29 March 2019
Rāmere, te 29 o Poutū-te-rangi, 2019
Rōpū Te Reo Me Tikanga Māori
Kia ora koutou,
Over the course of this year, one of our focuses is on working together to create, and share innovative ways to normalise te reo Māori me tikanga Māori in the day-to-day lives of our students. The aim is to weave Māori culture into the fabric our our kura so that it becomes something that is just a part of who we are, something so normalised that we don’t even have to think about it. We encourage every teacher, administrator, tumūaki, teacher aide, board member, caretaker and all those involved in the lives of our students to come on board and help us on this mission. Taking small manageable steps will have a BIG impact.
Nau mai, haere mai
Māori identity, language and culture raising achievement
The Herald put out an article recently about a Tumūaki who has turned around a failing school. “Māori identity, language and culture have become a key focus of the school” and students are now thriving. “90 percent of students perform at levels at or above expectation, with Māori among the highest achieving students.”
“The importance of identity, te reo Māori and culture is undeniable,” he said. “You take that away from a Māori person? They’re not going to be their best self. They’re orphaned in their own country.”
Ngā kupu o te wiki. Words of the week.
Here are some words to integrate into your classroom over the next week:
Mārama? = If you have explained something, ask, “Mārama?” to see if the students understand.
Ae = Yes (Sounds like- eye)
Kāo = No (Sound a bit like Car-ow blended)
Māori Dictionary: Māori Dictionary is an online resource that is free to use. It’s far better than Google Translate which will generally send you down the wrong track. Simply type in the English and it will give you a range of kupu/words
Competition Closing Soon!
WIN A CLASS SET OF ICE BLOCKS
Learn Whakataka te hau with your class, film it and send it through to win a class set of ice blocks! Competition closes on Wednesday, April 3. Rāapa, te 3 o Paenga-whāwhā, 2019
Winning Class announced Friday, April 5. Rāmere, te 5 o Paenga-whāwhā, 2019
Send videos, with school name, teacher and class details to: markralston@silverdaleprimary.school.nz
Preparing for Matariki
Matariki is coming up fast. This year Matariki happens from the June 25 to July 3. As many of you will begin planning for term 2 in the coming weeks, it will be worth thinking about how Matariki might fit in, in an authentic way.
As a rōpū we are compiling a list of ideas and and resources for teachers to pick up and run with. If you have found a resource or have an exciting idea worth sharing, please share with me at markralston@silverdaleprimary.school.nz.
Rōpū Taunaki Ako/ Learning Support Focus Group
Anxiety is on the rise in students of Aotearoa. It is one of our highest identified needs in our Orewa Kāhui Ako Learner Needs Register. Over the next few weeks it will be a focus area for tips. How we create and foster a nurturing, supportive learning environment can impact hugely on a child’s world each day. It can be the difference between happiness and fear; wanting to come to school and wanting to hide from the world.
As educators we want answers, and we often want them now. This adds even more pressure to the already anxious child. What if we provide other opportunities for response / answers / ideas / viewpoints?
Rōpū Tuhituhi / Writing Focus Group
At our Orewa Kāhui Ako after school meeting this week we held our first writing moderation across our school community. As part of our writing goal we are looking at embedding our practice of a robust moderation programme across our Kāhui Ako schools. We are working on ensuring that there is accuracy and consistency of assessment in writing in relation to the Learning Progression Framework from levels 1 to 5, years 1- 10, NZC. Our aspects for assessment were based on: Writing meaningful text: encoding, using knowledge of text structure, and features, and vocabulary knowledge. Samples were taken from Years 1- 10 across the curriculum areas of English, Social Sciences and Physical Education /Health.
The results prior to our meeting showed that our consistency with our assessment was mixed. Discussion at our after school meeting was robust, yet there was a positive shift towards alignment of most results. It was fantastic to see all of our schools collaborate together on this. We discussed the challenges that we faced in our moderation process and how we can move forward for our next moderation round in Term 2.
Thank you to all who attended, we will share our results in our next update.
Rōpū Pāngarau/ Maths Focus Group
We joined with the rest of the group who focused on the moderation of writing for this week’s meeting. We were able to use the writing LPF to make our judgements. We have spoken about moderation for maths, so this was a good exercise to be part of. We are also in the process of looking at the progressions required for the digital curriculum. This will form a focus for term 2.
To keep up to date, follow us on our Kāhui Ako website: https://orewakahuiako.com/
COMING UP:
Kāhui Ako ki Orewa 
Leave a Reply