Rāmere, te 20 o te Hepetema 2024
Orewarewa whenua, puāwai māhuri
On the fertile ground of Orewa, the sapling blooms
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[email protected] Te Ao Māori
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[email protected] Future Ready
[email protected] 21st Century Learning
[email protected] Structured Literacy
Tū Māia Kapa Haka Festival 2024
Last week our Tū Māia Festival reached new heights at Orewa Primary School expanding to running over 2 days for the first time in it’s history.
Orewa Primary’s manaakitanga was displayed over both days, welcoming the manuhiri with an impressive pōhiri, delicious kai and fabulous organisation.
The level of kapa haka has continued to rise across our hapori and it was clear that our kura are lifting together. Students showed their skills across a range of te o Māori including mihi, karakia, mau rākau, haka, mōteatea, waiata ā-ringa, hīmine, patu, short poi, long poi, pūtatara displaying the depth of knowledge and skills being taught in our kura.
We now look forward to 2025 when Orewa Beach School will be hosting the special event. Tū Māia has shown our whakatauākī, “Ōrewarewa whenua, puāwai māhuri – On this fertile ground, the sapling thrives” continues to ring true.
Above: Orewa Primary School drawing in the manuhiri/visitors with a spine tingling haka pōhiri
Above: Our tuākana from Orewa College leading the way on Friday/Paraire
Above: Dairy Flat School show their prowess with the poi
Above: The kaipūtatara begins Silverdale’s set
Above: Ahutoetoe School throwing down a haka
Above: Wainui steps forward as one
Digital Tech at Nukumea
Lisa Everett
Term 3 has been a tech whirlwind at Nukumea. We have been running whole school sessions on a Friday afternoon covering coding, robotics, AI and augmented reality.
Using the Lego Spike Prime kits, the students have been learning to build a robot and use coding to make it move and perform different tasks. They have also been using Kodable to learn some of the basics of block coding.
One of our values at Nukumea is Kaitiakitanga. We have a team of students that help look after the grounds at school, planting native trees and removing weeds from the garden. Our future plan is to incorporate AI into this process. Using Teachable Machine, students are learning how to train an AI programme to recognise different images. We hope to train the AI to identify weeds and native plants and this will help the students know which ones to pull! 
Waka Hourua is an educational board game that allows students to explore early Polynesian migration and navigation. It goes beyond traditional board games by integrating Augmented Reality, creating an immersive and interactive play experience. The students loved learning how Māori ancestors built canoes and navigated across the ocean using the stars, wind, birds, and other natural signs.
Another digital initiative we have introduced at Nukumea is through spelling. We have been working with Liz Kane’s programme – The Code. Some of the rules the students have been learning include:
- The CVC Doubling Rule – In a one syllable word ending in CVC, double the final consonant before a vowel suffix (a suffix that begins with a vowel -er, -ing).
- Three spellings for the sound /air/ – these are ‘air’, ‘are’ and ‘ear’.
Once a week, the students have the opportunity to demonstrate their learning through Minecraft. We left this completely up to the students and are so impressed with their creations so far. Some of the students have built giant words across the sky, others have created secret rooms with words written on walls (accessible through special levers), and one student even created a ‘fair’ with a roller coaster. As the roller coaster makes its way along the tracks and through tunnels, you can spot many /air/ words written throughout your journey.
Here are some explanations from the students:
“I created a roller coaster that is part of a fair. The roller coaster is named the Caterpillar. I was learning about the word spelling pattern- air, are, ear”. Charlotte
“I created a world that is a museum of -dge and ‘CVC’ spelling words. I made lever dispensers for secret rooms that have extra information. There is a CVC room and a -dge room. There are two secret passages that I am creating that go to a secret place that has books with even more information”. Maddox
“I created a billboard full of the spelling rule /air/. More words that follow this rule are on other boards. The rule I was learning is the 3 different types of spelling: air, ear, are”. Judah
It is fantastic to see the students so engaged and able to speak so clearly about their learning! There is also some great collaboration and discussion happening during these lessons!
Looking for a way to generate questions for a quiz quickly, use AI assisted support to generate. Question well will take a document, video or file, create a transcript and then generate questions for you. Those questions can then be exported to Google Forms, Kahoot!, Quizzet and more! Check it out here!
AI Tools for Schools – Question Well
Looking for a way to generate questions for a quiz quickly, use AI assisted support to generate. Question well will take a document, video or file, create a transcript and then generate questions for you. Those questions can then be exported to Google Forms, Kahoot!, Quizzet and more! Check it out here!
The refreshed, refreshed Maths Curriculum…
A few things to note:
BEDMAS/BODMAS has now been replaced with GEMA in the new curriculum
GEMA is Groupings, Operations,
Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction
BASIC FACTS is found under Algebra
GEOMETRY is once again Geometry instead of ‘SPACE’
Maths Curriculum
The intention is that this curriculum becomes a digital curriculum in the future and will be hyperlinked
Planning (Pages 12-13) – structure fits the more traditional as well as problem-solving approaches
The Common Practice Model – how to teach. This has been merged within the new curriculum document – key parts are now interwoven
- Page 10 – 11
– positive relationship with Maths
– maths mastery
Assessment – e-asTTle or PAT’s – mandated to be used twice per year
- There will be a conversion table for e-asTTle to reflect the new curriculum document
Understand – this has been trimmed down – it gives an overall picture of Mathematics
Know – 6 strands
Read on as Paul Tucker from Orewa College shares about an inspiring teacher. How awesome to have role models like this for our tamariki!
Orewa College was visited recently by the one and only Subash Chandar K where he was mobbed by staff and students alike. Not heard of Subash? How about Infinity+1? Check this out and your life should be enriched.
Subash is fast becoming a mathematical Kiwi icon for students and staff alike thanks to his well produced and informative youtube presentations, which show all how to master mathematical principles from years 7 to 13. Subash has an inspiring back story which he shared with Orewa College students, further endearing him to his adoring fans – he signed 152 calculators on the day!
As a young boy, Subash had always dreamed of becoming the best maths teacher. He persevered through mixed results at university, taking over five years to gain his degree, against the wishes of his mother who told him to give up on that dream as it was out of his reach. Thank goodness Subash did not. Subash persevered and would continue to do so when he was overlooked on his first 75 attempts to find a high school maths job, finally landing his dream job at Manurewa High School on his 76th. He loved teaching but admits to struggling with the NCEA pressures put on some of his students, seeing the negative impacts on them from home. He changed course and took up a position at Ormiston Junior, teaching the younger generations the maths fundamentals from an early age. His digital initiatives saw him awarded the National Excellence in Education Awards top honour for his inspiring work as a mathematics and statistics teacher.
Subash credits his success to a few key ideas that he encourages his students to implement:
- Make a goal and then write it down, referring to it daily.
- Create blocks of time where you can accomplish multiple activities at the same time. For example walking the dog and listening to a podcast or exercising on the treadmill and watching TV.
- Look after yourself. Health is critical so exercise daily.
One of Subash’s most popular posts came recently when he posted his tips on how to succeed in the numeracy co-requisites. Have a look to see the skills our year nine and ten students are required to demonstrate here.
Changing Our Mindset and Relearning What We Know and Do
One of the hardest parts of my journey into Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading has been reflecting on being “wrong” in so much of what I have done in the past within my literacy programme. This confronting feeling that we have and others feel too, as we embark on any PD can be a real barrier as schools implement change. I think of the hundreds of children that I have taught to read and write and it can be easy to say “Well, it worked for them,” but what about the ones it didn’t work for? I keep coming back to “when we know better we can do better.” As Dr Stephanie Stollar says When there’s new information, you have to change gears and make different decisions. Being reluctant to admit failure is human. But we owe it to our colleagues and our students to be brave about changing course when the data tells us it is necessary. By simply recognizing that you didn’t have all the information the first time, you build a culture of continuous improvement and trust within your school.
With that in mind be courageous as you make changes in your own practice and support others to change and grow along the way.
Word walls don’t work.
Word walls lean on the outdated belief that reading hinges on visual memory– and they’re super confusing for students.
Before we knew about the science of reading, students would glance at a list of alphabetized words to remember how to spell them.
But here’s the catch: With words grouped by their first letter, we often see a jumble of sounds such as Apple, Ape, Ant, Any, and About.
The “A” sounds different in each word.
Plus, the logic is flawed. If a student doesn’t know how to spell the word, how are they going to find that word up there on the wall?
So what should you do?
Instead of relying on visual memory for irregular high-frequency words, teach them alongside your phonics lessons.
Focusing on the regular letter-sound parts and highlighting the tricky parts can teach even words with unexpected spellings.
For example, in the word “said,” the /s/ & /d/ are regular, while the vowel sound is tricky.
Have students practice these words in reading and writing using word lists and texts.
This method aligns with how the brain learns to read and is more supportive for students.
Liz Kane’s ‘The Code’ and other similar resources align with this understanding.
Video on approach to high frequency word instruction
Kāhui Ako Hui Dates – Term 4 2024
Thursday 24th October – ASL @ Nukumea – WSL @ Orewa College 3.30pm
Thursday 7th November – ASL @ Ahutoetoe – WSL @ Orewa College 3.30pm
Thursday 21st November – ASL @ Orewa College – WSL @ Orewa College 3.30pm
Thursday 5th December – ASL @ Orewa College – WSL @ Orewa College 3.30pm
