Dear parents,
Thank you for your feedback at the end of last year that has supported our annual planning for 2024. One of the questions I asked was about the newsletter. While many comments showed the community was happy as it was, there were a few suggestions for features or content that we will endeavour to include over the year.
Whanau Day
You will have seen we are holding our Whanau afternoon on February 16th. You may visit the classrooms from 2-3pm. Please join us in the hall from 1.45pm to give us some feedback on some questions that we will have out, ask us any questions on where we are with the curriculum changes coming through from the Ministry of Education or just come and say hello!
Term 1 Learning Across The School
One of the suggestions was to include a section about the learning in the classrooms. At our school we have a theme that runs across the whole school for each term. This can be interpreted in different ways in different year levels. The theme can be used to focus on a science, arts or social sciences context, but as the year progresses each class will ensure that science, social sciences, technology and the arts are covered through one of the themes. The idea is when we have buddy class time the children can share learning or even learn together about how the different classes have focused on the theme.
For term one 2024 we have a theme of ‘Where we are in Time and Place’. The theme is then part of the learning. It can be used for reading topics, writing inspiration or for a maths investigation, sitting alongside specific teaching of skills such as reading comprehension strategies.
While inquiry skills and working towards personal learning is important, we have a focus on explicit teaching that allows our children to learn and then use the skills and knowledge to be able to problem solve in maths or be successful with an individual learning project. Over the term I will share examples of some of the learning happening in the various year levels within our whole school theme of ‘Where we are in Time and Place’.
Donations
A massive thank you to those who have already made their suggested donation and activity contribution. You will have received the notification from the office with more details on making your donations.
Our 2024 contribution requests remain unchanged from last year and are as follows:-
School Donation – $55 per term or $220 for the whole school year. The amount for 3rd or subsequent children will remain at $37.50 per term or $150 for the whole school year.
Classroom Activity Contributions – $40 per term or $160 for the whole school year.
Kindo is our preferred method for all your school payments and the following pages have all the information you need for setting up your account if you are a new family to Greenhithe School or you were unable to set an account up last year. We also have links for you to follow on our school website in the Community Connect section or in the drop down on the Info tab.
Curriculum Update
Within the Government’s 100 day agenda were two main things for us to be across at this early stage of the year. The first was the ‘phones away for the day mandate’, which I addressed in the last newsletter. The other was the hour of reading, writing and maths.
In every class we have a block of time that is dedicated to these core areas. This has always been the case at our school. As well as a dedicated time where explicit teaching of skills and knowledge occurs, there are other times where we integrate these subjects into our theme based teaching. For example, in science the children will receive specific writing teaching on how to explain the results of an experiment.
Within these theme based areas our children will be reading topic based texts at their level to help with science knowledge. While applying reading skills, comprehension skills are honed as well. Maths is often integrated into science with supporting information gathering, for example the measurement of how a plant has grown or how far an object has travelled.
With the dedicated daily block for each of the core reading, writing and maths areas, as well as including aspects of direct teaching and learning of these areas in our theme approach, we are meeting or exceeding the requirements.
The Government has formed their Ministerial Advisory Group to review the refreshed curriculum that was released last year for implementation in 2025/6. As yet there is no further information. Once we have a good understanding of what the changes will look like we will hold a parent information evening on the refreshed curriculum. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me ([email protected]).
Ngā mihi
Stephen Grady
Tumuaki/Principal
Greenhithe School
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