4. Plan for practice

It’s time to plan how you will put your learning into practice.

Try one of these suggestions in your work together over the next few weeks.

Suggestions for practice

• If you work with a student who has a home-school book, read some of the things you have written.
  1. What do your comments reflect about your assumptions? For example, have you commented more about the student’s physical care than about their learning?
  2. What is the balance between comments about issues and those about successes?
  3. How could you write about a student in their home-school book to show you see the student as an active, capable learner?
• Try a new way of writing about the student in their home-school book over a few weeks.
• Draw a mindmap about a student you work with, for example, information about their whānau/family, likes and dislikes, friends, preferred subjects, what they’re good at and dreams and aspirations.
• Talk about how you could find out one or two new things about this student.
• Try this approach over a few weeks.
• Talk about how you reflect and celebrate what you know about a student when working with them.
• Discuss how you could adapt your work to better reflect and celebrate the student’s background, what they value and what they know.
• Try this in your work with the student over a few weeks.