Arguementation in Junior Health classes

This year I have been using professional learning from 2018 to develop critical thinking skills in Junior health. An example of this is exploring drugs in New Zealand as part of the Health curriculum. Today I had my students watch the NZ Herald video on the New Zealand Meth crisis.

The video explores approaches in dealing with the problem. It poses the question should our meth issue be a law and order issue or a health issue. The video sparked lots of great conversations between the students.

The follow-up activity was to write a blog post -  if was the Prime minister of New Zealand I would solve the meth issue in New Zealand by......

They then had to predict the outcomes of taking this action.

I really enjoy teaching critical thinking skills. I think too much we consume ourselves with work production in secondary school and we pass over the discussions we can have and the directions discussion can take. I think the engagement of students is best when we get the students talking about a topic and I am very fortunate this is the approach we have taken in Health.

reflection on introducing detensions as consequences

Over term 1 and now into term 2 the PE department has been keeping students back after school for acts of defiance. This has not happened in our school for a long period of time, mainly due to the logistics in following up students who do not attend and also because the school was advised by higher powers that detentions were not a productive way of improving teaching and learning.

I was initially concerned when introducing a consequences system that students would deliberately rebel against the system. There were also colleagues within the school that spoke to me about detentions not being culturally responsive. What convinced me that is was worth implementing was the Te Reo teacher, Matua Ian, who explained to me that consequences are culturally responsive and our students respond to discipline. I was also encouraged by John Rohs our principal who talks about us owing to our students the need for consequences of actions. This message resonated with me.

As a PE department, we agreed that defiance is an act of not following through with the teacher's reasonable request. This had to be explained to the students. Students who are defiant receive 10-minute detention after school. They are expected to come to us. When they don't, contact is made home and the students receive a one hour Friday detention. If they don't attend they are referred to Senior leadership.

In my mind consequences for students should not mean a consequence for the teacher. If the teacher has to put in extra work it is the teacher that is disadvantaged. Therefore students come to us and they do jobs that would otherwise have been done by the teacher or other students. Rubbish, cleaning, plugging in Chromebooks, jobs around the classroom all make the time productive.

Coming towards the end of term 2, we have got to the point where almost every student attends the end of day detentions. They are also a powerful tool the teacher has at their disposal in term of classroom management. We have had very few incidences of students being referred to Senior Leadership, and when this has happened Senior Leadership has been very supportive in resolving the matter.

In my mind, this action has been the single most important feature in increasing engagement and compliance from students in our department

Ki o Rahi

As part of Matariki, our PE department at Papakura High have been playing Kio Rahi. Part of teaching this unit is to explore the legend and the story behind the game. The video below

What I like about Ki o Rahi is that it is an invasion game that requires participants to access an open target in the Te Roto, and then accessing a closed target - the Tupu and Te o. This term our Year 9 students have been exploring invasion game strategies and Ki o Rahi is the perfect game to explore strategies to use for open target and closed target sports. This includes both offensive and defensive.