Mike's Blog

The books we buy more than once

2011-12-30T17:47:00.000+13:00

A colleague recently asked me for a list of 'good education related' books to read over the summer break. When I looked through my office and home bookshelves I found that the books that I instinctively wanted to recommend to him were all book titles that I have had to buy more than once.

They are books that are just such a good read, with such a good message, that they become the ones you lend to people, never to be seen again. They are the keepers. The person you lend it to keeps it.

Keeper books stand out from most others in your book collection because you actually notice that you have lost your copy of them when you find yourself wanting to refer to them time after time.

This time I have sent him a list rather than given him my copy of them. I am sure that they will become keepers in his collection.

What are your 'keeper' titles? The books you have repurchased ( in my case sometimes up to four times).
Here are some of mine.

The Hidden Lives of Learners

Graham Nuthall

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/hidden-lives-learners

MUST READ and then re-read. Then lend to someone and don't expect to get it back.

The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's Business

Dennis Littkey.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Education-Everyones-Business/dp/0871209713

An absolutely wonderful book, I have lost track of the number of copies I have bought, lent and lost.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Ruby Payne

http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Understanding-Poverty-Ruby-Payne/dp/1929229488/ref=pd_sim_b_11

Pretty essential for teachers in all schools I reckon.

Discipline, Democracy and Diversity

Angus MacFarlane

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/discipline-democracy-and-diversity-working-students-behaviour-difficulties

Gotta love Angus and his thinking.

The Kiss and the Ghost: Sylvia Ashton Warner & New Zealand

Jones & Middleton

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/kiss-and-ghost-sylvia-ashton-warner-and-new-zealand

and....

a couple of 'keeper' videos to round it all off..

The Song of the Bird

Elwyn Richardson

and... Sylvia Ashton Warner (in three parts)

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/three-new-zealanders-sylvia-ashton-warner-1978

This time it's personal

2011-12-09T18:10:00.001+13:00

The team supporting the teams during the Rugby World Cup.

This post is a 'lift' from my bit in our school newsletter this week but I do want to the world to know how much I admire our staff.

"At the end of 2010 I said that the most trying year we could face was over and we looked forward to a brighter 2011. Well... I was wrong, very wrong. As a wider school community (children, parents, families, staff and neighbours) we had it all thrown at us this year. The death and injury of loved ones, damage to our homes and workplaces, loss of businesses, income and jobs, broken infrastructure and facilities, and separation of families. Layered over all of this has been deep and ongoing psychological harm, anxiety and depression, children and adults alike.

Yet...from this awful mess Waimairi School has functioned as a safe and happy place. In addition to putting self and family behind duty of care to your children, twice during major quakes during school hours (and many big after shocks) the school staff have got up each morning, put on their professional 'game faces', driven over damaged roads and through traffic snarls to be the best support they can be for our students.

This on its own is admirable, but despite many weeks of closure and disruption we have fostered and maintained academic, sporting and cultural excellence. The whole staff have given everything they have to give to your children this year. It has left them emotionally and physically drained but I know they would not have done anything differently. Your children's well-being is worth the personal price. So in this context, and aware of the regular taunts about teachers' holidays, I hope that in 2011 of all years, you do wish them all a restful holiday break. You need them rested up and ready for 2012 and beyond."

Teachers and support staff all over the world would like to think that if unprecedented disaster hits you would cope and do well. In 2011 the staff at Waimairi School, and all Christchurch teachers have shown that you can.

Blinded by the light

2011-11-10T20:33:00.000+13:00

Most lights these days are powered by electricity but evidently there may be some still oil powered, snake oil that is.

Who would have thought that a blog posting about LIGHT could generate such a great soundtrack? If you don't like this posting at least you can enjoy the sounds. Start the LIGHT song that you like the best then scroll to read with the music playing.

______________________________________________________

So here is the NZ Herald education article about the Philips Lighting SchoolVision lighting system.
It is important to read, and remember, the wording used in this 'so called' news article. It will come back to you time and time again very soon. Rather than being cutting edge educational journalism it would appear that the publicity department of Philips helped out with lots of the wording. Here is the brochure from Philips. Compare and contrast the text with the unquestioned lifts from the corporate publicity. Educational journalism needs to provide balance not just deliver text from a corporate press release. Where is the journalistic balance and thinking in the Herald article? If Philips want advertising why don't they just buy ad space in the paper? They don't need to do so with journalism like this.

Don't feel bad NZ Herald there are plenty of other educational reports in big papers just using the Philips publicity words and pretending they are 'truth'

The Guardian and The Observer

Not Given LIGHTly

What annoys me about a claim that a lighting system can improve student achievement? Well it is the very claim that it does so that winds me up. Here is some Philips publicity.
For principals "However, with multiple stakeholders to please including teachers, parents and governors, one of your

most important goals will also be to improve your school’s results. Not only will it affect your school’s rating, it could also secure additional funding to help with overstretched budgets and limited resources."

Not in my school matey! It is our dedicated and skilled teachers who do that, not the lighting system.

"SchoolVision has proven results. The solution was first researched in a year-long, independent study by Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf with 166 pupils and 18 teachers. The results showed that:

• Reading speed increased by almost 35%

• Frequency of errors reduced by almost 45%

• Hyperactive behaviour also dropped by an astonishing 76%

These positive findings were confirmed and endorsed by a second, more extensive study carried out by the University of Twente. The research at Disselboom primary school in Wintelre between December 2009 and September 2010 concluded that:

• Children score on average 18% higher in a concentration test

• Are more motivated in the long term • Appreciate their learning environment more, both in the short and long term

• Co-operative learning behaviour is positively influenced by the ‘Calm’ setting

In short, “Light makes a positive difference” in the things that really matter like concentration, motivation and co-operative learning."

You LIGHT Up My Life

Can we shine some light on the 'research' that claims that the Philips system has a significant effect on mood, energy levels and ability to concentrate? Yes we can...sort of...

Lux Magazine says sort of the same thing

So go deeper...
The source of all this 'research talk' to sell a lighting system is Applicability and efficacy of variable light in schools Physiology & Behavior
Volume 105, Issue 3, 1 February 2012, Pages 621-627

Read the abstract!

Turn the LIGHTS on

N Wessolowski, C. Barkmann, M. Schulte-Markwor, 2011

"Two classrooms each in two separate schools were studied over a period of nine months; one class in each school served as an intervention group, and a parallel class in each school served as a control group. The effects of the individual VL programs were assessed using standardized test modules. The overall effect was measured using standardized surveys of students and teachers given at the beginning and the end of the project. The results showed that the students made fewer errors, particularly fewer errors of omission, on a standardized test of attention under the VL “Concentrate” program. Reading speed, as measured using standardized reading tests, rose significantly. Reading comprehension also improved, but this improvement was not statistically significant. In contrast, the achievement motivation of the students and the classroom atmosphere did not change over the nine-month period.

Hmmm. The close attention that New Zealand educators pay to the value of reading comprehension, as opposed to reading speed and reading errors (which has kept us at the top of OECD reading achievement comparison tables year on year) suggests that we can't gain much from a lighting system making our kids read faster with fewer errors.

Where was the Barkmann et. al. research presented? At the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms conference. Check out page 2 of the programme. Major Sponsor...Philips

The attempt to re-create the educational gains in a lab study also generates skepticism

EFFECT OF LIGHT IN SCHOOLS: REPLICATION OF THE FIELD STUDY IN LAB

N. Wessolowski, C. Barkmann, M. Schulte-Markwort

University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychosomatics in Children and Adolescents, Germany

Objectives: In a field study with 116 pupils, the use of Schoolvision in school classes resulted in a significant increase of attention/concentration and reading speed as well as a significant decrease of restlessness (Wessolowski et. al., 2009). Schoolvision by Philips has preset lighting programs differing in brightness and color temperature. The aim of this study was to replicate these findings in a standardized laboratory setting.

Methods: In a randomized two-group cross-sectional experiment a sample of n=95 healthy adults received either optimized light programs (Schoolvision) or control conditions (500 lx / 3200 K). Optimized light conditions for the treatment group were bright daylight (1300 lx / 5600 K) to induce attention and less bright warm-white light (600 lx / 3000 K) to reduce restlessness. Attention was measured with the d2-test of Brickenkamp and the reading test of Schneider et al. To determine restlessness an optical measurement method named “Childmove” was used, which detects changes in pixel values within a video. Childmove was developed for the measurement of whole school classes (Koenig et al., i.P.) but it can also be used in other settings.

Results: The results of the attention/concentration testing showed a significant advantage of 25% from using Schoolvision in the treatment group in terms of the d2 test error rate compared to the control group with standard light (F=2.839, df=1, p=.048, ␣2=.031). This is comparable to the effect described by the school study. In addition, the results for the working speed of the d2 test also showed a significant advantage of 11% for the treatment group (F=3.803, df=1, p=.028, ␣2=.065). The effect outranged the result of working speed in the school study. In contrast to the results of the d2 test, the results of the reading test could not be replicated in lab. The results concerning motoric agitation (restlessness) showed a faster decrease by using Schoolvision (after 5 min: F=2.897, df=1, p=.0.046, ␣2=.031) as reported in the school study. However, unlike the findings of the school study, a decrease in restlessness was not affected.

Conclusions: In sum, the results of the school study could be replicated: The results in the lab showed an increase of attention by using Schoolvision: The experimental group made fewer errors and had a higher working speed in the d2 test. The results of the reading test cannot be replicated, assumedly because the participating college students (59%) are very practiced in reading long texts under inconvenient environmental conditions so that the reading test was not sensitive enough for this sample. There is also a faster decrease of motoric agitation by adults detected in the lab but in contrast to the school study no relevant total decrease was found. An analysis of the z-transformed school and lab values showed that the baseline scores of the pupils in the schools were more than four times higher than those of adults in the lab. On closer inspection of the low baseline scores it was possible to find a faster decrease for the experimental group but not a higher decrease over a longer time, because both groups already almost reached the minimum right after the beginning.

Come on baby LIGHT my fire

The funny bit - Don't Turn the LIGHTS On

Mayer Hawthorne sings about LIGHTS and this whole thing reeks of the Hawthorne Effect.

The irony is that the Hawthorne effect was all about light levels.
The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied,^[1]^[2] not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.

The term was coined in 1950 by Henry A. Landsberger^[3] when analysing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric factory outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers' productivity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. It was suggested that the productivity gain occurred due to the impact of the motivational effect on the workers as a result of the interest being shown in them. Although illumination research of workplace lighting formed the basis of the Hawthorne effect, other changes such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing floors of obstacles, and even relocating workstations resulted in increased productivity for short periods. Thus the term is used to identify any type of short-lived increase in productivity

The killer bit
From the NZ Herald story which kicked off this post..
"The Education Ministry's website says evidence suggests learning outcomes improve in spaces that have daylight as the main source of lighting." So embrace classroom 'windows' (the first time a Mac guy like me has said that) and don't think that the Philips Company is going to lift student achievement any more than an interactive whiteboard company will.

Electric LIGHT Orchestra

Touch devices 'back to the future' uh-oh

2011-10-21T20:46:00.000+13:00

A website called bloomsapps keeps appearing in my Twitter feed as a recommended reference. So I took a look and was told on the front page that "it is essential for educators to understand how to implement Blooms (sic) in the classroom using the apps that are available." Just why this is an educational imperative is not stated but it is linked to growing use of iOS devices in American school districts.

Bloom's Taxonomy and Anderson's revision, offer, at best, a set of considerations for teacher planning to ensure balanced cognitive provision. I don't believe there is any gold in there for looking at what children actually learn. A side note (not explored in this post is a general observation that I have about many educators focussing totally on the cognitive domain of Bloom's work and often not even thinking about the affective and psychomotor. Let alone the parallel nature of the 'top three' - see Anderson & Kraftwhol, 2001. Renaming does not show deep understanding of the revision ). But all of that is for another day/blog post.

Let's go back to the 1990s. Computers in classrooms (as opposed to touch devices in classrooms in 2011) were all the rage. So much potential and so much crap. Educational software was the discussion point of too many teacher conferences. And...having followed the #ulearn11 Twitter hashtag over the last three days I have a sinking feeling about the word apps being used in the same way. Too much talk about 'great apps', 'harvesting apps' and 'apps we must have'.

If the hopefully long dead Bailey's Book House and Milly's Maths House have not yet been awakened as zombies from their well-deserved graves by the voodoo priests of the iOS booster gang, then it is sadly not too far away I fear.

The missed opportunity often spoken about by Seymour Papert is well and truly missed when we consider money spent vs. learning gained from the classroom computer.

I suggest that many 'educational' touch app developers also do not know how to do this. They try to re-create school on a touch device. How many popular touch apps are 'latinesque? or bluntly put schoolesque?

Now we bounce on to the touch device era without much overt consideration of learning potential (and money already spent). Having touch devices in a school does not equal learning facilitated by touch devices.

I believe that if it offers children nothing up front then it is a great app. My friend Marco Torres often retells his 'oscilloscope anecdote' in his presentations.

Marco makes an overlooked but important point. Schools need to have devices like iPods and iPads in them because they offer apps like oscilloscopes, decibel meters and voice/video recording tools. All things that offer nothing to a child without skilled teacher input. I want lots of touch devices in our school because they are a means for us to have the tools which we could never afford to have. From musical instruments to science tools, these are the killer apps.

The power of the touch apps is not in the digital regurgitation of flashcards and maths games but in the blank page stuff. A good school art supply room will never be stocked with colouring books and paint by numbers kits. Good school touch devices should mirror that. Produce, don't consume. Explore, don't be shown. If a child can use the app at home then it probably belongs at home (with the colouring-in books and paint by numbers kits). The challenge to myself and others is to make sure the amazing power of touch devices amplifies learning at school rather than baby sitting kids through school.

But who am I to tell you what to do?

So.... go for it. If you take a look at why you have/want iPods/iPads in your school and if you decide that rote maths and spelling learning in a 'digital' way is for you then buy them. All you have to do is rationalise the expense. I find that many schools who rationalise the expense on the basis of engaging children in maths and spelling apps also have charters and strategic plans which promote higher order thinking and student directed learning. Are these congruent?

Write this in your charter; We believe in B.F. Skinner's thinking around behaviorism and are investing $XXXXXX.XX in touch devices to allow children to do and have reinforced what we want to teach.
This stuff is great for special needs and IEP kids - go for it. At every Case Conference we can find an app, and probably should do so.

But is it why you want everyone to have touch device access? Do what you will in your own school, but don't just plan to buy some touch devices because they are the flavour of the month. The 1990s words of Mark Brown come back to me "computers are not inherently good" and neither are touch devices.

We have been through the painful misunderstood rationale behind the purchase of classroom computers, then laptops, then interactive whiteboards. Let's not do another round with touch devices.

There is a very real danger that current educational seduction with touch devices will rewind some advances in thinking about the pedagogical role of ICT.

Who is currently doing the big thinking on this? The amazing Dorothy Burt is. Funny how the 'app' and the 'App' have evolved. The Manaiakalani Project is all about, and successful because of, blank pages rather than cute apps made available on tap to her community.

And a big nod to Chris in Room 22 - a true creative pioneer in the digital forest :)

Full Circle

2011-10-17T16:16:00.007+13:00

Rock On Waimairi School.

You did it and you did it so well. My last posting was 10 long weeks ago we left the school all fired up about a term of dance, drama and music. At 8:20 in the morning of the first day of Term Three the school was alive with adults showing the children how a school can become a centre of arts performances. The challenge to all was to create and interpret so that by the end of term our school could become the 'new Arts Centre' of Christchurch.

We did it. Here is the full programme. Our teachers and support staff really did give the children a stunning term of learning and creativity. Our Arts Centre Finale was enjoyed by the whole community. Enough with the words, enjoy the pictures. After ten weeks work the kids are the performers in the same spaces.

Teachers, support staff, children and parents all made for a great term. We LOVE the NZ Curriculum, and in our battered city we loved having an Arts Centre back for a day( complete with with the yummy food stalls).

Arts front and centre

2011-08-06T17:59:00.003+12:00

One of the many things I love about our NZ Curriculum is the even and balanced priority we must give to all areas. This term is the time for the arts to be front and centre.

Our school-wide overarching question is 'how can Waimairi School become the new Arts Centre of Christchurch?.

Those of you reading from afar might not know that our city's formerly vibrant and diverse Arts Centre is one of the casualties of the earthquakes. So this term's big question has a special poignancy for us.

Half way through the preceding school term a group of teachers get together to undertake a review on the state of learning and plan the school wide direction for curriculum focus for the upcoming term. This year the arts planning team concluded that our visual arts learning is very good and needs to be maintained but music, drama and dance are the poor relations (in a classroom learning context). So these are our focus areas.

Our localised curriculum, called Learning @ Waimairi requires the careful selection of two verbs from our list which capture the essence of a learning area and need to be amplified. For term three we selected 'creating' and 'interpreting'. This is what the common school-wide learning is this term.

Next comes the individual teachers 'turbo charging' of any achievement objectives they select for the term using SOLO Taxonomy. Kudos to the authors of the arts AOs for arranging them in a very 'SOLO like' way in the first place.

So... with all that important, but potentially dry, planning done it is time to ignite the children's interest, passion and curiosity. If our school is indeed going to be Christchurch's new Arts Centre in ten weeks time then everyone needed a peek at what that might look like.

When children, parents and staff started to trickle in on the first day of term they found every sort of performer going for it everywhere they looked. At the end of the term it will be our children performing in these spaces, they have now been shown what is possible. And we loved the performers.

Looking forward to a great school term and to seeing the children as the performing artists Enjoy the video.

Compare and Contrast

2011-07-27T20:53:00.001+12:00

As I have stated in many previous posts, the government is the government and being democratically elected they have the right to implement the policies they see fit. But today my jaw dropped as I saw the launch of the Government Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. Well done Paula Bennett, take a bow.

This is what New Zealand's government law making process used to be like. I love it.

There is a very big issue, the green paper comes out. The stakeholders, the experts and anyone with a strong opinion have a crack at it. Here is the timetable:

Step 1. Child abuse in New Zealand is an identified problem which needs attention so...

Step 2. May-August 2011:

Green Paper developed by a multidisciplinary team of public servants and others.

Advice and peer review provided by a group of academics and scientific experts chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman and a frontline forum including the Children’s Commissioner.

The Green Paper is released by the end of July 2011.

Step 3. August 2011-February 2012 :

Nationwide public consultation Green Paper

Step 4. May-July 2012:

Analysis of consultation.

Development of a White Paper setting out the Children’s Action Plan.

Step 5. August 2012:

Release of White Paper and formal adoption of the Plan.

Compare and contrast the education national standards legislative process.

Step 1. Lack of student achievement in literacy and numeracy is identified as an election issue. In the face of clear data that New Zealand leads the world in these areas.

Step 2. Pass Education Amendment Bill. Under urgency. No select committee consideration, no industry or professional sector consultation, no teacher voice, no parent voice, no university education research voice. That's all folks. Done. Law made.

There is a perverse factor to take into account as you compare and contrast the modes of operation (Minister of Education with the Minister of Social Development) and their degrees of haste. The evidence of child abuse is real and commands immediate action. The evidence of an underperforming education system is harder to find as New Zealand continues to top international performance tables. You would think one deserves parliamentary urgency and the other consultation and careful steps. Sadly it has been reversed.

Actually both issues deserve due process, and enduring and effective solutions require the latter. Well done Paula Bennett for getting back to the way that our country was, and should be governed. You and the cabinet have the ultimate say on what legislation will come out of the process but what you do decide upon will have had some good expert (and every-person) input. Can you pop down the corridor to share your methods with the Minister of Education?

Quick reality check #1

2011-07-07T20:36:00.008+12:00

I don't want to turn my blog into a mono-focus national standards thing but at the moment I can't stop thinking about the unprofessional (bordering on unethical) things going on in our great national education system.

Please reply to these reality checks but don't reply with an anti-standards rant. Teachers and principals use your professional knowledge and contribute responses which add to a well reasoned pedagogical critique of national standards as implemented in their current form.

We can build up the sort of well argued case for change and review that the Sector Advisory Group may or may not be making just now.

So here we go with the first one...

Let us imagine that a primary school who has embraced national standards has produced a report for achievement in reading which uses age (presumably from running records) as the y axis. They have then plotted year level on the x axis and report to parents by stating that working at a particular reading age text level in a particular class year group is (or isn't) at the standard for reading. This is also somehow linked to a NZ Curriculum level.

The profound issue here is the fact that once children are off the colour wheel (learning to read) the focus is on reading to learn. Even the national standards don't have a set of reading ages listed in them to use as benchmarks. The standards document does list a noun frequency level as part of a much broader description of what reading looks like at each year level. I don't believe this can be the main basis for a teacher judgement and subsequent reporting to parents however.

How can a school use reading ages as reporting points once off the colour wheel?
How can a school believe that reading ages equal national standards stages?

Keep the excellent Literacy Learning Progressions document in mind as you answer.

Keep the comments professional and well focussed.

Get off the Comet before it crashes

2011-07-01T22:39:00.004+12:00

How are we doing? Are we (primary school principals and teachers) ensuring that national standards are not eroding our internationally recognised excellent education system? Are we defending the legacy left for us by Beeby, Ashton-Warner, and Dame Marie Clay?

Sadly no. All over the country schools are embracing fundamentally flawed and educationally unsound practices. Reporting to parents and on rushed, shonkey and ill-defined standards. Leaving teachers to generate parental angst, stress and worry with their questionable written reports. Or perhaps worse, giving false assurance. Shame on you.

The matter is complex and is VERY high stakes. The current iteration of national standards needs so much more review, research and refinement (and refinement only if found to be educationally valid in the first place). Frankly the system should not yet be out in the open and in use in all schools.

If a such a new drug, airplane, car design, surgery technique, or even a new electric blanket design was proposed to be unleashed on the market there would need to be a lot of design challenge, justification, risk assessment and peer review done on it before it even got to trial stage. Sadly national standards were thrown together and then thrust upon all schools in the country. Currently every school using national standards is flying in Comet 1. It feels OK for now but it is not a safe place to be after a few annual cycles.

Jet powered planes are clearly a good idea but in England in the 1950s rushed design and pompous self-belief lead to death for passengers. Untested application of good ideas. It took crashes and deaths to make them look again at the worthy idea "jet powered flight" and then re-design the details of how it could work safely.

Plain language reporting to parents, identification of children not achieving and continuous improvement of educational outcomes for all children are what we all need. No argument there. The current national standards are intended to do this but are they are the educational version of those first ill-fated jet airliners. The structural cracks don't show up in the first few flights, it all seem a jolly nice idea. But when it blows it blows up big time.

So if you are still following my wide analogy I want to ask where is the professional engineers group, on the inside of the process, asking the big professional questions which will avert disaster?

In my mind the two professional groups who need to be at the design review table are the teachers' & principals' union - the NZEI and the principals' professional group the NZPF. Both have walked away. They are now the guys on the sidelines saying "we are not interested in new plane design unless it is piston engine powered, we have no time for jets".

What a shame. The deep professional knowledge and skills of the key teacher and principal union and professional groups are not being used in the design review process. They have walked away from the table and are not engaging with sorting the problems out. Shame on you.

So... who has the balls to fix this mess?
Perry Rush and the BTAC collation does - well done.
Bruce Hammonds speaks his mind - well done.
Kelvin Smythe keeps us thinking - well done.

The shame is that I don't pay weekly union dues to Perry, Bruce or Kelvin (who I salute) nor does my school pay an annual professional membership fee to BTAC. What are the people that I/we actually pay doing? They are just protesting - not good enough! Staged charter hand-ins, bus tours and balloon tricks hmmm. Don't just protest, get in and use all of your energy to fix it. Take your offered seats on the National Standards Advisory Group.

The National Standards Sector Advisory Group (NSSAG). Currently seems to be on a mission to promote and implement the standards rather than ask the hard questions. Being part of it would not be a nice experience, but without the teacher and principal voices in there it will roll on unchecked. On their website you can see all of their meeting notes, correspondence and responses from the Minister of Education. Look deeply at all of the notes and documents and imagine what could be even better if the NZEI and NZPF were sitting at the seats offered to them.

As shown by the 16 June NSSAG meeting notes a revelation has occurred (well I have joined the dots in my mind anyway). From their website...

"NATIONAL STANDARDS - what is all the fuss about

Facts:



New Zealand rates highly on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

world rankings for education.



If Maori and Pacifica results are removed from the PISA data, New Zealand’s rank improves

to second in the OECD and sits just narrowly behind Shanghai.



If you use only Maori and Pacifica data however, New Zealand is rated second to last!



The most prolific birth rate in New Zealand is among Maori and Pacifica. "

Which seems to me to mean that.. instead of forcing the 50 best practice literacy and numeracy advisors on schools we actually need 50 or more Ka Hikitia advisors to make us address the cultural non-achievement issues.

Just imagine the great NZ education system we could have if Ka Hikitia instead of national standards was the major government focus; resourced' and 'enforced'. I would welcome (and probably need to be honest) a kick up the pants from a Ka Hikitia best practice advisor.

And as for the NCEA back mapping rubbish good on you NSSAG for making that one of your big questions. A local school actually put that on the front page of a national standards report to parents and caused great stress to a friend who suddenly thought her daughter might not make it in the education system. Shame on you XXX school for using such a dodgy statement on a written report when the NSSAG are inquiring at the highest level.

Specific, but not exclusive questions to be addressed include:

Where did the link to NCEA level 2 come from?

Summary of a this big blog post

1. Value our excellent education system.

2. Stop adopting a half baked risky idea.

3. NZEI and NZPF we pay you lots of money to be at the table - go there. It won't be nice but is better than being on the outside. Membership of an advisory group does not mean endorsing the standards in their current, or any, format.

4. BTAC, Perry, Bruce and Kelvin - you are not being paid but you are doing it anyway. Good on you.

5. For parents of Waimairi School, we will continue to report to you against well proven and researched expectations of children's progress against national expectations. Not rushed standards.

Post-quake, walking the walls with even more admiration for our teaching team

2011-06-24T19:17:00.004+12:00

I walk the walls. It is a part of our curriculum review process. But it is much more than that. This term, more than any other before, it has moved me.

In any regular term I always end up looking at the pictures and thinking "wow, I love working with these people." But this term I have to admit to a few tears flowing as I looked at the picture collections.

These teachers are quake-weary, tired and doing all they can to hold together emotionally affected children and families. And... dealing with their own wrecked homes and jangled nerves.

Yet they are delivering a stunning term of learning. Better than before.

Every teacher in every class is here, plus some of our learning support staff. (Missing the afternoon programme pics because time keeps robbing me of the chance to grab them on camera).

Snapped in the first part of the term (front loading) look here

and the second part of term, applying the front-loaded knowledge before children fly with their own inquiring questions. Look here.

The wall pictures only tell a small part of a learning story, photos of walls don't show the rich learning experiences in action, but looking at these pics I am in awe of a teaching team working in a disaster hit city.

I love the close detail learning obtained from the simple things like the autumn leaves, the dirt in the garden and the clouds in the sky. The interactive learning centres and the children's voice screaming out.

Can't say much more.

TED Said...then spread

2011-05-27T20:40:00.005+12:00

It all started off well. But then TED spread.

TED first came onto my radar in 2006 when Sir Ken Robinson made his moving, humorous, and influential 'Schools Kill Creativity' speech. Ideas worth spreading indeed. Since then the TED Talks have inspired and challenged me. A few of my own key ideas, decisions and actions in recent years have had their genesis in a couple of TED presentations.

TED is now very fashionable. "Did you see it?" "It was amazing." "Very Inspirational" The risk is that TED-hungry leaders, managers and decision makers will end up with the sort of 'doing it vicariously' effect which has gripped the world of would be cooks, singers, and overweight people.

The abundance of reality media means that many people who don't cook their own healthy food can now instead get some sort of solace from living vicariously through watching Jamie Oliver do so. It means that people who want to have an entertainment career can now instead live that dream vicariously through their favourite TV Idol contestant. Watching the Biggest Loser gives an easier sense of well-being than changing diet and exercise programmes for yourself.

Also add to this list: Vicarious parenting through watching Super Nanny and vicarious home improvement through watching Grand Designs.

We can become dumbed down and passive consumers of ideas, convincing ourselves that the 'hard' but good things to do are taken care of in our lives by watching someone else do them on TV.

So the now pervasive presence of TED videos, and live local iterations of TED events, offer us inspiration, opportunity and also risk. The risk of us becoming consumers of TED content rather than producers of new ideas. The risk of living vicarious creative lives through the TED presenters' lives.

Ask some fellow teachers, principals or other leaders about creative things they have done recently. If they respond by saying that they have watched a TED video start to worry. Watching TED is good for getting inspiration but it is not creativity on its own.

Produce don't consume. Force yourself to be able to list actions you have taken as a result of a dose of TED. If we don't make ourselves do this then, as leaders, we are no different to an obese person cheering on their favourite Biggest Loser contestant while sitting on the couch eating a bucket of wings. Watching Ken does not make you Ken.

Who is it that is teaching new teachers to write lyrics for Whitney Houston songs? If it is you please stop it now.

2011-05-15T20:38:00.001+12:00

Every few months I find myself in this position. All I want to do is find an outstanding teacher to employ. All I end up doing is wallowing through a pile of edu-speak sickly sweet treacle.

Who is it that is teaching new graduates that a CV should sound like a Whitney Houston song? The lack-of-substance mush-crimes are at their worst from UC College of Education here in Christchurch. Graduates seem compelled to offer something called an 'emerging philosophy of teaching.'

The problem with an 'emerging philosophy of teaching' is that it states the obvious and tells me nothing about what the candidate actually plans to do if I let him/her loose on a class of children.

"I believe the children are our are future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier"

Give me a break. Without breaking any confidentiality by quoting from actual applications in front of me, they seem to say the same thing while at the same time managing to say nothing.

"Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be"

The missing components of so many of these manufactured sugar-sweet teaching job applications can be illustrated by going back to the old school Dr. Julia Atkin circles (as illustrated in From Values and Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice. Dr. Julia Atkin, 1996).

Since no one would say "I believe in a teacher centered classroom where only some children reach their potential and only some needs are met and parents are unwelcome" everyone has to say "I believe in a child centered classroom where all children reach their potential and all needs are met and there is an open door policy/partnership with parents." These nice words are the centre of the circles mentioned above.

Sadly most job applications I receive stop there. They don't go on to say what the applicant's planned practices (which are congruent with their values and beliefs) are. A job application with the outer circle filled in will get my attention. The rest don't.

I could easily apply for a doctor's job by saying I want to heal people or an engineer's job by saying I want to build great buildings that don't fall down. The thing needed in those job applications would be some concrete ideas for how I might do that (the outer circles).

I hope teacher training institutions cotton on to these important gaps in the CVs they guide their students to produce.

And... one final point. We work with children, we get them to use crayons and picture books. This does not mean a job application and CV for a teaching job needs to look like it is made with crayons and made up as a pop-up book. Sort out the pedagogy/andragogy divide.

and!! What ?? does this like mean??

2011-04-15T23:52:00.007+12:00

I found this posting from a standards proponent on Kiwiblog.

If not National Standards then what?? We need something in place to see what state the education levels of our children are! Quite frankly they are alarming and something needs to be done fast. I have a 5 and 8 year old with my 5 year old falling behind! I don’t take offence to the teacher telling me he’s this way, more what can i do as a parent to help him? the National standards are catching these children before they get too far down the track. I agree that a 5 year old shouldn’t be tested and yes some improvements need doing to the policy but I don’t see anyone else with any bright ideas on how to fix the problem. I am at university at present doing year two of my teacher training and believe that teachers also need to be accountable! Its our job! thats what we are getting paid for. Its the whole education system that needs to be looked at and I think with a little time the standards will show this and hopefully something will be done! Or is that what we are all afraid of??? Quite frankly i don”t think someone with a one-sided opinion like Martin Thrupp should be leading an investigation in the first place!

My response is.... firstly try to read the above out aloud to yourself then read on.

Are you really a university student training to be a teacher? If you are a teacher in training you are indeed a living example of the need for national standards. A quick reading of your post shows me that you are well below the expected standard for writing. Your strangulation of punctuation is well below the expected standard for a child leaving the primary system. Sections of your posting are very hard to comprehend because of your poor writing skills.

I am a school principal waiting for the extreme language on both sides of the debate to die down. There are some significant flaws in the standards and these flaws need some expert attention. Until the expert attention is applied to them my school will not be fully compliant with the national standards regime. This does not mean I am a rampant anti standards campaigner, it means that I am taking a considered professional stance.

My main concern is with the standards for mathematics. The rushed implementation has left teachers with some very inconsistent measures to use when making their standards judgments for reporting to parents. I long for a well reasoned professional debate about the content and detail of the standards. Sadly this will not happen while people are forced into camps for or against the standards.

Until the minster, the unions and NZPF get together and work these issues out I remain in state of limbo. I am a civil servant and I am required to implement the will of the current government. I am also a trained professional and I am ethically required to use my professional knowledge for the benefit of the students in my school. Cool heads need to prevail in this debate, sadly this has not happened yet.

Surprisingly, only the parents of the school concerned will know that one of the leaders of the ‘anti standards’ coalition of schools has a long history of giving his parents a written report which tells the hard truth about where their child is in relation to national expectations. My own school adopted his school's report format just as national standards arrived on the scene.

Let’s get this clear, the leader of the anti standards coalition reports, in writing, to parents in the way that national standards require (and has done so for many years). This shows that the problem is with the national standards not the concept of reporting to parents on how their child is progressing.

Until the debate on the real issues with the national standards starts to happen I remain uncertain about the outcome. The one certainty I do have is that rach88 has no chance of getting a teaching job unless he/she lifts his/her standard of literacy so that he/she can teach children to meet the required writing standard.

Can you run my business for me in your school?

2011-04-14T21:18:00.003+12:00

My February resolution was to crank my blog posts back up to a regular level again. Four days after my last post the earthquake put that plan to an end. But I am ready to roll again now.

Here is a letter I am composing to schools. I want to make lots of money with little quality control.

Dear School Principal,

Today for some reason I am thinking about starting a business. A business run for profit. A business that retails goods and makes a profit for me.

One barrier to me starting my business is the cost of buying or leasing retail premises, a place to show off and sell my products. To avoid this cost I will run a mail order business. But the problem still is the cost of direct mail or circular delivery of my monthly catalogue to home letterboxes.

Hmmm, you could help me out here by giving my promotional materials and order forms to children at your school? I will save on lots of advertising and delivery costs.

The next problem I face is order processing. If you get your teachers to give out my promotional materials, catalogues and order forms to your pupils can you also save me lots of money by collecting the orders, counting the money and sending it off to me. It would really reduce my overhead costs.

Distribution of the ordered product is also a hassle (cost) for me so I propose that you get your teachers to do this for me as well. They can also follow up missed and incorrect orders for me.

I like the idea of your teachers giving my promotional materials to their children. If it comes from a teacher and the teacher spends some class time talking with the kids about what is great, exciting and really worth buying this month, the children will unquestioningly believe I am offering good products. If I offer the class some incentives based on their total order value then there will also be some good peer pressure to keep up the class ethos and buy from me. My customers (children) wont want to let the class down by not pressuring their parents to buy this month's quota.

What could I sell in my mail order business?

An art kit (crayons, felt tip pens etc.)
A battery powered game console
A crystal growing kit
A battery powered safe
A T-shirt embroidery kit
A bedroom burglar alarm
A plastic bead-making machine
A plastic stencil set
A solar powered calculator
A battery sudoko machine
A set of board games

or basically any cheap stuff you could buy at the Warehouse. Why would parents buy this from me? Because it had tacit endorsement from their child's school and therefore must be good for learning.

I need to avoid hassles with tricky questions from school principals and boards of trustees. I will do this by orienting my website to recruit individual teachers directly to sign up to run my business for me in their own class. My other idea is to get some parent volunteer labour to work for me.

By doing this it is unlikely that the things I say to parents in my catalogues e.g. "Parents: Ordering from me earns your school valuable FREE resources! or Parents: Every Item Ordered Earns Your Child’s Classroom FREE Books!" will ever show up for scrutiny or audit on the school accounts or on school library book asset registers. Principals will be left guessing what is received and where these resources end up. There will be no required approval of school management for teachers to join up and help me run my business for me. My website will help this process by recruiting them directly.

Now all I need is a catchy name for my global multi-millon dollar business. A name which projects the feeling that what I sell is somehow educationally valid: Academicastic, Learnastic, Growbrainastic?

Please support me with my new business plan.

Regards
Mike

PS Don't knock those teachers who already like my business plan, they do so because they like to support literacy and reading in their classes. And NZ parents have a belief that what they got sold as kids is also still good. But let's question any new sign-ups. If you would not to open the gates to any other mail order company using teachers as commissioned sales people why would you open the gates for one that has been around for a while?

Slow and steady wins the race

2011-02-18T19:12:00.000+13:00

Wow, far too long between blog posts. Back into it for now 2011.

I am all fired up and enthused by an afternoon watching two of our teachers presenting a workshop to other educators on their use of the NZTA resources (an earlier post talks about how cool this work is) and then a day with our whole school teaching staff led by Julie Mills of Hooked On Thinking.

Two years ago, almost to the day, I asked our school staff to come along on a ride to enhance our school learning culture and develop a true 'learning community'. Not because there was anything wrong with the school but simply because there was a new national curriculum to implement and that was what was required in all schools for a successful roll-out of the NZ Curriculum (lots of stuff on that in this earlier post).

At the time I told our team that the 'ride' would last three to five years. Why so long? Because at the same time that we are busy re-thinking and re-skilling we have a school to run. No children or year groups of children can be used as guinea pigs with experimental educational ideas used on them in the name of change. If we were opening a new school we would have time before-hand to think about how we wanted to work and get it clear before we had children in front of us. We don't have that luxury. We are building a new plane in the air.

This is why we are taking three to five years to fully implement the NZ Curriculum - keeping up the quality while adding value.

The last two days were milestones in this process for two reasons:

1. Our staff (rather than me) ventured out to share with others what is going on in the school (see photo at top). Nothing consolidates understanding of what you do than having to explain it to others.
2. Our whole staff had a professional re-look (as opposed to a new-look) at SOLO taxonomy. We all need time playing in the sandpit with the new toys before we get really serious about new uses for them.

We have gone into the pit of new knowledge and can now spend a few years consolidating and making connections as we rise up to a higher level. At our staff retreat this year the pleasure for me was seeing connections emerge in the minds of our whole staff- Bruce Hammonds has aspects of thinking which relate to Sir Ken Robinson, which relate to aspects of thinking of Kath Murdoch, which relate to aspects of thinking of John Edwards which relate to aspects of thinking of all of our canons....

From now on it is reviewing and re-engaging rather than cramming more in.

Bring it on....

...until of course we get to the point just before a peak and need to start the whole process over again - see the sigmoid curve. If not the organisation that is Waimairi School would start to fade. But perhaps that is the next principal's job.

World Teachers' Day

2010-10-27T21:01:00.002+13:00

UNESCO World Teachers' Day is being marked in New Zealand on Friday. To quote the UNESCO website;

"The theme of this year's event is 'Recovery begins with teachers'. On World Teachers’ Day 2010 hundreds of thousands of students, parents... around the world will pay homage to all teachers who have been directly or indirectly affected by a major crisis. Be it a humanitarian crisis, such as the earthquake in Haiti and China, or the global economic crisis that has devastated many developed economies over the past year, the role of teachers and other education personnel is vital to social, economic and intellectual rebuilding. All those who are fighting to provide quality education to children of the world can join teachers and their representative organisations to celebrate the profession and show them their support"

While not suggesting that our Christchurch earthquake has in any way been a humanitarian disaster on a comparable scale to those mentioned above I think it is appropriate that we all take a moment on Friday to thank our teaching team for the emotional support they have given our children over the last month or so.

Our wonderful staff are themselves a cross section of the Christchurch community and have been so professional in putting their own on-going feelings, worries, and losses aside to be on duty and upbeat so that our children recover well. World Teachers' Day is a great time to show our teachers how much we appreciate their humanity and professionalism.

This song sent by Bluestone School in Timaru to Christchurch schools is a good indication of the spirit of our staff and our children.

Thanks team.

An agency doing great things - for their own cause and for education in general

2010-10-20T20:13:00.000+13:00

Almost every government and local body agency has a good message for school children.

-how to pat dogs safely
-be safe around railway tracks
-eat well
-don't get sunburn
-start a saving habit early
-don't smoke
-be nice to whales
-be nice to Wales (perhaps)
-increase use of Te Reo
-don't touch power lines

The list goes on and on. Sadly the bulk of these sort of messages are delivered in the form of 'resource kits' and workbooks.

These resource kits and workbooks cost millions of dollars to produce, package and distribute and frankly do not truly address the challenges and opportunities offered by and outlined in the New Zealand Curriculum document.

Code the depth of thinking demanded or depth of learning experience offered in so many of these school resources and information campaigns using any taxonomy of learning, and you will find yourself swimming at the shallow end of the pool. Word-finds, black-line masters, colouring activities, multichoice quizes, mazes, stickers and fact-boxes. Sadly watering sound messages down to superficial learning.

Swimming against this tide of 'good message but mediocre learning resource' is the innovative, useful and challenging work being done by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) in conjunction with Hooked On Thinking. It is not only an outstanding contribution to the cause of road safety, fitness and sustainable transport, it is a great contribution to the cause of quality learning in New Zealand schools.

The high quality learning resources, which have been developed and continue to flow, more than serve their purpose for the NZTA. They also offer an illustration of the depth of learning on offer when the SOLO Taxonomy is employed in school curriculum design.

If these sets of resources achieve nothing else, they show schools great examples of the sort planning, thinking and learning possible when the NZ Curriculum is fully implemented and well interpreted.

Several teachers at our school have already used the resource to strengthen their planning and practice in other curriculum areas. Not something you often get from other 'resource kits'.

Well done Raewyn Baldwin from NZTA and Pam Hook & Julie Mills from Hooked on Thinking.

The tipping point

2010-10-15T19:33:00.009+13:00

____________________________________________________________
Updated 31/10/2010. The link in this posting has gone. Removed by the MoE and put behind password access. Although it makes this post hard to understand because readers can't see the document I am talking about it does show some reflection going on in Wellington..I hope?
____________________________________________________________

Up until now I have held onto my own values and beliefs about primary education and quietly watched while the debate over national standards unfolded (apart from this previous blog post)

I like plain language reporting to parents about where their children are at.
I like schools being accountable for progress of children.
I like constant improvement and always aiming for an aspirational goal.
I like teachers knowing where their children are and what they need to do next to move the children on.

So what problem would I have with National Standards?

But having just read this ...

...I am left stunned. Is this really what our teachers, our BOT, and I need to spend our time understanding and doing?

This is not the 'plain language' reporting heralded by the onset of National Standards. I am seriously thinking about offering cash prizes to parents who can understand the "plain language" of the above web page.

I am pondering - what is wrong with simply using tools like the Literacy Learning Progressions and the progress expectations from the National Numeracy Project to give plain language reports to parents about how their children are progressing?

Do we need this level of technocratic reporting to give a plain language report to parents and to set targets for raising achievement?

Or are we going back to standards? Standard 1, Standard 2, Standard 3 and Standard 4 - what classes used to be called in the bad old days when kids were held back until they reached the mark? Yes, that is how those old names for year groups came about. Do we really want to go back to that? Talk to the elderly ex-Waimairi pupil (who is now a published author) about how that system made him feel in the 1940s. I discussed this with recently. You can guess his answer to that question. It took him 1/2 his adult life to get over being held back in Standard 2.

The restorative power of normal routines

2010-09-10T16:20:00.001+12:00

A summary of the main points of almost all expert texts on the topic of dealing with anxiety after a traumatic event always shows that resuming normal routines is a powerful healer.

After a week of dealing with our own families' needs, our damaged homes and caring for others in our neighbourhoods it felt so good today to to sit down to lunch with our whole staff and kick off the process for a return to a normal school week this coming Monday.

Seeing the positive impact on our team caused by finally getting back to work today fills me with hope for the great impact a return to school will have on our children next week.

Time to stop 'decile' being an over-used adjective

2010-08-29T18:06:00.006+12:00

How many other countries have such a mis-used and pejorative term like 'low-decile school'? How many other countries have such a mis-used and illusionary term like 'high-decile school'?

New Zealand's state schools are all given a decile rating.

Decile 1 schools are the 10% of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic communities. Decile 10 schools are the 10% of schools with the lowest proportion of these students. A school’s decile does not indicate the overall socio-economic mix of the school.

(Ministry of Education)

For the full explanation of calculation and application take a look at the Ministry of Education's page on the subject.

The basic and overlooked fact is that decile ratings have NOTHING to do with the performance or quality of a school and what goes on in the school has nothing to do with its decile rating

It is a system created with good intent and remains a pretty good way of addressing social inequity across the communities which the national school network serves. The problem is that as the years have gone by the decile rating of a school has changed from being a component in the calculation of its operational funding to being a way of describing the school itself, an overused and meaningless adjective.

There was a time when a certain perception was applied to many schools "that is a bit of a rough school" "that is a bit of a posh school." The arrival of the decile system has provided a pseudo-legitimised way of describing a school. What a shame this is. Only the most rampant socialist would attempt to ban parents from classifying and comparing schools, it is human nature to seek out the best for one's children, but the decile rating is not the adjective parents should use to describe a school.

Here are some of the common and totally unfounded generalisations about low decile schools:
- they have poor teachers
- behaviour is bad, bullying is high
- student achievement is low
- the school makes little difference to student achievement
- there are few extra-curricular opportunities for pupils
- buildings are in disrepair
- the community is not engaged with the school

Here are some of the common and totally unfounded generalisations about high decile schools:
- they attract and retain the great teachers
- behaviour is great, bullying is low
- student achievement is high
- the school makes a huge difference to student achievement
- there are lots of extra-curricular opportunities for pupils
- the buildings are wonderful
- the community is fully engaged with the school

If you are reading this from overseas you would say these are common assumptions made about schools in rich or poor areas in all countries. The problem is that in New Zealand we have a decile number to pin on each school. The notion of rough school/posh school is officially branded on all of them.

If you have an official brand put on a school it tends to get used. And used in the most awful ways. Here are a few examples of very dodgy ways:

- A principal being interviewed on Radio New Zealand National on an entirely different subject was congratulated at the start of the interview on his school's recent rise from decile 7 to 8. This plonker responded by saying "thank you we are very proud of that, our staff worked hard for it". Well done staff, did you all go out and inflate local real estate prices?

- A reporter from the Southland Times reports that principal Kerry Hawkins is justified in his stance against National Standards because his school went from decile 3 to 5. Good on you Kerry, you must have dropped overcrowding in homes.

- A parent approached me at my last school to say how sorry he was our decile rating dropped after the last census but he felt sure we could work hard to lift it. Yes I am sure I can somehow improve the educational qualifications of our parents and get it up again.

- International student recruitment agencies have started to think that decile ratings reflect the quality of the school. My current school's drop from 10 to 9 at the last census has been viewed in Seoul, Korea as a drop in worth of the school as an international education option.

The media now consistently use decile as an adjective to describe any school being reported on. How sad that any achievement from low decile schools is usually reported as some rare wonder (as patronisingly as disabled people doing something great). This is a rare exception.

Expectations of failure very rarely fail. Sadly the new generation of under-graduate teachers have grown up with decile numbers (and false expectations of failure or success of pupils) being attached to schools. These teachers undergoing training sadly also verbalise the same old expectations of a school's culture because the school has a government number attached to it. They expect bad and dumb kids at low decile and good and clever kids at high decile.

From parents to newly qualified teachers the effect is getting worse and worse. What other country brands schools like this? there must be a better way to calculate operation funding without putting a brand on a school...

...and don't even get me started about how real estate agents use decile numbers. Maybe, one day, New Zealand will not have a system of describing schools in this way. We might get back to having rough schools and posh schools again. Nicely ambiguous and not able to be used to sell houses in a certain area.

Arise Sir Peter

2010-08-25T19:01:00.002+12:00

I salute Sir Peter Leitch. I was listening to the car radio on way home tonight and heard him being interviewed. He reminded the audience that he still does not know his times tables or alphabet.

I remember sitting with him in the studio green room waiting to go on a TV show with him a few years back and getting the sharp end of his tongue because he mis-understood a comment I made about dyslexia. With millions of dollars in the bank and success in so many areas of his life the ability to be wounded by a school principal was still evident.

What is it about schools, and those of us who work in them, that we can such inflect emotional pain (that is life-long pain) on the people we are meant to care for? See my older post about Michael Hill.

Anyway - go Peter! You are an inspiration for many youngsters for whom school is not the be-all and end-all in life. And you offer those of us who work in schools a very worthy challenge - value all children, not just those who shine in the 3Rs.

Facebook and School

2010-08-12T20:22:00.003+12:00

Well here we go with another exploration of new media in a school setting.

Wanting to take a little bit of control over what is said and posted under our school's name in the Facebook world I have set up an official Waimairi School Facebook page. Now the experiment begins.

Some thinking behind taking this action:

1. It is good to link our existing Twitter feeds to a wider audience, Facebook offers that.

2. For a long time I have worried about the large number of our children who have ignored the 13 year-old rule and set up a Facebook account. Often these accounts have no privacy setting activated and these kids are far too open with what they post and reveal. I am thinking a few of them will end up 'liking' the Waimairi page, thus offering a great chance for me to have a good solid cyber safety conversation about why the heck they are on Facebook (with them and their parents).

3. For a long time I have worried about staff with very open Facebook privacy settings. I am thinking a few of them will end up 'liking' the Waimairi page, thus offering a great chance for me to have a good solid cyber safety conversation about what they are showing the world.

4. It will be nice to engage parents, staff and ex-pupils in the vibrant life of the school.

So it is all about wonderful celebration and showcasing - and also pushing social networking accounts into a defined workplace arena which will stimulate considerable reflection on privacy and content. Been looking for an authentic context to teach cyber safety with children, parents and teachers think I have found one now (who wants the worst of their Facebook life hanging out for all to see and linked to their school's website?)

Drop in to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Waimairi-School/144088335612447 to see how it all unfolds.

She Blinded Me With Science

2010-07-21T08:16:00.013+12:00

Well hey, I can't start a blog post about science without the Thomas Dolby song. It just pops into my head every time I start thinking about science. One of the many benefits of being a child of the 80s. And we all know that Magus Pike is the real star in that song and video.

Anyway, science is what Term 3 at our school is all about. Term 3 also marks our entry onto phase three of our journey into implementing the revised NZ Curriculum. What were the first two phases?

Developing Learning @ Waimairi (our localised curriculum)

Phase one. Back in late 2008 it was all about clarifying out values and beliefs about learning at Waimairi. After community consultation workshops the staff used our two-day retreat in January 2009 to build up our definitive set of values and beliefs about learning at our school.

Staff retreat January 2009

What emerged were a set of andragogical rather than pedagogical values and beliefs. This is an important distinction. We worked out the values and beliefs for teachers to use to create great learning, not a set of words for kids to work towards. The pedagogical values are already set out in the NZ Curriculum document, how we unpack, filter and engage our pupils with these will soon become a natural flow...

Having established our Waimairi values and beliefs for teachers to work with...

We value success/excellence - We believe learning at Waimairi is about excelling

We value knowledge - We believe learning at Waimairi is about substance

We value creativity - We believe learning at Waimairi is about originality

We value passion and inner drive We believe learning at Waimairi is about dedication and zest

We value relationships and community - We believe learning at Waimairi is about rapport

We value needs based learning -We believe learning at Waimairi is about being distinct

... meant a strong literacy learning curriculum statement (Literacy @ Waimairi) could be put in place. This was done by matching our values and beliefs about learning to the knowledge of effective literacy teaching gained from the school's two-year long LPDP professional development programme.

A similar document called Numeracy @ Waimairi, which matches our school's values and beliefs with the knowledge of effective maths teaching outlined in the National Numeracy Project, is in its final draft stage.

A parallel professional learning programme (all teaching staff taking part in a ten-day-long PD experience) was designed and implemented to make sure the staff who are designing and implementing the NZC are adult learners who have been exposed to a variety of approaches and models of school curriculum localisation. The two key aspects of the PD programme during 2009/2010 were: the five-day tour of innovative and best practice schools in the North Island and training for /implementation of 4 Minute Walkthroughs.

Phase two looked at the Key Competencies of the NZ Curriculum. We can't expect teachers to have any moral authority to build key competencies unless we know and understand what they are, and how they shift depending on the context they are being used in. So in July 2009 it was off to throw some axes and shoot some bows and arrows.

Key Competencies in teachers' lives. June 2009

The point of this was to show that everyone who thinks they: participate and contribute, relate to others, think and manage themselves don't always do so in equal measure in very challenging situations - such as those which our children face every day in their schooling. This experience led to the 'key competency quadrant we are now under trial.

With the key competency of thinking emerging as the overarching one in our localised curriculum who better to up-skill and inspire our staff than Tony Ryan. In January 2010 Tony set us on course to make sure thinking was explicitly embedded in the way we teacher and learn.

Phase three What is the 'essence' of the other subject areas? And what is our localised curriculum approach to them? Well we are starting this term with Science. We have had to work out exactly what learning about science means at Waimairi School.

Over the next few school terms that same treatment will be given to Social Sciences, Health & Physical Education, The Arts and Technology. Watch this space.

Anyway, here we go with science. Looking at page 28 of the NZC it is very easy to work out which words represent what science education is all about. Words like;

Observing

Testing

Investigating

Gathering

Modelling

Debating

Connecting

Problem Solving

Communicating

Theorising

Recording

Applying

Concluding

Deciding

Acting

Recording

Analysing

Hypothesising

Interpreting

...just roll off the tongue. But the big question is what does a high quality and advanced level of each of these mean?

This is the real curriculum challenge. To take just one of these words - 'Hypothesising' if we want our students to learn how to do this and to get better at it we need a framework to help them and their teachers build up their understanding. We want to build understanding of knowledge, not just more knowledge.

In comes SOLO Taxonomy. Five stages which describe levels of increasing complexity in student's understanding of subjects. Here is an example of how this is being used this term.

What this space to see how our trial of this phase three tool unfolds. For the the most important aspect is the inclusion of the children in a simple, yet, powerful, framework. This means the learner as well as the teacher can plot progress over the term, assess themselves against the taxonomy and really understand the formative feedback they might get from a teacher.

Moving into this phase three of our curriculum localisation has freed teachers and children to engage in such a diverse range of scientific learning. The school-wide commonality is embedded in what we are learning, as outlined above. How we are learning is ranging from space to plants, to chemicals, to wherever children's interests and inquiries take them. We adults can cook up as many circles and diagrams as we want but children's setting of direction and understanding of their own learning is what really makes the difference... so now you have guessed what phase four will be...

adding the children's voice, passions and interests to things like this...

So where are our localised curriculum documents?
In the words of Lester Flockton "the bigger the document the less effectively used it is in classrooms"

I like to view Learning @ Waimairi as something which documents the good practices we are developing. If we see document as a verb not a noun we understand that the phase three work with SOLO has to run its course as a trial before really sound use of it can be documented in Learning @ Waimairi.

Do you know what this is? Maybe you should

2010-05-19T20:43:00.008+12:00

This is Nilla, my six-year-old daughter's Moshi Monster. Looking a bit sad in this screen grab but that is all part of the story. If you have anything to do with primary aged children (teacher, parent, principal) then you really need to know some things about Moshi Monsters and the many similar virtual worlds currently engaging our kids.

We relentlessly write about rich, real, engaging, authentic and relevant 21st century learning on our school brochures, in charters, on strategic plans and even nice signage outside our schools. So where are the virtual worlds in our junior classrooms?

"Successfully nurturing a Moshi Monster is no mean feat. It takes a variety of skills that your child can develop over time. Your child will need to think creatively, hypothesize, strategize, manage resources, collaborate with friends, and nurture a wide variety of other skills that could extend positively into their everyday lives." Publicity from the site.

I have been watching my daughter's Moshi progress with interest. She grabbed a laptop and googled it after seeing an advert on TV. Since then she has kept Nilla alive and healthy. To do this she has had to do more maths, problem solving and all sorts of thinking, participating and contributing, managing-self and relating to others than than most junior school teachers would set and expect in the classroom. All done at a slightly higher level than most junior school teachers would set and expect in the classroom.

I'm not pushing this on our junior team at school, just wondering if any junior teachers anywhere are capitalising on this learning opportunity and wondering how it works out if we 'schoolify' it. E.g. getting around the usual lock-down, aversion schools have to things that sound like social networks or virtual worlds.

Sure, we have to put the black hat on and look out for the pervert pretending to be a child lurking on the message board section and I don't like the unspoken Moshi messages about shopping and consuming being good leisure activities. But if you are aware of the issues you can mitigate the risks. Kids might get run over by cars if we take them walking outside the school gates, but we still do it - with care. These issues have given me a perfect, in-context reason to give my daugther her first internet safety lessons. So even the risks can be turned into teachable moments.

Please share your experiences and opinions. All I ask is that you don't go down that po-faced comment pathway which is all about children shouldn't be inside staring at screens, messaging each other, they should be interacting with real kids and climbing trees because in my experience those that knock virtual worlds and social networks also think it is great when children spend lots of time reading. And reading is GREAT but it ain't social or cardiovascular exercise. Everything is good in moderation. You will also find lots of kids at our school up trees.

Engage me or enrage me - an important consideration for teachers of five-year-olds and 16 year-olds.

So what?

2010-05-13T22:13:00.001+12:00

So... when you find out - what are you going to do about it? So much teacher time is being spent hand-wringing about how we measure kids' progress. National standards, learning progressions, Asttle, PAT, 6 year net, running records, exemplars... the list goes on. Nationally we are developing an unhealthy obsession with how we 'weigh the pig' when good farmers always look to how we 'should fatten the pig'.

This week I sat in one one of the best and most effective teacher meetings. The teachers were not debating which assessment tool to use, or trying to invent a new one. They were just getting on with working out new practical ideas for lifting achievement. By whatever means, every month children at our school are identified as being at risk of not achieving. This identification on its own will not help the children concerned. What will make a difference is the ideas and strategies these teachers give each other while examining the children's actual work.

We don't automatically reach for the current fashionable range of technocratic solutions (more WALTS won't help these kids). All ideas are considered, and tried. If these ideas don't work the same kids will be back on the table next month. Good teachers don't keep trying the same thing if it is not working. There is no one recipe for educational success which fits all kids - sorry 'formulaic teaching' lovers, it is not as simple as that. The only thing that will reach all kids is a set of ever-changing approaches and ideas. Good teaching can't be bottled or recorded as a recipe. We have to do the hard yards every few weeks (together in teams) to constantly look for another way when the previous ways don't work.

How is teachers’ time best spent? Protesting about, or debating, the best way of measuring how kids are doing? Or just rolling up our sleeves and looking at actual work samples and sharing ideas on how to move the children on? If we collectively spent more hours doing what the teachers in this picture are doing rather than designing and re-designing ways of measuring progress we might actually make some progress.

Leaving on a jetplane

2010-04-30T19:08:00.004+12:00

I will miss being part of the Waimairi community for most of next week. Late last year I was surprised and honoured to be asked by Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools in Parramatta, Sydney, to run a masterclass programme for the principals in the schools in the schooling system he controls.

In the Bulletin Magazine Smart 100 List Greg was named as the "nation’s smartest, most innovative and creative person working in education in Australia today." So I felt unprepared (and under-dressed) for his call on my cellphone, taken while I was tending the fire for the Year 3/4 camp hangi on our back field.

One other NZ principal is also running workshops at the masterclass and this has got me thinking about why a section of the Australian education system would want to hear what we have to say?

I think the answer is the skills, attitude and commitment of kiwi teachers. And the world-beating national curriculum we work with. Any principal in the world can espouse a desire for a school to be a learning community where teachers and children work, focussed on learning enduring, life-long skills to propelling the nation forward. Only NZ has a National Curriculum that requires if, rather than inviting it.

Breaking this down to a local level Waimairi School is full of teachers who understand the above and are committed to doing it. It all clicked into place in my mind tonight at a meeting of our junior class teachers (yes Friday night and they are still getting together to think about how to improve learning for our kids). The general theme of the meeting was 'how can we do better?' Not get better at technocratic learning intentions and the like, but get better at holistic education. What a winning attitude!

So, while representing NZ in Australia next week I will be saying that we have a long and proud tradition of excellence in education in NZ, and this is certainly illustrated at Waimairi School.

Kiwi teachers, be proud of our NZ National Curriculum. Waimairi teachers, I am proud to be showcasing what you do. Waimairi parents and children, take the time to appreciate your teachers and the fact that overseas educators want to hear about what they do in our classrooms every day.

Open for Business

2010-04-19T19:21:00.001+12:00

Our newest play area opened today. This is our builder's yard, the 'construction play area'. Several Year 3 and 4 pupils helped with the planning during 2009. Thanks to funding from the PTA, parent help at a working bee and a generous donation from the Pauling Family, we are now in business.

The 'construction zone' is a fenced off area for those kids who like to imagine, build and dig. It is equipped with tools, sand and timber. What more does a builder need to play with?

There are more photos of the play area here.

A great kiwi school tradition

2010-03-30T18:38:00.000+13:00

The great kiwi school working bee is responsible for lots of New Zealand's school facilities and infrastructure.

It is about more than saving money (or doing things schools can't afford from their operations grant), it is about building community.

Last weekend it was a real pleasure to join in with the volunteer families for an afternoon moving sand and putting up a shed. It was also a rare chance to take my dog Murphy to school for the day without too much hassle.

Often a mainstay of rural school community life, those of us in the city still have a lot to gain from the school working bee. A big thanks to Sunday's team. You can see some more pictures here.

I am so sick of hearing the 1 in 5 line

2010-03-24T19:35:00.006+13:00

The National Party were very clear before the last election that they would launch a 'literacy and numeracy crusade'. I have no problem with that.

The National Party were very clear before the last election that they would implement a 'national standards' policy. I have no problem with that.

It was all very open, written in the manifesto and there for voters to give their tick to if they liked it. And a majority did. I like democracy.

The National Party are now the elected government of New Zealand. State schools are schools of the state. We must follow the laws enacted by the elected government. I have no problem with that.

What drives me nuts is the inability of the Minister of Education to give any answer to any question about how the mere existence of national standards will improve standards of achievement. The only answer I can find is that "1 in 5 children leave school without required literacy and numeracy skills". She parrots this one-liner out at every opportunity. There is no other depth to her reasoning. I am really keen to hear more from her. I like debate and enjoy listening to all sides of an argument.

I want my minister to speak, clarify and explain, beyond just saying that "1 in 5 children leave school without required literacy and numeracy skills".

What does 1 in 5 actually mean?

1 in 5 means 20%.

This is a bell curve. It shows the national expectation of performance of children in New Zealand in one of the standardised tests which we use at our school (and which we have used for years). The national statistical expectation on the curve is in brackets. The Waimairi School numbers are without brackets. Children in the 1,2 or 3 stanine band are the kids the Minister of Education claims are the shocking 1 in 5.

Yes, of course there are 1 in 5 failing nationally. In any population 20% (or 1 in 5) are going to be at this end of a bell curve. That is the very nature of a natural spread of ability across the population.

Minister, it is not shocking that 1 in 5 fail, it is a statistical reality. In this illustrated PAT graph the expectation is in fact 23% (the 4% + 19%) failing.

What sort of principal would just accept that 1 in 5 children in his or her school failing in this way? Not many of us and certainly not me.

The way that we have addressed the 1 in 5 in our school over the last two years has been through the Literacy Professional Development Project (LPDP). They have been named, they have been put into focus groups in classrooms and the teachers have been taught how to try, try and try again with an ever changing approach to teaching to move these kids away from being at risk.

And it has worked. Year on year we are helping these children be the best they can be. We don't take 1 in 5 as the status quo. We aim to make it better. We have data to show this approach is working. We are one of the schools that Trevor Mallard is talking about in this video clip.

So back to the main question. How will the mere existence national standards help the 1 in 5?

We already know who they are. We work our behinds off to shift them upwards. What will another way of being measured do for these kids?

The distribution of children across the schools of New Zealand does not follow a nice neat bell curve. Many schools have a disproportionate number of the '1 in 5' as their student majority. If league tables on student performance are published as a result of national standards how can any meaningful judgement about the quality of education at those schools ever be made? I hope it never happens.

1 in 5 is part of life but the uneven distribution of the 1 in 5 across a city’s, or the nation’s schools makes a for very uneven playing field. Every suburb in every town does not look like a bell curve. Certain schools have certain parts of the curve as their main pupil base.

I am not part of the tedious NZEI protest bus tour. I am not part of the Principals' Federation campaign. I am just wanting the Minister of Education, my boss, to speak to me intelligently and tell me something I don't already know.

Yes 1 in 5 fail, I got that bit. Now tell me how national standards will help kids achieve and help teachers make sure that they do.

I'm keeping you in after school

2010-03-18T17:34:00.000+13:00

Here we are in Room 8 at 4:30 pm on Friday last week. The kids have been at school for nearly eight hours but the questions and answers are still flowing. You can just make out the teacher on the whiteboard. He is D'Wayne Edwards, head of design at Nike. He is running the class from Los Angeles and teaching 37 other classes of children all over the world at the same time. The design worksheet the kids are working on was emailed ahead so that everyone was on the same page, literally.

This is Rock Our World (ROW) in action. ROW was started after a group of like-minded educators got together at the University of California, Monterey Bay in 2004. The challenge was to come up with learning projects that made the best use of the technology we have in our classrooms. It has proven to be a powerful, and sustainable project as it now enters its 12th round and 6th year.

All of the children involved work together to collaboratively compose a piece of music, and seeing as they are connected by this experience they also work on many other cross-curricular projects. In this round they are exploring art and design - hence D'Wayne teaching the introductory lesson. Tune in to Room 8’s blog to follow the progress

Teaching with a LISP

2010-03-01T21:24:00.010+13:00

I'm off to the school pool, but not for swimming.

On Friday mornings it is a pleasure and a privilege to join our junior school teachers and children for 'discovery time' and so now about this time every week I find myself having to plan my teaching for the next session. The big question in my head is "how can I address the focus on key competencies and also honour our school values (specifically about learning being about knowledge and having substance)?"

Adding to my thinking process came an email from Lynda (which also reminded me what a talented teaching staff we have at Waimairi). The killer line in her email is "...help keep us all focused and to prevent our time becoming just an activity time?"

I believe the focus which Lynda calls for in her email needs to be our school-wide learning theme, which this term is a bit of a watery affair. So what has floated into my head is a memory of the Learning in Science Project (LISP). This is why I am off to the pool. Floating and sinking, making boats and rafts with all sorts of different materials, questioning to find out the children's pre-conceptions and basing the next teaching steps on their pre-conceptions.

It will be lots of fun but also powerful learning for the children and for me.

Looking back at the old LISP documents I am wondering how lots of the 'old' findings link to the new ideas in the revised NZ Curriculum. I am looking forward to discovering this. If you want to get right into this in a big way you can read the 270 page long Literature Review into Science Education. Or you could just read this post on Bruce Hammond's blog

I will post an update to let you know how things turn out because 'teaching is inquiry' and we need to try things out and be learners alongside our pupils.

Yes, this is another jargon-filled posting but by following the links on this entry you can try to dig deeper if you are interested or curious.

Marty wins again

2010-02-24T16:27:00.000+13:00

More good news for Room 15 teacher Marty Lukes. He won the New Zealand Athletics 100 km Championships, part of the Great Lake Relay, in Taupo last weekend.

If you read this news story you can also see he was an inspiration to the other athletes in the race.

Good on you Mr Lukes.

Poison Pizza

2010-02-16T20:02:00.006+13:00

Marge: Now be good for Grampa while we're at the parent-teacher meeting. We'll bring back dinner.

Lisa: What are we gonna have?

Homer: Well, that depends on what your teachers say. If you've been
good, pizza. If you've been bad... uh... let's see... poison.

Lisa: What if one of us has been good and one of us has been bad?

Bart: Poison pizza.

Homer: Oh, no! I'm not making two stops!

We really want to see all of our parents and students between 1 and 12 March. Parent/student/teacher interviews are the first connection of the year. They are a time for us to listen, for you and your child to help map out the most immediate priorities for learning, and let the teachers know what makes each kid tick.

Meeting face to face is one of the most effective ways of reporting and communicating about learning. So book your time slot now on the web, on the phone, or in the office.

Tribute to Uncle Seymour

2010-02-12T11:32:00.008+13:00

Apologies to those who have already heard my thoughts on Seymour Papert in presentations and speeches I have made at various conferences over the last few years because I am repeating them here.

This morning I took a couple of 'roamers' along to the junior school discovery time. Surprise, surprise within 10 minutes the 5 and 6 year olds were into the 10 and 11 years olds' geometry headspace. "Can you make this go forward? I wonder how long this room is? if 90 degrees makes him turn left will 180 degrees make him turn right around?"

I spent a lot of time with Ethan who was very determined to programme the roamer to head away from him, turn 180 degrees and come back. It took him six minutes of trial and error. Six minutes of solid thinking, the sort of arduous thinking that builds the human brain.

The logo legacy left by Seymour Papert remains unrivalled as a tool for letting children operate at mental levels well beyond their developmental range in a way not possible without this technological assistance.

Lots of jargon in this posting but the links should help clarify, best way to understand what I am trying to describe is to pop on into school any Friday morning between 9 and 10:30 am. Our little logo programmers will be happy to show you their roamer mastery.

Thank you for these gifts to the children of the world Seymour and all the best for your recovery.

Keeping up the momentum

2010-02-11T13:00:00.001+13:00

Last week the teachers of Year 1 and 2 children spent Friday in our teacher development centre planning to make sure the gains we made in junior school literacy during 2009 are continued and built upon in 2010.

It is great to have all of the junior teachers aligning their practices and so committed to our on-going targets for reading and writing.

From this week onwards all of the Year 1 and 2 classes will be learning together during discovery time. This will be a reassuringly familiar time of the week for those children who moved up from Te Puna this year. It is a wonderful opportunity for all of our 5 and 6 year olds to learn together and strengthen their bonds and friendships.
Learn more about discovery time here

Back into learning for 2010

2010-02-04T14:26:00.004+13:00

The pupils came back to school this week but the staff were already well and truly into the new year at that stage.

At the end of January the Waimairi staff (teaching and support staff) spent two days at a school development retreat at Wainui, Banks Peninsular.

The first day of the retreat was facilitated by Tony Ryan. Tony is one of Australasia's leading thinkers on building a culture of thinking and well-being in schools.

There were two main themes of the day. The first was maintaining the 'zest' for teaching. If we are to deliver the best education to our kids then we have to be in the best physical and mental health possible.

The second was the need to approach 'thinking' as the overarching key competency as we implement the revised NZ Curriculum. Thinking really is the key and it is in this way we are approaching how we develop the key competencies at Waimairi this year. The good news is that it is not rocket science. Everyone left with ways to develop our children's thinking abilities which are not taught on top of content but part of our curriculum content.

We also learnt about how to keep our adult brains fit and functioning into old age. The key is engaging in demanding mental activity, learning genuinely new things. So with that in mind the evening was spent learning to juggle, a very new experience for almost everyone in the room. Waimairi parents should watch out for the staff trying lots of new things things year, we are all going to step out of our squares and learn new things. For me it will be a musical instrument. Keep me honest by asking me how it is going as the year progresses.

If we teachers force ourselves into new learning it reminds us of the sort of feelings we induce in our students day in and day out. Frustration, anxiety, not wanting to be seen to be getting it wrong and developing a realistic understanding of our own strengths and limits.

Celebrating a term of arts

2009-09-24T18:04:00.005+12:00

Our two-day long celebration of creativity and achievement is well underway. The school hall is full of the arts. The visual arts display is stunning and it makes the perfect setting for the 48 hour continuous school assembly that is taking place.

When the children arrived at school on day one of this term we made sure that they all understood that Term 3 was all about creativity. Since then our teachers have done a stunning job of drawing out and nurturing the artistic abilities in all of our students.

The orchestra, singing, dancing, poetry, speeches, puppet shows, instrumental acts, cultural performances, kapa haka, and joke telling are a perfect end to the term and the best possible form of assessment and celebration of this significant part of our Waimairi School curriculum.

Thanks to all of the staff and parents for your creative support this term and to Chris Jenkins for her leadership in this area.

Gallery of pictures here.

What a lot of rubbish

2009-09-11T19:22:00.005+12:00

Today the whole school hit the streets for our Rubbish-a-thon. The PTA’s major fundraiser for Term 3 was more than a fundraiser.

It was a brilliant learning opportunity for all of our children. Being part of a community means taking responsibility for that community. The New Zealand Curriculum ranks 'participating and contributing' very highly (is is one of the key competencies which we are required to develop in our children) Follow this Ministry of Education link to see how our rubbish learning experience is all about our new curriculum

The whole school spread out to cover our ‘home zone’ and give it a big spring clean. We returned with over ten bins of rubbish, and got lots of thanks from our neighbours along the way.

View a gallery of pictures here

The art of public speaking

2009-09-04T17:51:00.003+12:00

You thought I was joking when I said the winners would receive a trip to Sydney didn't you? These are the place-getters and highly commended speakers (missing two)

While we love innovating and developing new learning experiences for our students it is still very important to keep and honour many 'Waimairi traditions'. The annual senior speech competition is a great Waimairi tradition. Today we heard the finalists from our Year 5 and 6 classes. The children delivered polished, humourous, entertaining and informative speeches.

Well done to all of the orators who gave their very best this morning. We now look forward to following the progress of our winners at the regional competitions over the next few weeks.

School on Sunday

2009-08-31T12:54:00.002+12:00

These are some of the keen Waimairi students who are converting a storeroom into a radio station. We had our first work afternoon on Sunday.

We are looking forward to the launch of our community FM radio station in a few week's time, but before we can get on air we need a studio.

Five boys from Room 16 have started clearing out the room. In coming weeks we need to prepare the walls, fill holes, pick the colours and do a big repaint.

Watch this space to see our progress.

Kapa Haka Group Noho

2009-08-23T12:53:00.005+12:00

This weekend our kapa haka group held a noho at school. They started at 1:00pm on Saturday and finished at 12:00pm on Sunday. It was a great weekend of learning, performing and fun.

Many thanks to Whaea Teoti and her whanau, Delwyn and her whanau and all of the teachers and parents who contributed to the weekend.

The children in the kapa haka team perform with great pride and skill, this weekend has lifted their skills to an even higher level. Great stuff!

Picutres of the weekend here

A nice story from the school-yard

2009-08-20T16:55:00.001+12:00

Dear Mike,

I thought you might like to hear a little story about the friendship seat.

My daughter made a new friend on Monday which came as a surprise to me and the other wee girls mother as they are different ages - xx nearly 6 yrs and xx 7 years old - and don't have a classroom or river in common.

When xx asked her mother and I if xx could go to her house that day to play we both said that was O.K but we were both wondering how this friendship had started - there was no common thread.

When I asked xx later that day about it she told me -

"Well, the friends that I was playing with went away and I waited and waited for them to come back but they didn't. So I went and sat on the friendship seat (she said this so matter of factly as if it was the obvious thing to do) and then xx came over and sat with me. I told xx what had happened with my friends and she said that she hated it when that happened to her. So then we decided to be friends"

I thought that this was something that I should pass on as I thought that it was a lovely demonstration of the school culture.

Kind regards

Sports news – not the kids this time

2009-08-20T11:51:00.003+12:00

Room 11 teacher Marty Lukes has made the New Zealand team for the Commonwealth 100km race, he will, according to media reports, actually be one of the favourites for the title. He has run a sub-2hrs 30mins marathon and was fourth in the world 100km championships in 2006 in the excellent time of 6hrs 45mins. Marty is heading to England for the race later this term, we will keep you posted.

Link to media story

Waimairi Design Group

2009-08-20T11:22:00.004+12:00

Our wonderful new Te Puna building is a successful learning space due in part to a design group made up of interested teachers and community members providing ideas and a clear direction to the architect.

We are now planning for new classroom spaces at Waimairi School and are forming a design group again. Any teachers, parents or community members with an interest in contributing design feature ideas for new Waimairi classrooms are invited to email Mark Robberds with the subject line design group.

Teachers Learning Lots

2009-08-20T08:03:00.004+12:00

The staff at our school have a healthy appetite for learning. Many of our staff pick up the books after a day's work at school because they are studying part-time to add to their qualifications. From post-graduate diplomas to masters degrees, there are always staff members at Waimairi undertaking study.

As well as the formal study which several of our staff are working on, the whole team are busy bringing the Revised New Zealand Curriculum to life. This involves revisiting our fundamental thinking about, and attitude to, learning.

The Minister of Education provided schools with 'teacher only days' to close for instruction to allow teachers to work on the Revised Curriculum. Waimairi School has made some use of these days but, as a clear illustration of our staff commitment to the interests of children and families, the overwhelming majority of staff have voted to complete the remaining work required during 'call-back' days in school holidays.

Six more days of curriculum work are planned between now and February 2011, all to be done during school holiday breaks.

However some teacher professional learning has to take place during school hours. This term 1/2 of our staff have been undertaking an intensive development programme that puts them into their colleague's classrooms taking a close look at their own classroom practice by seeing how others work. The break in contact time between class teachers and their children for periods of time this term will be more than made up for in the fresh approaches and renewed enthusiasm for teaching already evident among the staff who are taking part in this big learning project.

We are looking forward to sharing our learning with the school community early in Term 4 at a community workshop session similar to the one which kicked off this whole process in October last year.

Parent Power

2009-08-06T11:45:00.003+12:00

Waimairi School Parent Teacher Association (PTA) continue to power ahead with their dual roles of building community and supporting the development of our school. We are only half way through the year but it is already time to take stock of the investment in the school that has flowed from everyone's support of PTA activities.

$50,000.00 invested in the wonderful new junior playground.
$3000.00 upgrading our courts and sports equipment.
$5000.00 to establish our school community FM radio station (more info later on this).
$3000.00 for classroom wet day games and activities.

...watch this space as we are currently working on providing some really challenging outdoor play space and equipment and starting to equip our classrooms with data projectors all driven by PTA parent power.

Thanks to the PTA team and all of the school community members who support their fund raising initiatives.

Art Smart

2009-07-20T11:51:00.012+12:00

The major focus this term is on the arts, in all their forms. We kicked off the term with a performance blast greeting the school community as they walked in the gate this morning.

It was great to see so many of the kids enjoying the creativity and talents of our guest performers and very exciting to see particular groups of children totally transfixed and deeply connecting with what this term is all about.

A big thanks to Christchurch band Green Like Go and the students of the CPIT Faculty of Creative Industries School of Performing Arts, your performances this morning will have ignited the passion in some youngsters who will follow in your footsteps. Great commitment playing outdoors at 8:00 am in -1 degree temperature.

Link to full photo gallery of Art Smart Ignition Morning

We REALLY have to listen

2009-06-28T19:50:00.014+12:00

Tune in to this interview with one of New Zealand's most successful businessmen, Michael Hill.

As I was listening in the car on Saturday morning these things crossed my mind...

What drove his mother to agitate at the school about his class placement? Why did that teacher cross the road to tell him and his family he would amount to nothing? It took 40 years for him to shake it off!

Why is it that you can predict how this story goes as you listen to it? Because it sounds like that of Peter Leech (Mad Butcher), John Britten (world leading motorcycles), Richard Taylor (Weta Workshop) and many other very successful New Zealanders who did not fit the school mold.

We really do miss the impact of the complexity of understanding music on children's brain development.

Teachers...do we value every talent and strength of children in our care?
Parents...what does pressure on only reading and writing and maths do to your children?

Worse things can happen than have kids grow up to be the millionaires mentioned above.

Thanks for the clean car

2009-06-23T18:29:00.005+12:00

Members of two of our school netball teams are fundraising to pay for part of the cost of an upcoming training school. They have been very enterprising, as seen today in the staff carpark. Their carwash was popular with the staff. Great value and a job well done. Thanks girls.

Did you know?

2009-06-22T19:57:00.005+12:00

A film by Karl Fisch

Why are we frequently talking about change? Why are we on a long and well considered journey towards a new curriculum at our school? Why are we asking big questions about what school needs to look like in the 21st century? Why can't we stay comfortably as we always have been?

This video might answer some of those questions...

...and it might just make you come up with even more questions about the sort of schooling we need to give our kids.

Good to meet

2009-06-22T18:47:00.005+12:00

Two weeks of parent/student/teacher meetings are over. Thanks to our wonderful teachers for making themselves available at a variety of times so that as many parents and students as possible could take part.

We all enjoy being able to meet with you and your children to talk in-depth about our core business - your child's learning.

When parents AND children join with the teachers in meetings such as these we are helping the children to see that school is all about them and their learning.
- That all of the adults in their lives communicate with each other.
- That we all love to celebrate their progress and we must always set new goals and challenges to keep the learning momentum going.

This is why we like to have children at the interviews, they doesn't quite mean as much when children are not in the room with us contributing to the process. For some Waimairi classes and families this is a new development, we would love your feedback (add a comment below).

Our next formal reporting point for this school year is a written report, sent home late in Term 3. You should however make contact with your child's teacher well before that if you have a question or would like to follow up on any aspect of your child's learning.

We would also like feedback on our trial of the online interview booking system, share your thoughts with us.

Listening to Torres

2009-06-17T20:36:00.007+12:00

In our professional lives we meet many colleagues who have similar ideas or approaches, we meet fewer who share our values and beliefs, and then we meet a very few who do all of the above and also inspire us to 'just be better teachers' and who become good friends.

I first met Marco Torres six years ago and he continues to 'keep me real' no matter what the technological tool, big idea or high concept. We are both Apple Distinguished Educators which means we are lucky enough to have the distance between the USA and New Zealand bridged by us being brought together at education conferences and events. Email, Facebook and instant messenger are not substitutes for real conversations with your friends. Last month we were both keynote speakers at the Middle Years Schooling conference in Brisbane. The messages we delivered to the conference were similar - never before in history have we had the tools in our schools for our children to be producers of, not just consumers of, information.

Marco and I had a mutual (and sadly late) friend Jim Ferguson who left with both of us a burning driver for our work "the kids you have in your class today only have one shot at being kids, you will be a teacher for a long time but they only have one time in their particular year group. Don't plan to make it better next year, do it now!"

You can listen to a radio interview with Marco here, and to part two of the interview here as you reflect on how we can make every moment for our students at Waimairi School more about producing ideas rather than consuming ideas.

Go Go Go Waimairi Teams

2009-06-17T07:43:00.003+12:00

A nice email from a grandparent...

"Congratulations to Waimairi school netball teams .I only watch the c team as my grandaughter plays in it but I am so impressed with following:-

1.The ability of the team ...they have won all their games so far.

2.The teacher coach of the c team.I admire her skills and efforts that she puts into the team.She is not only great with the team she has a great knowledge of netball and her refering skills are outstanding.She needs a pat on the back.

3.The uniform that the girls wear and the school has provided is fantastic."

...reminds me of the positive impact that sideline support of our sports teams can have. The kids love us being there and it is very rewarding for those of us watching the games.

You can find the location of our Friday afternoon games here.

Wrap up warm and head out to the fields to make some noise in support of our kids.

Stay true to your values

2009-06-09T17:26:00.011+12:00

Here come the National Standards

Educators and parents will hold a range of opinions on this initiative, which was one of the platforms the current government campaigned on.

The Ministry of Education has set up a parents' web page where parents can view some of the proposed material and importantly, give feedback. There are also consultation meetings being held across the country. I am not convinced that they have worked out enough of the details to hold meaningful consultation but will hold off on judgement until next week.

I believe one of the most important things for us all to do as the National Standards are rolled out is stay true to our schools' values and beliefs about powerful learning.

The NZ Curriculum is all about school communities establishing what they value and believe about education, I already worry because I hear principals and teachers engaging in negative thinking. Nobody has told us we now have to 'teach to the test' and sacrifice our local curriculum.

As professional educators we must use our knowledge of child development and education to raise standards of achievement. What are we saying about ourselves when we say that because of the existence of National Standards we can no longer use the teaching practices that we believe our kids need? We decide how we teach. If we believe we are making a difference for children then we should keep on doing so.

I have many unanswered questions about the National Standards. I worry about the media using results to produce 'league tables' and unfairly rank schools. I worry about the potential disruption to the long and well thought out NZ Curriculum implementation process. I worry about clumsy and simplistic measurement of complex child developmental areas such as reading. I worry about the 'value added' to children at school not being captured in simplistic National Standards.

But most of all I worry about teachers and principals throwing in the towel and not innovating because of the existence of the National Standards. If we expect a doom and gloom, 'teaching to the test' system then we will get one - because we are the ones who will decide to deliver it.

Continue to be excited by, and proud of, our revised NZ Curriculum and don't take your eye off the ball. A 'key competencies' driven education system is what this country needs for its future survival. The merely literate and numerate are the new poor. The thinkers, relaters, self-managers, contributors and participants are the new leaders.

Don't sell out our children's futures because of the National Standards.

Turning the tide

2009-06-09T16:48:00.004+12:00

This week our school community is coming together to celebrate Maori achievement and to listen to each other's wishes and aspirations for further engaging students and strengthening partnership in learning.

At this time it is interesting to look back at the work led by Prof. Russell Bishop getting teachers to understand the power of relationships with the youngsters in their care.

View TV feature on the project.
Learn more about the book, Culture Speaks:Cultural relationships and classroom learning.

Coffee Meeting

2009-06-08T19:43:00.002+12:00

Thanks to the parents who turned up for this term’s morning coffee meeting. We were able to discuss and clarify a wide range of points. Those unable to attend can see what we covered below. Feel free to phone, email or drop in at any time to clarify any questions you may have.

Notes from recent parent questions discussed at Term 2 Coffee Meeting:

Recent ERO Review. Report is still in draft form. Should be published by the end of this term.

Parents’ library. Reminder that we have a collection of books for parents. Teachers will point parents towards display in library during interviews over next two weeks.

Making the most of school website. Those lost newsletters and missing sports notices can be found on the ‘SportZone’ and ‘Info Central’ pages on the school website. Also remember to use the ‘Any Questions’ page if you are unable to visit school to ask questions.

Upcoming Maori Consultation. Invitation for whole community to take part.

Year 3/4 outdoor education programme. Teachers currently working on details of a y3/4 outdoor challenge event to replace previous Y4 camp. Will involve all Year 3 and 4 classes. Will probably be two day long event including an overnight stay. Scheduled for mid-late Term 4.

Same learning, different contexts: Why all rivers don’t look the same. There are school-wide focus areas, all classes are working on the same curriculum areas, the contexts used by each class are different.

What is a decile rating? Explanation that decile ratings are calculated based on community socio-economic data and are not related to teaching and learning or the performance of a school.

We will follow up on parent suggestions to spread notices and newsletters across all Rivers so that more consistent information about school events arrives in each household.

It was noted that children’s ICT skills are surpassing some parents. Student-led lessons for parents are a long term goal to address this issue. Will be 2010 or 2011 when these start.

Our identification of gifted and talented children was explained. Our aim is to ensure all teachers are challenging and extending children all day, every week - as opposed to sending these children to special events and programmes and believing this alone meets their needs.

We will follow up on parent suggestions to make clear the classroom release timetable for teachers with extra duties.

We will also ensure timely notices are send home when there is an impending change of class teacher.

We clarified that the large number of new entrants this year are IN ZONE students. Out of Zone pupils are not a significant pressure point on numbers in the junior school.

2010 class compositions. We clarified that the make-up of classes for 2010 will be done to meet the needs of the children, not to keep groups together at the expense of teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of what might be best for the child.

Kids'Congress

2009-05-29T19:46:00.000+12:00

For the last few months some of our senior students, together with Windsor School and CORE Education Ltd have been planning Kids’Congress. This local news clip gives you some insight. Our story starts at around the 4.20 point.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 07:36 AM
Anna Tweedy
The Organising Committee did a fantastic job and I was very proud to see them in action. Everyone I've spoken to about their involvement has been overwhelmed with what they've achieved and the skills they have learnt really are real life skills - they should be very proud!

Sunday, June 7, 2009 - 05:36 PM
Dorothy
Congratulations! This is fantastic publicity for an event which gives opportunity to many kids to SHINE! Looks like it was another good one and I am so disappointed we no longer have the Auckland event for our kids to participate in as it was a highlight of the year for them.
Dorothy
PS Can't comment on this using Firefox! So switched back to Safari. Off to try Google Chrome to see if your blog will allow it...

Sculpture and playground dedication

2009-05-18T21:16:00.000+12:00

Thanks to those who were able to be at school today to dedicate our new junior playground and Te Puna sculpture. Speech text is below.

______________________________________________

Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa

Welcome to our guests, parents, and children.

Today we want to thank everyone who supported our PTA in any way during 2008, every contribution (large or small) from buying a coffee in the morning, to taking part in Stars in your Eyes, and everything in between has lead to the financial ability to construct this wonderful new play area.

It gives us great pleasure to have our senior students running this event today it is THEIR school and it is therefore very appropriate that they take the lead role in thanking those who made this possible and also in gifting this playground to their younger friends.

In addition to this playground we are adding some more soul and spirit to the school’s infrastructure with a sculpture here in front of Te Puna.

The name Waimairi is all about water flowing, and we find this is powerful imagery to use as we help our children understand their journey over six years from Te Puna (the spring) into the stronger, deeper and faster moving waters of the whole school and then out into the wider ocean that is the life after primary school.

This piece of art is a stunning and tangible illustration of the learning journey that Waimairi children undertake. Children need to stretch and reach for personal excellence but they also need to use their strengths and talents as a river current to help carry along those who are younger and those with differing levels of ability.

To finish on the same theme I started on, you can help our PTA head towards their 2009 fundraising targets by staying on for a coffee from coffee shop in the hall straight after this event.

Thank you again for the support you give our learning community.

Sculpture and playground dedication

1 Comment
Monday, May 18, 2009 - 07:18 PM

Jane Hunter
Mike - thank you very much for the incrediably warm welcome and the lovely gesture of afternoon tea for the PTA prior to the playground opening and sculpture unveiling on Friday. It was really appreciated and the PTA certainly felt valued by the community.

Haere Ra

2009-05-07T21:15:00.000+12:00

Today we bid a sad haere ra to Virgil Hills, our kapa haka teacher. She is moving to the North Island.

Virgil has expertly guided our kapa haka group on their pathway to becoming a stunning performance team.

My first encounter with Virgil was shortly before my arrival at Waimairi School. She travelled to North Loburn School to help prepare our children for the powhiri ceremony to ‘hand me over’ to Waimairi. Her teaching talents immediately struck me.

Virgil has made a significant contribution to the bicultural dimension of our school through her work with children and staff. Hei konā rā Whaea Virgil.

Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 03:04 PM
Phoebe
The Kapa Haka group has added a new dimension to Waimairi School and Whaea V was a warm and friendly personality who will be dearly missed. I hope a suitable replacement will be found soon so that the work we have done can continue.

2009-04-27T21:13:00.000+12:00

Term 2 is underway. The school-wide theme this term is Bigger, Faster, Stronger.

To ignite the children’s interest as soon as they set foot in the school gate for the new term we had a collection of big, fast and/or strong toys for them to play with.

Each River and individual class will be putting their own spin on the ‘Bigger, Stronger, Faster theme this term but all focussing on the science strand of the New Zealand Curriculum and the key competency THINKING.

Pictures of our Bigger, Stronger, Faster ignition morning here

Many thanks to

NZ Fire Service, Harewood Station.

Canterbury Car Club Inc.

Fulton Hogan Ltd

for letting us play with your big, strong, and fast toys today.

We have ignition

2 Comments

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 09:05 PM
Dorothy Burt
That sounds likes like so much fun. What a cool school to be part of. Look forward to getting ideas from you as the term unfolds.

Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 10:29 PM
Phoebe
What a great way to start the term. Loads of excitement with the big 'toys' and the new playground and the new markings. Looking forward to seeing the childrens work on 'bigger, faster, stronger'.

The end of term 1

2009-04-08T21:11:00.000+12:00

Well folks, the end of Term 1 is here.

Time for your feedback.

Add your thoughts on any aspect of the term.

Leave your name or stay anonymous.

Your feedback is important.

Parents, students or teachers - let’s hear your voice.

1 Comment

Friday, April 24, 2009 - 07:24 PM
Anonymous
It's been a great term, I think. The river system is working brilliantly. Good job Team Waimairi!
Add a Comment Manage Comments for this Entry

The Hattie Effect

2009-04-08T21:07:00.000+12:00

What would happen if...

A leading New Zealand academic published research that contained findings that could easily be condensed into ‘sound-bites’ that could be used in news headlines?

We would see headlines like these...

Reason to say no to homework.

Study on student success finds teachers’ pay key.

Teaching counts more than class size – study.

Learning study supports pay rise for top teachers.

Pay key to good teaching: expert Reducing class sizes not as important...

Class size does not make a difference.

...and we did, they are actual news headlines from media outlets. They are simplistic headlines that capture the attention of teachers and parents. The risk is that teachers and parents will then start forming opinions and even make decisions based on them.

Before you get swept away in the tornado of opinion why not try reading John Hatties’ book? Form you own opinion based on his work not the news media interpretation of it?

I hope to have a couple of copies available in the parent section of the library early next term or you can use this link to get your own copy.

You might also like to then read this

INVISIBLE LEARNINGS? A commentary on John Hattie’s “Visible Learning:A Synthesis of over 800 Meta- Analyses Relating to Achievement”

Good luck with forming your own opinions - share them here as a comment when you do.

Friday, April 24, 2009 - 07:22 PM
Anonymous
Thanks for this, Mike. It's always good to be provoked. These are clearly challenges for you and the team to manage and it's great to know that we have a principal who is leading this by reading and engaging in the most up to date research.

I would just like to ask, though - do you think we'll see, in our lifetimes, the day when teachers are paid to the level of value they really do add to society? Come on Mike? Gaze into your crystal ball!

Friday, April 24, 2009 - 10:53 PM
Mike
A very interesting question, thanks for posting it. This blog is all about discussion and this is a great example of it happening.

You ask do I "think we'll see, in our lifetimes, the day when teachers are paid to the level of value they really do add to society?"

The perception of value is different for each section of society. I have taught across all sections of society and through different time periods of teachers' pay levels.

When I graduated 18 years ago it took me 4 months to get my first teaching job. So I extended my student job to full time work. When I left my job pumping gas at Shell Bryndwr to teach my first class I had to take a pay cut. Yes, I earned less as a 1st year teacher than I did checking your oil and washing your windscreen.

Then after a few years (and after the only strike primary teachers did in living memory) pay parity with secondary teachers kicked in. Finally we were paid on the basis of our qualifications and efforts rather than the age of the kids we taught.

So now all teachers are paid on that basis it comes down to a perception of value in your own school community.

I have worked in schools where the parent community see teachers wages way above what they earn and are therefore overpaid, and in schools where the parent community way below what they earn and are therefore underpaid.

Woof

2009-03-26T22:02:00.000+13:00

Our very successful ‘walk and wheel’ to school message has seen more and more families making the trip to school a fun family event, involving all family members, even the four-legged ones. If you take your family dog for a walk on the way to school please consider those members of our school community who are not keen on dogs.

Keep your dog on a leash.

Please don’t leave your dog tied up and unattended outside classrooms or on the scooter racks. Some children really do not like dogs and your dog’s unattended presence gives these kids a stressful start to the day.

Also consider the impact of your dog in classrooms, have you asked your child’s teacher how they feel? Some might say no, some might ask for more regular visits – get the communication going and find out.

And… don’t forget your plastic bag, sadly some dog owning parents are leaving the poo behind.

As a dog owner myself I believe that animals at school are a positive presence, if managed well. So please listen to the valid concerns of the non-dog loving members of our school community to keep Waimairi School a happy place for all two and four legged beings.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

PS, Yes the cute dog in the picture is my boy Murphy.

PS, Yes the cute dog in the picture is my boy Murphy.

6 Comments

Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 09:52 PM
Anonymous
Hi Mike

I LOVE DOGS however I am not happy about them being in the school grounds with large groups of children. It is an accident waiting to happen.
Friday, March 27, 2009 - 11:51 AM
Anonymous
I would like to continue to have dogs in the school and I agree with the points you have outlined - I cant believe some have been brought into classrooms without permission and some poos havent been picked up. That is a real shame and reflects badly on the majority of parents that bring dogs into school with no negative impact. I agree that dogs should not be allowed to be tied up unattended either as there is potential for disaster.
Having dogs in the school is a very positive experience for children and parents with children who are nervous around dogs should see this as an opportuntiy to teach your child how to respond appropriately.
As a parent of the school but also as a dog trainer and an educator who runs dog safety programmes in schools and preschools, I have been teaching New Entrants at Waimairi for a few years now as well as the local kindy. I am very proud to say that I observe almost all children at the school responding appropriately to dogs and around the school - asking to pat the dog before approaching, patting it correctly and safely and not being silly around them. Well done!
Having any animals in the school is a wonderful experience for children - dog owners please don't ruin it by not controlling or looking after your dog while at school. It would be a shame to lose this special part of Waimairi culture. Finally, parents of children who dont like dogs - please dont tar and feather all dogs in front of your child. Children respond to the signals you give out - if you appear fearful they will expect that something negative is going to happen. Please see dogs(or any animal) in the school as a wonderful learning experience - a chance for you to help your child overcome a fear.

I am more than happy to assist the school again in teaching safe dog handling practices, advising dog owners/ staff/ parents on appropriate ways of working with dogs, or providing one on one positive experiences with one of my dogs and children wanting to overcome a fear.

Susan Tansey

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 01:03 PM
Phoebe Fulton
I like dogs too although I am currently not a dog owner, and my children love going up to the fence to talk to our neighbours dog. I also know some children who see a dog and take a wide berth, many times with good reason. Most dog owners say their dogs wouldnt hurt anyone and they are probably right although sometimes they jump up at you, and bark or take off when another dog approaches and that is often the time when children are scared. I dont think any child need be subjected to that at school. I think educating the children about dogs and how to behave around them is very beneficial however I would still rather dogs stayed at home or outside the school grounds. I seem to have noticed more dog poo around the school grounds this year than ever before although this probably cant be attributed to the dogs who come in to the school grounds on leads to drop off or collect their 'mates' before and after school.

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 08:49 AM
Maria
I walk to school each day with Doug the Dog as it is my belief that dogs need to be well socialised and are more likely to respond in a positive manner towards children if they are used to them.
The children at Waimaire are polite and generally ask before touching a dog.
Of course all dogs need to be kept on a lead and any doggy doo must be picked up, this is council bylaw as well as good manners. I have only seen well behaved dog owners at the school and agree that animals at school are a positive presence.

Friday, April 24, 2009 - 10:07 PM
Anna
I agree that animals are a positive presence, however I believe this is up to the parents to manage what experiences their children should have with dogs or any other pet.

I for one would rather see dogs outside of the school grounds. A stressful experience in the morning of encountering a dog (for my child) has repercussions for more than just the 2 minute encounter with the actual animal. Such an encounter stays with my child for most of the morning, and disturbs her learning.

Thursday, June 4, 2009 - 04:20 PM
Chris Jenkins
I love to see dogs at school with their families but agree with Mike that dog owners need to be careful of anyone nervous of dogs and keep them on a short leash, pick up mess and not leave them tied up anywhere. If dogs are included in the "Walk to School" outings families are more likely to walk. Dogs are great motivators!!
Having just lost my beautiful Sammy at the ripe old age of 15 I understand how important dogs are to their owners and to exclude them causes stress.

More on creativity

2009-03-22T22:00:00.000+13:00

Last year I featured a movie clip of Sir Ken Robinson on this blog. This clip generated lots of discussion with parents and between our teachers.

I’m grateful to Carol for letting me know that Ken Robinson was interviewed on National Radio on Friday. Here is the link to the podcast of that interview.

Have a listen and share your thoughts.

Dads in the rain

2009-03-22T21:56:00.000+13:00

Ten Waimairi dads kindly gave their time on Sunday morning to dismantle the junior playground. Some parts are heading away to be reconditioned before Playco use them as part of the new playground.

Thanks to the team of dads who turned up on a rainy morning to get stuck in with tools, shovels and of course... a digger (we need big toys to play with when we get together). Your help is really appreciated and I hope you enjoyed getting home into dry clothes as much as I did. Big thanks to Michael Fulton for organising the event.

View pictures of the working bee

Parent education night

2009-03-16T21:55:00.000+13:00

Due to a date clash with part of our Education Review Office visit we have had to postpone our planned parents’ literacy learning information evening.

We will be running this event next term. Stay tuned for a new date and time.

Junior class sizes

2009-03-16T21:53:00.000+13:00

Class sizes in the junior school.

Unexpected roll growth has lifted junior class numbers higher than we would like them to be. We would like to act quickly to address this issue. This letter is to inform you about how we intend to meet the needs of children in our NE/Year 1/Year 2 classes. (Rms 3,5,6,10,14 and 20) NB this will not include any children from Rm 1.

Our Board of Trustees is supporting us by resourcing a new Year 1/2 class. This class will be taught by Delwyn McGrath and be based in Room 4 and will be part of the Hurunui River team for the rest of this year.

Mrs McGrath will be teaching this group of children in the mornings from week 8 of this term (23 March) to lower numbers in all Year 1 and 2 classes at literacy and numeracy time. She will commence full time teaching of this new class in term 2.

We will be putting together the new Room 4 as a well balanced, functioning class with the same range of abilities and needs found in any other room.

Teachers will be contacting families of children being considered for the new Room 4. You will have a choice, we will not move children from their current rooms against your wishes.

The Year 1 and 2 team are meeting on Monday afternoon to consider the composition of Room 4 and will be in contact with you if applicable.

As in previous years another two junior classes will be established, one around Queens Birthday weekend and another as new entrant numbers demand it later in the year.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact us at any time.

2009-03-10T21:52:00.000+13:00

News from the Christchurch Avon Athletics Club (CHAV) of great achievement by past and present Waimairi students.

Following last weekend’s Canterbury Champs met at QEII Goiteom Gebremedihin and Laura Clarke have been chosen (along with approx 70 other athletes) to represent Canterbury at this weekends triangular meet in Dunedin against Otago / Southland / Canterbury. Ex Waimairi students also going are: Charlotte Hadfield and Rebecca Gillett.

This Friday night at the International Track Meet at QEII, CHAV was approached to enter relay teams. Ella-Rose Tanoa-Kell and Laura Clarke are running for 8yr girls in this event which their team won at Canterbury Champs.

Thanks to the Clarke family for this update. If you know about any Waimairi success make sure you let us know so we can all celebrate the achievement.

1 Comment Manage Comments for this Entry
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 01:19 PM
Anonymous
Go Goiteom! I hope you get over that broken arm injury soon because we need you in the school team. Drink lots of milk to make that bone strong...

Reporting to parents

2009-02-26T22:49:00.000+13:00

I would like to introduce teachers Adie Bonisch and Robert Naysmith who are leading our curriculum development in 2009 and running this email discussion group.

They will be facilitating this email reference group, don't forget to tell any interested friends you have to email them Adie.Bonisch@waimairi.school.nz or Robert.Naysmith@waimairi.school.nz to join the group.

And while we are consulting don’t forget this term’s policy review feedback details here.

Let the discussion begin.......

Regards

Mike

Developing the New Waimairi School Curriculum

Thanks you to those who have volunteered to be involved with this working group.

Your contribution will help further clarify findings from the survey completed by many families last year.

Join the email group or add a comment to this blog entry.

Question 1

Reporting to Parents:

This is an area that our survey indicated needs change.

Questions to consider and comment on.

What do you value about reporting?

What areas of reporting are important to you? Social, academic? Why?

We report verbally and in written form. Which do you find valuable/prefer and why?

Do you find the reporting methods currently used in different areas of the school beneficial, confusing?

Please answer as you wish, these questions are just to get you thinking.

The information below explains where we are up to as a school with the New Curriculum and community consultation.

Where we are at with the new curriculum and community consultation.

At the end of last year the consultation process began in order to reach shared ideas about the school and where it should be heading. The response was fantastic and has helped us with our thinking. To start with staff have used this information to help form shared values and beliefs about education. The new New Zealand curriculum allows schools to focus on areas that are valued by them and the community, and to enhance these areas to improve outcomes/learning for children.

To begin the 2009 year all staff went to Wainui YMCA camp for two days to start the process of defining our core shared values and beliefs about education. We started to define what was important to us as a school and community, and what we value and want for our children. From this we will develop programmes and practices where our values and beliefs are the driving force. These values and beliefs are being defined at present and will be shared with the community shortly.

Throughout this year staff will be working to develop our new ‘Waimairi School’ Curriculum, which will reflect the staff and communities values and beliefs on education. A representative working group of parents (you) has been formed to help clarify some details as we move forward. Specific points raised throughout the survey will be addressed through this process. With your help we are now able to continue to develop our fantastic school.

Thanks

Robert Naysmith and Adie Bonisch

(Curriculum Development Team)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 07:57 AM
Rob & Adie
What do you value about reporting?

I like to get the end of year written report. I would prefer to get it in Term 4. In it I would like to see where my child is placed on the scale when they entered the class(after the testing in the first few weeks) and where they are at the end of the year. (For example...At term 1 xx is a Year 5 working at Level 3 and got 82/100 in the ?Test but at the end of year she got 99/100. This places her in the top 3 % of her age group). I would assume that testing would happen far more regularly than twice a year so that at any time a parent could ask this question and an answer given. I like to see evidence of the improvement they have made over the year both nationally and individually.

If there is an emphasis on the 'Two Key Goals' then I would like to see evidence by way of reference to that goal being achieved or not, so that two more goals can be set next year.

Update on childs progress (skills acheived and challenges that need addressing),
chance to discuss one on one with the teacher,
in the case of a written report a tangible update that can be shared with extended family and absentee parent,

What areas of reporting are important to you? Social,academic why?

First and foremost I want to see academic improvements in the school report so that I am able to see which things we can work on and a general direction for the next year. Then I want to see how my child is adding value to the class by behaviour, socialisation and positive participation in all aspects of school life. I'm not particularly interested in reading a teacher comment about their helpfulness,ability to keep the classroom clean and tidy and their willingness to help others(again) without first concentrating on their academic abilities.

Both although we celebrate and reward (special family dinner) the achievements in the social; side of the report rather than the academic as I believe this is the aspect of schooling that a child can control along with effort. While academic achievement is so different for every child largely based on what they have been gifted or not gifted with. I see academic reports as an update for me on progress.

We report verbally and in written form. Which do you find valuable/prefer and why?

I prefer the written end of year report but I can see value in having a verbal report/ parent meeting around the end of term 2, start of term 3 so that any problems or concerns can be acted upon before the end of the year.

I value both

Verbal, it is great to be one to one and have the option to ask questions.

Written, important to have a written update for the year and I like getting it in term 3 when there is still time to address any issues that may come to light rather the end of term 4 when the yr is done and dusted.

Do you find the reporting methods currently used in different areas of the school beneficial, confusing?

I do not like the A4 Topic and Term reports sent home at various times. This information should be on the one report at the end of the year. It is very messy to have several bits of paper to keep track of rather than one report.

I prefer the report issued to the senior part of the school and to be honest can barely remember the junior school one but at the time I thought it covered enough depth for the level.

General thoughts

I like being able to bring my child with me to interviews
I do like the annual report cards however based on feedback from others wonder if a how to read guide as the document is complicated .. what do parents from other parts of the community say …
I like getting the report at the end term3 or beginning term 4
I would like to know what my child needs to do to move onto the next step In learning

My children have always been informative about their school days so I usually know when testing and PAT’s etc have been carried out and usually make time to touch base with the teacher re the results.

Meet the teachers

2009-02-19T22:47:00.000+13:00

It was great to see so many of you at the meet the teacher evening this week. Please see this evening of the beginning of contact and conversation between you and your children’s teachers.

Those who stayed for Alison’s Shroeder’s workshop were treated to some excellent insights into child behaviour and positive ways of dealing with some of the more frustrational aspects of parenting. Alison has provided her handout notes for you, collect a copy from Sue in the office.

5 Comments
Monday, March 2, 2009 - 08:44 PM
Anonymous
Hi everyone

Alison's workshop was brilliant. Really well run, and something for everyone in it. Is there any chance of the powerpoint being posted here?

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - 09:08 AM
Mike
Good suggestion. I have contacted Alison to see if this is possible

Monday, March 16, 2009 - 02:15 PM
deborahc
Ditto above. Would like to be able to download the notes, etc. from here. Also, interesting to note how many parents were there, is this indicative of the size of the 'problem' (i.e. planning, organising, learning difficulties, etc.)?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 11:20 AM
Mike
Alison has kindly agreed and will be providing the notes as a download soon.
We had around 60 people present for Alison's workshop.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 01:07 PM
POWERPOINT NOW AVAILABLE
You can now download a copy of Alison's slides from the "Info' Central" page of our school website www.waimairi.school.nz . Many thanks Alison for making these available

A levels playing field

2009-02-19T22:45:00.000+13:00

If my child is a Year 4 student and in a Year 3 & 4 class how on earth can his teacher cover his Year 4 work and also teach the Year 3 kids their Year 3 work?

A common question with a fairly straightforward answer. There is no Year 3 curriculum, Year 6 curriculum or Year 1 curriculum for that matter.

During their time at primary school children work towards attaining skills and knowledge at three levels of achievement. By the end of Year 2 we are looking for attainment at level 1, by the end of Year 4 attainment at level 2 and by the end of Year 6 attainment at level 3. You can see from the chart above that it is a two-year journey for most children between levels.

Most children in Year 1/2 and 3/4 and 5/6 are working at the towards the same level. This is why we take advantage of composite classes to allow us to group children who will work best together. There are, of course, children who develop much faster or much slower. This is why we group classes together in vertical teams, tribes or rivers. With synchronised timetables within a team containing all age groups children can work with the teacher and children, at certain times of the day, best matching their needs in key subject areas such as maths, reading and writing. During the next few months some of our teachers will begin trialling this new flexibility with groups of children.

New Junior Playground

2009-02-13T22:44:00.000+13:00

Thanks to our PTA, with support from the Eureka Trust, we plan to start construction of a brand new playground specially designed for our smallest students. This project, costing in excess of $50,000.00 is a stunning example of the parent power harnessed by our PTA. Thanks to not just the PTA committee but to all of you who have attended events or bought fundraising products, your money is being put to a very good use.

At this stage construction is planned for the April holidays.

Working on our school

2009-02-13T22:42:00.000+13:00

Businesses often stagnate or even fail because those involved spend most of their time working ‘in’ their business rather than working ‘on’ their business. At times the same can be said of schools. At the end of January almost all of our 48 staff spent two days at Wainui on Banks Peninsular working ‘on’ our school.

The mission was to work out exactly what we value and believe about learning, teaching and working at Waimairi School. Our new school curriculum, our policy documents, our rules and procedures and our daily interactions with children and parents need to be based on a common and agreed set of values and beliefs to make sure everyone is working to realise our shared vision for the school.

It takes a long time, and will always be an evolving process but thank to parent input, the staff and Board are now forming our School Charter for 2009 - 2011. This public document will contain:

Who we are - information about the school, its community, history, location, etc.

The school vision

How the Board will recognise New Zealand’s cultural diversity and, in particular, how i will provide learning opportunities in Tikanga Mäori and Te Reo Mäori.

A strategic planning section that sets out the Board’s objectives for student achievement for the next 3 to 5 years and the ways in which the Board intends to achieve those objectives.

The expectations set out in this section will reflect the Board’s decisions as to how it intends to meet the aspirations of the school’s community, and how it intends to contribute to the achievement of national education priorities.

This section will also contain or refer to:

the Board’s longer-term curriculum development and implementation priorities;

the Board’s 3 to 5 year financial objectives, including how the Board will monitor and control Board expenditure in a prudent fashion and how it will meet its financial reporting and auditing responsibilities.

the Board’s plan for providing a safe and healthy learning environment, including either a copy of or summary of the school’s 10 year property plan.

The Charter must also include an annual plan that will need to be updated each year.

In this section the Board will set out the short-term priorities and targets for improving student achievement, which it has set for the coming year, to make progress towards its strategic objectives. This must detail how the Board intends to achieve those outcomes.

In this section the Board will also describe or refer to:

its capital improvement and maintenance projects for the forthcoming year including all significant expenditure items;

its plans for personnel development, performance management, and meeting EEO obligations;

its financial plans which show how resources will be allocated to achieve improved student outcomes; and

the school’s annual budgeted financial statements;

its health and safety strategies for staff and students;

how the Board intends to implement and integrate programmes for which the school may have been granted special support or additional resources.

The Board will also use the Charter to communicate:

Its proposed processes and timelines for consultation with the school’s community including the Mäori community (as required in the NAGs).

Enjoy the holiday

2008-12-22T22:41:00.000+13:00

School is closed for the summer.

Have a safe and happy break.

School opens again on Monday 2 February.

We kick off the 2009 school year TOGETHER as a school community on

Monday 2nd February.

We are starting the new year with a

COMMUNITY BREAKFAST

Mums, Dads, Grandparents and friends come on down to school from 8:15 am. Bring your own sausages, bacon, eggs or cereals or what ever you use to fuel your day. Cook yourself up a breakfast to give you energy for the new school year.

There will be BBQs provided for your use.

A great time to meet your new class teachers, classmates and fellow parents.

The children will head off to their new classes around 9:00 am.

Sounds like Christmas

2008-12-11T22:33:00.000+13:00

What a thrill to see our Junior Choir bringing the Christmas spirit to the residents of nearby Windermere Rest Home.

1 Comment
Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 10:29 PM
Anonymous
I managed to see this performance and it was wonderful. The older people certainly enjoyed it and were singing and moving with the music too. Well done Mr Naysmith and the choir.

Great donation

2008-12-10T22:40:00.000+13:00

A huge thank you to Tessa Fulton and her family for donating a fabulous, brand new, Karina guitar for our wonderful Kapa Haka group to use. It came complete with an awesome strap and bag and sounds fantastic. Kapa Haka will continue to go from strength to strength, and the kids will sound great accompanied with this guitar.

Friday, December 12, 2008 - 01:00 PM
Anonymous
Great work Fulton Family

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 01:41 PM
Anonymous
The development of the Kapa Haka group has been a huge addition to Waimairi's Music/Performing Arts focus this year. We've always been strong in the western bits, but at last we have a visible sign and activity around our commitment to a bicultural universe. And the children LOVE it! Well done Waimairi. Kia Kaha!

2008-12-10T22:39:00.000+13:00

Thanks to those of you who attended tonight’s parent info evening about our 2009 plans.

I acknowledge that the timing of the meeting did not suit some of you so the notes and handouts are reproduced for you here. There was a great suggestion from the floor to video future information meetings and stream them on this website to involve as many parents as possible.

Download 1 - 2009 School Map

Download 2 - 2009 Teacher and team groups

Presentation slides and notes

Since October parent meetings
1.

•Thank you for verbal and written feedback
2.

•Ten A4 pages when all feedback collated together
3.

•Big Plus, Minus and Interesting analysis of feedback
4.

•Widespread support for grouping teams of classes in multi-age teams.
5.

•Strong levels of trust in the educational expertise of our staff.
6.

•Support for initiatives that build long lasting relationships between the teachers and the learners.
7.

•A need for the staff to address ‘social issues’ that might be caused by same age classes not being next to each other.
8.

•A need for flexibility in class placement EVERY year.
9.

•A need for detail of organisation to be shared with parents as soon as it is available.
2.

We are well planned
1.

•A new planning format has been developed for the WHOLE learning community.
2.

•Clear and inter-related purpose and focus for learning for WHOLE year for ALL learners (children, teachers, parents, BOT).
3.

•Maximising open doors between rooms to meet academic rather than ‘year group’ needs.
3.

Addressing issues
1.

•Management Unit for student socialisation. A paid management position has been created to make sure all children’s social needs are met at morning tea and lunch breaks.
2.

•Careful planning for student welfare is being done within teams
3.

•Management team expertise. Mike, Carol and Nicki are very experienced school managers and are passionate about doing the best for your children. The plans for 2009 did not come just about because we saw some ideas on our North Island tour. They are the product of our combined leadership experience
4.

You are part of this learning community

1.
1.

• To resolve an issue talk to us as well as each other.
2.

•We are partners in learning - ALWAYS.
3.

•Your attitude to your school impacts on your child’s attitude. Negative conversations about school or teachers have a big influence on your child’s attitude at school. Leave it until the kids have gone to bed.
2.

We are
1.

•Committed to a vibrant, quality learning community.
2.

•Always looking for ways to improve.
3.

•Informed by knowledge of ‘best practice’ and current research.

Waimairi Legend

2008-12-08T22:36:00.000+13:00

We are all proud of Room 16 teacher Martin Lukes.

Picture: Martin Lukes, of Christchurch, climbing Mt Luxmore on his way to his second consecutive win in the Kepler Challenge mountain run in Southland.

Lukes retains Kepler Challenge title

By NATHAN BURDON in Te Anau - The Southland Times | Saturday, 06 December 2008

Christchurch’s Martin Lukes successfully defended his Kepler Challenge mountain running title in Te Anau today.

Lukes ran past Sam Wrefford, from Timaru, over the final kilometres of the 60km race along the Kepler Track as both runners battled cramp and fatigue. He finished in 4hr 56min, seven minutes ahead of Wrefford.

It was a deserved victory for Lukes, who had finished runner-up in four of his previous five attempts before his breakthrough win last year and who had been troubled by a serious calf muscle injury suffered in August.

Wrefford, who is mainly a 5km and 10km competitor, admitted the step up to the ultra-distance had taken its toll.

Last year’s women’s winner Chigaya Mase, of Japan, again shone to comfortably defend her title.

In the 27km Luxmore Grunt event, Phil Costley was a convincing winner.

The Christchurch runner holds the race record in the full Kepler Challenge after winning the event in 2005, but injury saw him enter the shorter Grunt this year.

He began the race with the record of 1hr 54min, held since 1994 by Andrew Town, firmly in his mind and came home 2min inside the mark to become the first person to hold both the Challenge and Grunt records at the same time.

Invercargill’s Debbie Rankin won the women’s section of the Grunt in 2hr 27min.

About 550 competitors, including 100 overseas runners, took part over the two races in an event, which is become firmly established as one of the premier mountain-running events in New Zealand.

Read more media reports of his success here

http://www.odt.co.nz/sport/athletics/35056/athletics-lukes-repeats-kepler-challenge-win

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4785373a6429.html

Info Central

2008-12-04T22:35:00.000+13:00

We hope to see as many parents as possible on Wednesday 10 December at 6:00 pm so we can share with you details of class layouts, learning programmes and answer any questions you have about Waimairi ’09.

We will be sending 2009 class placements home on Thursday 11 December.

...and what about the survey?

Thanks to the many families who completed our curriculum survey. The results have been collated and are due to be presented to the Board of Trustees (BOT) at the next BOT meeting on Monday 15th December. The BOT will then be in a position to give the school management and staff a clear set of direction and expectation statements to take to the two day staff retreat in January. The retreat is the start of the formal Waimairi Curriculum development programme for 2009. Collated survey results will be sent home in the week of the 15th and will also be made available on the website at that time.

Those of you who were at the community curriculum workshop and have asked to be part of the email reference group will also be engaged on discussions on the survey results soon after the BOT meeting on December 15th. If you would like to join this reference group simply email me principal@waimairi.school.nz to join the mailing list.

What we say and what we do

2008-12-01T22:30:00.000+13:00

Every single Waimairi School parent would say that the safety of children is paramount in their thoughts and actions. If you saw a loose nail on the adventure playground, an adult acting suspiciously near the school or a frayed electrical cord in a classroom you would be straight on the phone, email or into the office to see me directly. All parents value child safety.

But there is a real, identified and repeated risk to the precious children of our school that is created by the very people who care the most about child safety, parents.

By driving your car into Tillman Avenue to drop off and collect children you are increasing the risk of harm to children. Do your actions match your concerns for child safety?

It is my job as Principal to conduct risk assessments and address any realistic risks to our children. I do this for the adventure playground, our fire alarms, our electrical equipment, the loose mats and carpets in the classrooms but the biggest and most realistic danger our children face at the moment is moving vehicles in the area of Tillman Avenue.

As the Christmas season approaches I am asking you all a blunt (and perhaps controversial) question. “What will you say to the Coroner's Court when you are asked to account for the death of a child?”

“I didn’t want to walk for 5 minutes so that is why I was turning my car around at the end of Tillman Ave at the very moment 400 children were swarming around it as they left the school”

“I don’t have time to walk to school to get my kids”

“I had a reason to be maneuvering a car amongst 5 year olds who can’t be seen over my bonnet”

PLEASE stop the Tillman Ave traffic chaos before our school is blighted by tragedy.

The staff are going to do their part by not moving vehicles in the area between 3:00 and 3:15 pm. What will you do?

The risk assessment has been done, the risk is real, please help mitigate it. Looking forward to your comments (and actions).

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - 02:01 PM
Anonymous
Now to get computerphobes like me to check into you blogsite regularly. This message needs more prominence! Good on you and your staff for putting our Waimairi children FIRST.
Jackie Pithie

Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 10:32 PM
Anonymous
Totally agree. Is it not possible to get the City Council to have a no parking zone between the hours of 8.30 - 9.00 amd 3.00 - 3.15?

Susan Tansey

What is different and why?

2008-11-28T22:27:00.000+13:00

This extract from the MoE website is a very clear explanation of the shifts in focus in the revised NZ Curriculum and offers an insight into why we are running parent curriculum workshops and community surveys at this time.

What’s different?

The New Zealand Curriculum aims to support today’s students to learn in a way that will prepare them for the world of tomorrow.

It:

* includes a set of common values

* places more emphasis on themes relevant to today’s society

* contains five key competencies for students

* raises the profile and status of learning a second language

* raises the profile and status of statistics within mathematics

* makes the Treaty of Waitangi explicit in the overview, purpose, principles and values

* recognises the need for schools to work closely with communities to design relevant learning programmes.

The curriculum also provides greater clarity for teachers, students and trustees by providing clear and simple statements about priorities, expectations and outcomes for each learning area. It also details the type of teaching that brings out the best in students.

It recognises English, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language as official languages. These may be studied as first or additional languages, or used as the medium of instruction.

There are two partner documents in the new curriculum: The New Zealand Curriculum for English-medium teaching and learning, and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa for Māori-medium teaching and learning.

Why?

In 2002, the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Stocktake Report identified that while many students were achieving at world-class levels, there are disparities among some groups.

The new curriculum contributes towards all students having a strong foundation for learning, high levels of achievement, and a lifelong engagement in learning. It encourages schools to put personalising learning into practice and support the aims of the government for students to stay at school longer, and attain higher levels of achievement.

What does the New Zealand Curriculum consist of?

There are two partner documents: The New Zealand Curriculum for English-medium teaching and learning, and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa for Māori-medium teaching and learning. This reflects the partnership embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi.

The New Zealand Curriculum includes and explains:

* the vision for young people who are confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners.

* the principles that guided the curriculum’s development: high expectations, Treaty of Waitangi, cultural diversity, inclusion, learning to learn, community engagement, coherence and future focus.

* the values that will be developed and modelled through teaching and learning: excellence; innovation, enquiry, and curiosity; diversity; equity; community and participation; ecological sustainability; integrity and respect.

* the key competencies – the capabilities people need in order to live, learn, work, and contribute as active members of their communities. They are: managing self; relating to others; participating and contributing; thinking; and using language, symbols, and texts.

* the eight learning areas: social sciences; arts; technology; science; mathematics and statistics; health and physical education; English; and learning languages. The new curriculum explains the rationale and the structure of each of these learning areas.

* effective pedagogy, reinforcing the importance of effective teaching and learning and providing guidance for teachers.

* the designing and planning sections to provide guidance to schools on working with their communities to design and implement the curriculum, to plan for clear learning objectives and to assess for learning. Schools are advised on how to incorporate significant themes such as sustainability, citizenship, enterprise, globalisation, and financial literacy into their teaching programmes.

Farewells and Welcomes

2008-11-22T22:29:00.000+13:00

The end of every school year sees staffing changes.

This year we are bidding a fond farewell to Jo Anderson who is retiring from her job as librarian and to teachers Rob Stent and Pete Johnson.

There will be opportunities for the staff and community to thank these people for their contributions to our school. Keep an eye on the newsletters and this blog.

In 2009 we welcome to the teaching staff Kate Webster and Libby Jackson.

What are these teachers doing?

2008-11-20T22:25:00.000+13:00

This is a shot of one of the meetings we have to make sure we put together the best possible class compositions for 2009. What you can’t see in this shot is that every child in the school is represented by a strip of paper. On each strip is their name, academic details, social and emotional considerations, parental requests and comments, special needs notes, gifted & talented notes, english language needs and any other specific considerations.

The large sheets of paper represent each class, we spend hours putting together the best match between teachers and other children.

We still have at least another week of work to do on this project but you will know your child’s 2009 class before the end of term.

Surfing Sam Sands

2008-11-19T22:21:00.000+13:00

Great news, Samuel Sands won 2nd place in the under 12 section of the 2008 South Island Grommet Series. A great achievement Sam. I am sure you can make him out if you look closely at the picture.

Thursday, November 27, 2008 - 10:11 AM
Anonymous
We are very proud of you Sam! Is that you surfing in the picture?

From Room 15

Lunch Music

2008-11-14T22:19:00.000+13:00

Some of our senior students entertained the lunchtime crowd at school this week. They were busking to raise money for planting in the area of garden they have adopted near their classroom .

A great combination of their musical skills, enterprising attitude and care for our school environment. Well done team.

The Engine Room

2008-11-06T22:16:00.000+13:00

Today the 2009 junior teaching team (picture above) welcomed a large group of new Waimairi parents. Our orientation meeting was for parents of children who are starting school in the next few months. Carol, Liz, Lynley and Adie are talented and dedicated teachers who are the engine room of our school. If this team doesn’t get it right the rest of us are at a considerable disadvantage.

The parents who attended the orientation meeting were given the essential information on the transition to school and a taste of the passion we have for teaching. We love our jobs and regard educating your children as a genuine privilege.

Also worthy of mention are the 11 Year 6 students who acted as tour guides for our new parents. You were excellent examples of the attributes we seek to build in all of our students. The parents you guided around the school thought you were amazing.

So, welcome new parents. We are looking forward to a great partnership over the next six years.

Regards

Mike