Child Study

EDPROFST 608
MATIS
2019

Carmen Morton Spreadbury

ID: 696404522
 Ethnic Composition of Total
School Students
Māori
3%
10%
4% 19%
Pākehā
Decile 1 School 4%
4%
5 Year ERO report 5% Samoan

Large Pasifika population 18%

33% Tongan

Class Niue

 Intermediate class with 28 students

 13 girls and 14 boys
 Student’s average learning levels range from level 2 to 5
 Mix of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds

A fun energetic place, the students are all encouraged to try

their best and have fun.

There is an expectation of no nonsense, especially because

many of the students will be going to high school next
year.

They are treated with respect and are expected to respond

the same.
 Child Study:
 Mathematics
 Literacy
 Inquiry
 Behaviour outside the classroom
 Interaction with peers

Student A:
11 years old
Male
Pasifika

Student B.
12 years old
Male
Maori
Student A.
Student A.
Background at Glenavon:

Year 7
Two of his siblings also attend Glenavon but he is the oldest.

Interests:

This student enjoys maths, sports (especially rugby), being helpful to

teachers and people who are respectful.

He dislikes writing, spelling, ’bossy, mean teachers’ and bullying.

Personality:

This student is a friendly, cheeky boy who enjoys pushing

boundaries. He can be quick to anger in some circumstances but is
rarely violent and often cools down quickly.
Home life

Student A lives local to the school with his mother and his four siblings.

His mother does seem relatively involved in her children’s lives, she will come
to the school to pick them all up and will sometimes come into the class room to
look at Student A’s work.

That being said when this student is asked if she has signed necessary forms and
reading logs it is often stated that no she hasn’t because she is too ‘tired’

Paternal situation:

This students father has just gotten out of jail for assaulting a police officer, he
is currently living in Wellington.
 Classroom observation Student A.
Monday
Day to Day observations 50

40

30
The time periods where Student A. is generally
20
the most off task is in the second block during 10
reading and/or writing which are his least 0
9am 10am 11am 12pm 1pm 2pm
proficient subjects Time on task time distracted
time talking to others time doing other work

- Student A is usually more off task on a Monday compared to a Tuesday. This

would be most likely a result of getting back into the flow of things at school

- Becomes increasingly more off task as the day progresses

- Is more willing to work when doing something he finds easier, for example
maths, than something he finds challenging eg. Spelling

- Is also more engaged when doing work on the chrome books – perhaps due to the
fact he does not like writing Data averaged from 3 weeks observation
Influencing Factors

 This student has missed a large portion of his schooling due to rheumatic fever
and a broken leg.
 The rheumatic fever has meant he has not been able to participate in many aspects
of schooling and still needs to take it easy at times. This is something that would
be difficult because this student is very interested in sports and outdoor activities.
 Having to miss out on things like this could cause resentment and built up anger.
 Early stage testing has shown that this student has audio-processing issues and
this may influence his work and the speed at which he becomes distracted
 Student A. – Literacy observation
Spelling:
Lacks knowledge in;
 Short vowel
 Consonant blends Suggests serious lack on phonetic
 Digraphs knowledge – student is spelling at a 6
 Triple blends year old level
 Ng/nk
 Ar, or, er
Overall this student struggles in all aspects of literacy. He does not have the
expected spelling and grammar knowledge for a student of his age and is also
reading well below his age level.

He gets very frustrated when he does not know something and will often use
avoidance techniques such as yawning or claiming he is feeling sick and needs
to drink some water {This is difficult to gauge if he is telling the truth or not
because of his medical history}.
 Literacy:
Observations with the SENCO suggested that this
student has a “poor visual memory”, and struggles to
find information within texts.

EVIDENCE:
Midland spelling dictation.
 Student did not think the sentences being red
made sense
 Took a very long time to write
 Asked for the sentences to be repeated more that
two times

When doing recount work with this student he needed

a lot of prompting to continue writing more that two
sentences.
Mathematical Observation
 Student A enjoys maths significantly more than literacy
subjects.
 Finds addition easy and is able to add larger numbers in
his head
 Becomes frustrated when mathematical questions are
written out, he finds it difficult to work out what is being
asked if he has to convert it from words to numbers
himself – this would come back to his literacy struggles
 He will often be able to get the answer but be unable to
explain how he got there

NumPA Form A Assessment Sheet

Inquiry Observation
 Enjoys participating in the initial stages
of the lesson
 Becomes distracted easily, especially if
given access to the chrome books
 Theme for inquiry at the moment is
‘belonging’, does enjoy discussing his
heritage and where he comes from
(Samoa), shows a lot of pride.
 Enjoys the art work side of things but
not any written aspects – this would
come back to his struggles within
literacy

Inquiry Artwork – Picasso style

 Over all observations:
 This student has learning needs such as audio-processing difficulties, which when
combined with the large amount of school he has missed mean he struggles a lot with
literacy and higher level maths.

 He thrives on praise and this is one of the key ways to get him to complete more work
– phrases such as “I know you can do it, I challenge you” will help give him
motivation.

 This student needs a firm but understanding hand. He is not afraid to push his
boundaries but also means well the majority of the time.

Betty K. Garner’s book Getting to Got it! had ideas that were familiar in terms of this student;
”students have no idea why they don’t get it; they think that school is simply too hard or doesn’t
make sense”, this is very relevant for Student A who will often mention that he just ‘doesn’t get it’,
something that seems to go deeper than just a lack of knowledge.
Student B.
 Student B.
Background at Glenavon:

This student has attended Glenavon for two years after being expelled from over six different
schools.

He began year 7 in 2018, with the same teacher he currently has.

As a part of his behaviour management he holds a lot of responsibility which includes coaching the
junior softball team and managing the school café (under the guidance of a teacher). This is
effective in helping this student maintain a sense of stability.
Interests:

This student is interested in various different sports but especially softball. He is currently about to
compete in his national championship game for his age level.
Personality:

This students is kind hearted and very quick-witted.

He is also very sensitive and quick to anger. He will lash out and has attacked students in the past.
He cries when angry and this is something that he is insecure about.
Family Background

 Student B’s mother is addicted to drugs and currently lives in Gisborne, this is where
Student B used to live before his Nana took him away and brought him to Glenavon.
 He currently lives with his Nana, Dad, Dad’s girlfriend and his Uncle.
 His Nan is a big part of his life and is a very kind person. His nan has a lot of contact with
the classroom teacher. They will often call each other after an incident.
 His mother has made is clear in the past that she does not want much to do with him and
this has affected him greatly.
 He comes from a rough background and it is likely this has fostered his willingness to lash
out.
 Literacy Observation

Student B is working at a 3B level and is reasonable

proficient in literacy, both reading and writing, but he gets
distracted often.

He will often think that there are more useful things to be

doing.
On task Talking Alternative work Off task

In this particular observation Student B was initially on task

but go easily distracted by those around him. He will also
get distracted by researching other things.

- For example while everyone was doing writing using a

Pobble 365 picture, I casually mentioned Maui Dolphin,
within a minute Student B has researched and found a list of
facts about them.
Maths Observation

Student B is working at a 4P level in maths.

Maths game in a small group:

The competition element of the game was very motivating for this particular student and
he quickly picked up on the rules and how to win.

The game was using domino tiles, placing two down and telling students to either multiply,
add or subtract the two numbers, and once this student knew what was happening he
became very competitive.

He was able to add and multiply quickly but struggled more with quick subtraction of
larger numbers.

Towards the end of the game Student B became too excited and started yelling and
becoming too loud.
Inquiry Observation

 Works well in researched based tasks

 Will work well on the aspects that interest him and doesn’t want to focus on
something that he doesn’t consider to be fun.
 Will always contribute to discussion – always one of the first to put his hand
up
 Behavioural Observation
 There was an incident during singing assembly when Student B lost his temper at another
student (after his teeth were insulted by this student). He hit the wall above this student,
threw his hat across the room and left the hall.
 He (with me following at a distance) headed straight for a tree and climbed right up. He
initially would not tell me what happened so I kept my distance (he has been known to
throw things at teachers before, eg. Chairs, rulers, branches)
 He eventually started telling me what happened on his own accord. I persuaded him to
come down and we went and found him a job to complete instead of returning to assembly.

Conclusions:

By leaving the hall Student B was taking steps to remove himself from the situation – this is
encouraged and is one of the behaviour management plans put in place by his teacher and the
school.

This student thrives on responsibility, by giving him a task to do instead of insisting he return to the
assembly meant that he was able to focus on other things and calm down

(Mazano and Mazano, 2003)

Implications for my teaching career

 Both of these students have given me valuable experiences that I will take
into my future as a teacher
 Behaviour management – Student B
 Understanding that for some students it not just a matter of ‘not getting it’
 Audio-visual issues – how to work around these
 Patience
 Level may not reflect ability – Student B may be working at levels lower
than he has the potential for but he just hasn’t had the opportunities to
learn in a stable environment – How People Learn (1999) discusses the
preconceptions students have coming into the classroom.
References:

Mazano, R & Mazano, J (2003), The Key to Classroom Management, Educational

Leadership

Garner, B, K. Getting to Got It, Helping Struggling Students Learn How To Learn,
(2007) Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria,
Virginia.

National, R. C., Board, O. B. C. A. S., & Division, O. B. A. S. S. (1999). How

people learn : Bridging research and practice. National Academies Press