Growing School Leaders

Having spent some time reading over the applications from our Year 6 children who wish to become Student Leaders, it reinforces to me the very Values and Principles we have here at Wairakei School.

Each child on the application form, has to give three reasons why they would like to be a student leader. The children all talk in their applications about the need to work hard, to think , to apply their knowledge or skills to tasks, and to respect others – children and adults! These children are role models in our school for others.

There is also an endorsement of the qualities described by each person given by the teacher and the parents. This partnership is of great importance and is certainly a meaningful connection between home and school.

I look forward to seeing the successful applicants grow in leadership throughout the year and to represent our school well at all times.

Swimming Sports

What a great morning we had at the Jellie Park Aquatic Centre.

The Wairere and Purua Learning Teams had their Swimming Sports this morning. I must congratulate Mike Lynch on his absolutely brilliant organisation of the event. The team all worked in unison to make the morning seem effortless!

The children were great, producing excellent results while showing off their abilities in both swimmer and non-swimmer events. The can do attitude shown by all children was yet another testament to the staff at Wairakei - the way they encourage children to achieve in anything they do.

I can't wait to be part of the Otakaro Learning Team's Swimming Fun Day.

Personal Commentary

Lots of people are aware of my non-pc attitude towards the "everyone's a winner" mentality that crept in to New Zealand society. Children who are good at something should actually relish in the fact that they are good at it and others should also share in that celebration!

We had a great number of children who are good at swimming on show today. They may be natural swimmers, or have parents who are able to get them to swimming lessons. Good on these children for being good at swimming!

There were also some children who were non-swimmers who took part. I was so proud of their achievements. One child came up to me after he had finished just half way across the pool in a non-swimmer event. He was so excited that this was the best he had ever done. He wanted to share this milestone with me. He was proud of his own achievement. He doesn't need a certificate to say he "participated" in the swimming sports. He did more than participate! He achieved a PB!!!! We high-fived!!!!

Sometimes by giving out these PC awards (Participation Certificates), we are actually belittling the personal achievements of those we think we are making feel better.

Creative and vibrant Learning Environments

Wairakei School certainly prides itself on the way we present our classrooms and other learning spaces. Each term, classes are given an area in which to display some artwork created by the children. I have enjoyed visiting the classrooms during both the motivation and the practical sessions where children have opportunity to practise their skills and then produce their final artwork to a level they are happy with.

Many different artworks are displayed and this comes from a variety of motivation tools used to encourage children in their artistic awareness. The teachers had used actual artworks, slideshows on the data projectors, tactile objects and works around the school for the motivators. What you get from this awesome planning, is awesome artwork.

Well done to all the children and all the teaching staff.

You are all absolutely brilliant!

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!