We've had a great start to the term. Already our year 7s have worked with Filmmakers in Schools to start planning movie-making, we've had a visit from the Rugby Union to share the Ranfurly Shield and inspire the children about our local competition. Mrs Klenner has spent two days on Te Reo training and the junior school are preparing for their trip to the resource centre and community gardens on Friday. Lots of classes have been brainstorming what they know about energy as a starting place for their learning this term.
Reminder: school is closed for a teacher only day on Friday 9th August.
Community Consultation
In 2016 we surveyed all families and many responded.
This was fed into our strategic plan
Our intentions
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Did we achieve them?
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2017 - Consolidate
Embed St Joseph’s curriculum and teaching
Knowing our whakapapa (history): being a Dominican school
High achievement, future-focused, making a difference, being Catholic
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Yes
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2018 – Platform for growth
Using technology, design processes, critical thinking and creativity in transformative ways, to engage with a relevant, active, purposeful curriculum
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We have started on this and this an ongoing journey.
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2019 - growing
Making a difference to our community and world through solving problems that matter
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Our Enviroschools focus has been the vehicle for this.
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What’s Next?
This year we have done a lot of professional work on growing our curriculum. We have been using the New Zealand curriculum as the basis for the type of skills needed for lifelong learners. This is all part of promoting critical thinking within a relevant, active, purposeful curriculum engaging in our local world and doing things that make a difference.
Our vision is Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith and at different times, as we grow and develop, reaching for the stars and being lifelong learners may look different. For instance one example is now it is extremely important that lifelong learners have computational thinking skills. Reaching for the stars means reaching for excellence and now that means working out what good collaboration, creativity and critical thinking look like as well as maths, reading etc.
Our school motto “Veritas” meaning truth and our values respect, reverence, resilience and relationships all fit well within a forward-looking curriculum.
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In the next few weeks we will be consulting with parents again. We will send you an online survey for some feedback and feedforward which will help us get the flavour of what you want for your children. The more people who respond the better idea we get.
We will feed that into our planning. Then later in the term you will be invited to an information session where we can explain how we are developing curriculum to help your children reach for the stars as lifelong learners in the Catholic faith in 2020-22.
We look forward to engaging with you further over this term.
Welcome to our new cleaners
Elizabeth Harvey in the senior end of the school, and Raylene Te Maihoroa in the junior end. Please say hello to them if you see them.
God Bless and Aroha,
Lorraine Frances-Rees
