Have I done something right?

So today my class did a reading assessment. Now, we have only done 2 formal reading assessments this year, but of course I have been observing and noting strengths and weaknesses throughout that entire time. Anyway, I have pretty much killed myself talking about locating keywords in a question and looking for them in a text, reading the topic sentence to help speed up locating the answer and answering using full sentences. Today, it was all worth it. I marked their work tonight and I am just so proud of them all! Our first reading assessment, while it was hard, was pretty poorly scored in my class. Our range was I think 18%-72% and about 8 kids did not pass. Today's test however, 100% was my highest score, 2 students got below 50% (one 48% the other 36%) and the majority of my kids scored around the 80% mark! woohoo!

I guess they have learned something after all :)

A long time between blogs!

Well, it has been nearly 20 weeks since my last blog - phew, a lot has happened!
I survived writing my first set of half yearly reports, I went on a 3 day camp to Canberra and the Snow, we had our National Testing and then just for good measure, our basic skills testing as well! Not to mention multiple professional learning opportunities, going on another camp with a whole different stage of kids, making 25 Japan bandanas for our Mini-Olympics, saying yes -we can make paper mache masks (what was I thinking?!) oh and I guess, some reading, writing and arithmetic snuck in there as well!

This year has certainly been busy and I have learnt so much. There are many things I will do differently at the beginning of the next school year to make my life a little easier but I guess that is all part of the learning curve. I am nothing like the teacher I was this time last year, hell, I am nothing like the teacher I was at the beginning of this school year! Maybe even last week! But that's okay, I am finding out who I am and that is just fine by me...