Family Fun

What an absolutely brilliant night we had last Thursday evening at Jellie Park Aqualand.

After a really iffy start to the day (drizzle, cloudy) we made the decision to go ahead with it rather than cancelling. That was certainly the right decision to make as we had nearly 250 Wairakei School family members turn up and enjoy the facilities. There were great whoops of laughter as children (and adults) whizzed down the hydroslides and children were showing off their aquatic skills in the main pool.

A huge thank you to Nadia, Jenni, Tira & Kevin & Maria for cooking the sausages. These were certainly in high demand!

I would certainly like to pass on a huge thankyou to all of you who were able to come along. It was a great success, and I really couldn’t stop grinning and feeling so happy about our absolutely brilliant school!

I am really looking forward to our family picnic at Omaka on Sunday, 28 February from 11:00am.

National Standards

As children returned to school last week a major reform of education was launched. It was the New Zealand Curriculum, the result of years of careful development, consultation and training. It is a unique document to bring New Zealand education into the 21^st century. Teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees are excited about its potential. The launch of the new curriculum has of course been completely overshadowed by the introduction of National Standards however. There is obviously quite a bit of debate on either side about the use of standards in primary schools and there will be quite a lot of debate still to be had on the subject. Here at Wairakei we have taken a “get on with it” approach to national standards and will introduce them within our current assessment and reporting practices.

We already have quality assessment and reporting practices in the school, but there will be some small changes that you will notice during the year in what we report on and how we report progress and achievement. We will be introducing a mid year written report in literacy and numeracy. Parents will probably not notice huge differences as we at Wairakei have always tried to give parents a clear picture of where children are at, what they need to work on and what we all will be doing about it. We all want to know how our children are achieving against a standard and to have that information reported in plain language.

The main concern really is that if the media use the data from schools to make league tables, this would not be beneficial to learning.

I am especially pleased with how we do have that family feel about us which means that we work together as one unit to ensure that progress is made for each and every individual child.

Please watch the YouTube video from John Key to form your own opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUmzoDBg6EU

Fitness and Healthy Living

All children in the school are having baseline fitness testing done this week and we are having targeted daily fitness at school with resourcing from an outside physical education provider. (Kelly Sports) www.kellysports.co.nz

As part of the Ministry of Education’s extra funding to schools (Kiwisport initiative), all schools have to use the funds to support increased physical activity for all children.

Last year, one of the observations made was that of the general stamina and fitness levels shown by the children in sports activities. This is very similar to that of the whole of NZ, hence the reason why this initiative has been introduced by the Government.

One of our school targets for the Year 3 – 6 levels is going to be “to observe an increased level of fitness for all children”. To what extent the increase will be is determined from the baseline data and then making targets in order to report against. These targets will be set in accordance with guidelines from benchmarks set for like children across New Zealand. Please feel free to have a look at the Kelly Sports website to see what their philosophy is and see some of the programmes they offer to school age children.

As you will be aware, an active and healthy body makes for an active and healthy mind!

School Gardens

What an awesome activity for children to be involved in at school. Our school garden has had a great workout at the end of the year, and has produced an abundance of produce. I am aware of some local families who have been in and made good use of the garden, picking the variety of vegetables available. Carrots, Lettuces, Spring Onions, Potatoes, Tomatoes have all been ready over the break. The blackcurrants are prolific producers and will be used in a variety of ways I am sure.

Thanks to Peter Fletcher Transport who provided a hiab to relocate a shed for us to use as our garden shed. This was a must as it houses all the tools the children use for the garden.

I absolutely love seeing the children in the garden both in their own time and also during their class lessons. As part of this, we hope to develop an outside classroom using the straw bales, and a potting area where children are able to prepare seedlings etc.

I love seeing the positive interactions happening between the children. I can see children making meaningful connections with each other and cognitively, thinking about the journey from seed to plate.

There is a real place for school gardens in the everyday school programme.

Keep smiling!

Day One Done ... and all's well!

Having just emerged from yet another fruitful staff meeting, I have been able to reflect on the day and what I have heard during the "day one debrief session".

Our school is "absolutely brilliant"!

The children have begun well and I have seen and heard that all the new students have been made welcome by both actions and words.

As I went through the classrooms before school today, I had to comment to each and every teacher on how awesome their classroom environments looked. First impressions do mean a great deal - to both the children and their parents!

During the morning, I handed out the new "Wairakei School - Absolutely Brilliant" silicone wristbands. These are for both identification when out and about and as a positive identifier with a great affirmation of who we belong to.

Tomorrow is going to be great!

Keep smiling

School Year prep

Yesterday, a large number of our absolutely brilliant teaching staff attended a workshop given by Sheena Cameron on Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies. At this workshop, Sheena went through the strategies we need to teach children to develop comprehension. Her new book is an extremely useful resource with an accompanying CD with pdf resources able to be used in the classroom programme.

More information can be found about Sheena at her website which has useful resources to download. http://sheenacameron.co.nz/

Keep smiling!

Start of 2010 school year

What an amazing start I (we) have already had. Last week, all the teaching staff attended the Teachers Matter conference here in Christchurch.

What a great way to start the year. There were many workshops to choose from and awesome keynote speakers.

One of the workshops I attended was given on Transformational Leadership by Mike Handcock http://www.rockyourlife.net/. He talked of the seven senses, how making each decision has an effect on what happens, and making the most of others and their abilities in the workplace for the better of the workplace.

As an inspirational speaker on cultural change and personal development, Ngahihi-o-te-Ra Bidois was again personally inspirational and motivating. His website http://www.ngahibidois.com/ gives insight as to what he talks about. Take time to listen to the Flash movie on the home page.

Obviously, there were a number of other speakers which spoke on a miscellany of things relevant to teaching and learning today for today's children. I had heard Glen Capelli (http://www.glenncapelli.com/ ) and David Koutsoukis (http://www.davidkoutsoukisltd.com/) speak at this time last year, but what they say and how they say it is always relevant and timely.

I have an absolutely brilliant team working with me here at Wairakei School. The year is going to be a great one.