Thursday 3 December 2020

1. Principal's News Term 4 Week 8 2020

Camps and EOTC

Our Year 7 & 8s are away at camp this week at Wainui Park near Akaroa.  We look forward to hearing stories and seeing more photographs when they get back.


Our year 6s are having their Education Outside the Classroom locally.  Yesterday they went bush-walking in Herbert Forest and kayaking and sailing at McKerrow's Pond.  Today they are visiting Vanished World in Duntroon and rock climbing at Elephant Rocks.  I look forward to joining them tomorrow to cycle some of the Alps to Ocean trail and they will finish the day tomorrow with archery led by St Kevin's staff.


In the meantime the year 4s and 5s are working with Mrs Winders and Mrs Dooley and engaging in movie making and technology challenges.  We have a new "green screen" in our STEAM room and it will be great to see the children beginning to experiment with movie-making effects.

Our juniors are hard at work with their learning and preparing for their end of year Nativity presentation for Tuesday 15th December.

Reports

We are just finalising reports.  We are reporting in terms of curriculum levels for the core curriculum.  The New Zealand curriculum uses a sliding scale which is true to children's developmental levels and the way people actually learn.


We use the terms B= Basic, P= Proficient and A=Advanced.  B means just beginning a level and being exposed to some of the learning in it.  P means working at the level and A means working at the end of the level and already engaging with learning at the next level.

So if your child is working at 2P you can see from the diagram above that this would be a clear expectation for year 4 but children in year 4 and year 5 can be also working at this level and that is fine.  We keep a close watch on children and provide extra support for anyone who is not reaching curriculum expectations or who looks like there is a barrier or gap in their learning which is stopping them progressing.

A child who is working at 2P could stay there for a year or so and then suddenly shoot away in to Level 3.  The speed of learning can change and so this sliding scale gives you a good idea of where your child sits.

Your child will also be reflecting on their learning in terms of the learning capabilities - Making Meaning, Perspective-taking, Critical thinking and Taking Action.  For the seniors this will be on their written reports.  For the juniors they have been doing this on an ongoing basis through Seesaw.

I would be very interested to know what parents think of Seesaw as a tool to share learning - feedback positive or negative is more than welcome - please email your thoughts to principal@stjoseph.school.nz

Reports will be going out with stationery lists next Friday.


We look forward to seeing all families at our end of year celebration in St Patrick's Basilica on Tuesday 15 December at 6.00pm (children line up at school in uniform at 5.45pm).

Aroha and God Bless

Lorraine Frances-Rees


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