School Newsletter – 29 June 2021

Term 2, Week 9 — School news

A Message from the Principal

Te Rōpū Pourewa – Community of Learning

Kohimarama School is part of Te Rōpū Pourewa CoL – Community of Learning along with local schools, Orakei, St Thomas’s, Stonefields and Selwyn College.

A CoLor Kāhui Ako is a group of education providers who form around learning pathways and working together to achieve students’ full potential.

Our CoL has a set of Achievement Challenges that we are engaged in to extend our learners.

These include:

• Lifting mathematics achievement for Year 6-8 students
• Lift writing achievement for Year 1-8 students
• Lift learning levels for students identified as requiring additional support
• Improving levels for Maori learners

Equity of Self-Efficacy Update

Te Rōpū Pourewa primary kura have been collecting and analysing the responses from the Agency Self Perception (ASP) tool since 2018.  The vast number of responses we have collected during this time has allowed us to identify and respond to trends and correlations.  A key achievement challenge that emerged from this analysis was to increase the equity of self-efficacy between our ethnicities, particularly for Māori.  After our baseline ASP survey in Term 1, the analysis showed that learners from all ethnicities were responding at a similar level.  We are excited to see this equity for the first time and are looking for how we can maintain this level going forward.  We will also be conducting a mid-year survey to ensure that we are still on track, and to give ourselves time to respond appropriately.

Pedagogical Practice

The Pedagogical Practice Working Group (PPWG) convenes twice a term to discuss our initiatives that aim to increase learner agency, develop teacher’s ability to design rich learning experiences and increase the level of equity for all akonga.  With the help of Jana Benson as our key facilitator, we have developed a number of tools and models over the last few years, including the Agency Self Perception (ASP) tool and the Rich Learning Opportunity (RLO) model.  This year the PPWG have developed these further and shared them wider across the Kāhui Ako.  Many teachers are using the ASP tool as a way to inquire into the effectiveness of their learning design and a growing number of teachers are becoming more familiar with the RLO model.  In order to ensure these tools and models are culturally responsive, the PPWG will be co-facilitated by Rosalie Reiri from CORE Education. Rosalie has a rich and broad background in supporting kura on their journey towards becoming culturally responsive

Professional Learning Group

Our Professional Learning Group (PLG) comes together twice a term. The goals of this group are twofold. The first instance is to share Insight Stories, which have been called Inquiries in the past. These reflect the needs we have identified in our learning spaces, the work done to address these needs and results that have come from this. 

Our second part is increasing our coaching capacity. The intention here is to use our coaching practice to support the work being done on our Insight Stories along with being able to support other kaiako in our learning spaces.

Coherent Pathways

Our Coherent Pathways Initiative is split into two working groups this year. One that is focused towards our mathematics pathway and one towards our writing pathway. 

Our writing working group this year are continuing to develop and trial the resource package that was created over the last two years. We are aiming to use this resource package as a teaching tool to support our level 4 writers. The next goal for this group is to further trial the resource with our learners and expand the range of exemplars that accompany it to include a wider variety of genres. 

The mathematics working group have begun their journey by sharing mathematics progressions across our schools, with the goal of identifying what can’t be left to chance in level 4 Algebra. The next aim for this working group is to continue to work towards gaining a shared understanding of what level 4 problems look like in each context, in order to build a cohesive understanding. 

Kiri Team – Road Safety

A big thank you to Constable Gordon who has been working with Kiri team on road safety and managing themselves safely when crossing. A big message is to always using designated crossings when able.

Traffic Survey – Thursday 1st July

Traffic engineers will be around the school and local area on Thursday completing a survey on road usage and parking used by the school and local community.

Matariki

Kohimarama School will be celebrating matariki over the last two weeks of this term. Our thanks go to our Te Reo lead teacher, Miss Cadzow, our Kapa Haka and staff and students. This week the following events are taking place;

Week 9

• On Thursday 1st July, Kapa Haka will be travelling to Stonefields to take part in the local schools festival.
• On Friday 2nd July some of the staff and students will be assembling on Kohimarama Beach to welcome the morning sunrise  at 7.30am and then walk back to school for a shared breakfast.

  Week 10

• Friday 9th July, the school will come together for a Matariki celebration assembly where classes will share their experiences of Rakau (stick game), Poi and kites making.

Paul Engles
Principal

The Kohimarama Way – Compassion

“We can’t heal the world today but we can begin with a vice of compassion, a heart of love, an act of kindness.”  Mary Davies.  “Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.”  Prince

News

Roll Return

Twice a year, in March and July, all schools in New Zealand are required to furnish to the Ministry of Education a return detailing all students enrolled at their schools. This return determines our funding and staffing for the remainder of the school year. If your child is going to be absent or late for any reason on Thursday 1^st July the office will require a letter or email from a parent/guardian justifying the student’s absence from school, please complete this by Friday 2nd July 10am.

Pyjama Day – Student Fundraiser Wednesday 30th June

A reminder for students who are participating to dress in pyjamas or mufti and bring $2 to raise funds for the extra beds needed at Starship Hospital.

Any unused sports equipment?  Great opportunity to declutter!

Students in Hillary Team are collecting any unused sports equipment from Kohimarama school families to pass on to KidsCan, who share the equipment with students in need.  Please have a look in wardrobes, garages and laundries for any sports equipment you would be happy to pass on.  Students are collecting this outside Room 12 before school Wednesday 30th and everyday until the end of term.

Arriving late to school

It is very important that when your child is late to school they always go through the office to receive a late slip, no matter what year level they are. This includes children who are only minutes late. This shows our office team that your child/children have arrived safely to school.

Booking Learning Conversations – Wednesday 7th July, Thursday 8th July

Thank you to everyone who has booked their Learning conversation.  If you have not yet done this the instructions for making a booking are as follows. Note that school will finish for the students at 1pm on Wednesday 7th July to allow for Conversation bookings that afternoon.

The following are instructions for booking Learning Conversations.

The booking form can be accessed via the following web address:  https://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz

Click into ‘make a booking’ and enter the School Event Code :  59y6r  Then follow the instructions.  Please leave a gap between your interviews if moving from one class to another so you do not lose some of your precious talking time.

If for any reason you are unable to access this site or you experience any problems, please contact  the School Office on 930 9820.

The portal will close 10am Friday 2nd July.

We will have some capacity to supervise students in the hall where parents are unable to make alternative arrangements.  It is important that your child’s classroom teacher is informed by 9.00am on the morning of Wednesday 7th July if you would like your child supervised in the hall.

Term Break Works

Over the term break the hall is having Autex panels installed.  This should be beneficial in reducing noise in the hall as well as providing useable wall space for displays.

Naming Uniform

Each term there are hundreds of dollars’ worth of uniforms in our lost property. We do try to return as much lost property to the children when we can, but this can only be done if the items are named. Please ensure all school uniform is labelled. 

Creating Memories

On Friday we were successful in taking the whole school photograph.  The weather provided us with some challenges but settled just long enough to get all our students and staff into position.

Everyone needed to listen carefully and to follow the instructions of our teachers and the team from Photolife.   We needed to be very patient and wait quietly while everyone took their place.

Thank you to all our staff and Photolife Team and a big thank you to all our students.

We hope that the proof of this photo should be available before the end of this term.

Sports News

Course marshals required for Cross Country

Are you able to assist with our school cross country event on Friday August 6 at Madills Farm ?( Rain day- Monday August 9).  If you are available to help with all, or some of our races, please contact;  dforbes@kohimarama.school.nz

Community Notices

New 30km Speed limit changes to Mission Bay

Click here for more information