are’, Middle School students enjoying 2 hours of Artistic Expression to provoke thinking for their ‘How we express ourselves’ unit of inquiry, Senior School Interschool sport, Senior School Parliamentary Election, Junior students sharing their learning with buddy classes, Lunchtime Star Search auditions (with over 200 students attending as an audience)  and the initial planting of our Kitchen Garden!! Education is alive and well @ Kunyung!

Last week Elaine and I spent time at Mount View PS and one of the IB Educators gave us a 20 second explanation of why children are better off in an IB school! So….if any of your friends ask you ‘Why an IB school’…….here is a 20 second grab………..

‘IB students are creative, innovative and collaborative
IB students are good communicators
IB students are well rounded’

The clip below will also give you a good explanation of what makes the PYP curriculum so good!!

Have a lovely end to the week!

 Good Day Kunyung Families!

What excited children, enthusiastic teachers and beautiful weather to come back to!

With so many things happening, there has never been a better time to highlight the collaborative nature of schools! Do we always get everything right? No we do not…..but as a school we own our errors just as much as we celebrate our successes. We are able to do this because we work in teams, with students and staff always given opportunities to contribute and add their thoughts, ideas and suggestions to what we do.

Learner Agency is a HUGE part of what we do, and how we do things, at Kunyung………student and teacher ownership and responsibility of their learning and growth of themselves and the school is KEY to keeping all members of our community engaged and feeling a sense of school pride!

Some examples of collaboration and LEARNER AGENCY in just two weeks back at school!!

Kitchen Garden
Caspar van der Meer, Stu Andersen and their families have spent much time putting into ACTION the plans and ideas of our Eco Team (led by Lucy Kyriaciou). Our students have been meeting with Lucy all year to design and cost our very own Kitchen Garden. We are now ready to start planting the garden and putting together the final touches….stay tuned to hear more about this collaborative project!

Collaborative Planning
Each team of teachers meet for 2 hours every week to plan out what our students will be learning, how best they might learn it and how they will know if they have learnt it! Add to the conversation- how the students might add or drive the planning, how teachers might give them ownership of this learning through things like setting their own goals, choosing best ways to learn and writing their own questions and you have Learner Agency being promoted at the coal face of our classrooms on a daily basis!

Senior Students Unit of Inquiry
Our Senior Students have been learning all about politics and the influence that decision making has on others. How better to do this than by creating their own political parties who will going to an election at the start of May! Classes have had to work as a collaborative team to work out Leaders, Ministers, policies, media campaigns and strategy!! Working closely with the Governor General (me) who is representing the Queen (Elaine) the winning party will have the opportunity to act on their policies!

ANZAC DAY SERVICE
The Action Team have been working with Mrs Howard and Miss Murray to prepare for the ANZAC DAY assembly this Friday and preparing daily to sell ANZAC DAY badges at lunchtimes.

Local PYP Network Meeting
Our staff went in teams to all 5 Local PYP Network Schools- Kunyung, Mt Eliza North, Benton, Mornington and Toorak College. Staff went to share examples of how they promote Learner Agency in their classrooms. All specialist teachers attended Kunyung from the 5 schools and shared innovative and exciting practice! Our staff ROCK!!

School Tours
Walking past Elaine’s office today I saw a group of Year 4 students discussing with her what they think of Kunyung. Preparing to conduct School Tours in the absence of Year 6 students, as a team they developed common understandings of what our strengths are and how to articulate them to others! Our students are a very impressive bunch!

EXTRA EXAMPLES: School Council Meeting consisting of staff and parents, School Council Sub Committees, The PYP Victorian Network Meeting held at Kunyung, School Captains preparing weekly for Assemblies as a team, Senior School Leadership Teams, our office staff working together on a daily basis, School banking team…….the list could keep going on………

Collaboration is a key to 21st Century employment, learning how to effectively communicate with others, listen to, and respect, their thinking and ideas, the ability to make group decisions and adopt a variety of roles are all skills that are required to be able to function effectively in many fields of employment- those we know about now and those we don’t even understand yet!! 🙂

We try at Kunyung to, not only teach and support the development of these skills, but to also model them to show what they look like if they are done well!

Happy Days!

Kim Jackson

Dear Kunyung Families! 
This week has been all about Team Kunyung…………..

Not only has it been a build up to our Kunyung Fair (A massive community team effort, but also planning week for each Level Teaching Team.

Each Teaching Team has spent the day together, working through our focus areas for Term 2 whilst each class of students has worked together as a team in each specialist class for the day!

Teachers have started each day by discussing how we promote Learner Agency in our classrooms- the little and big things that we do. We have kept Learner Agency in the back of our minds as we have gone through the day.

We have rigorously discussed our next Units of Inquiry and what we can do to improve from Term 1. Our central ideas, concepts and skills were agreed upon and excursions and incursions planned to support the learning. Many teachers asked their students for feedback from Term 1 and brought this feedback to our planning session.

We then moved onto planning, discussing and organising our Reading, Writing and Numeracy for Term 2. This involved breaking down maths and literacy outcomes, preparing pre assessments and discussing our Term 1 data. Finishing with Blog development, excursion planning and general business.

The days are full of thinking, discussion, debating and reaching consensus on many ideas……..all to reach the best possible outcomes for our students- we wouldn’t want it any other way!

Our staff are so incredible professional in their approach to everything they do………we provide them with many professional readings that are discussed and ideas implemented almost immediately……their effort to be on top of world’s best practice amazes me……….we finished our planning days with a recent TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson and even now I am receiving emails from staff who watched it again and just wanted to comment on it straight away!

One staff member commented ‘I think you guys have mastered the art of treading softly on our (teaching) dreams. Sometimes we might not be right, in fact we (I mean me) may definitely be wrong, but you never make it feel like that. I will head Sir Ken’s words and tread more softly on my students’ dreams…’

What a powerful reflection of our teaching staff! Your beautiful children are in good hands!

Go TEAM Kunyung!!