Kāhui Ako ki Orewa

Friday 9 August 2019

Rāmere, te  9 o Hereturikōkā 2019

In this week’s update:

1. Rōpū Te Reo Me Tikanga Māori: Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori/ Māori Language Week
2. Ngaio pukapuka kōrero/ Professional Development: Hana O’Regan
3. Rōpū Tuhituhi/ Writing Group: Keeping children Engaged and Achieving in Writing
4. Rōpū Taunaki Ako/ Learning Support Group: Engaging Reluctant Learners
5.  Rōpū Pāngarau/ Maths Group: Maths Made Easy Workshops: Jo Knox and Marie Hirst
6. Pānui ngaio/ Professional Reading: Community of Kapa Haka – AKO Magazine Hōtoke/ Winter
7. Podcast number 6: Tunnel Vision

1. Rōpū Te Reo Me Tikanga Māori

In week 8 of this term, Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori is being celebrated in Aotearoa. Across the kura of Kāhui Ako Orewa we are busy organising activities that engage and challenge our kaimahi/ staff, akona/ students and communities.

If you have any ideas that you or your kura have done or will be doing and would be willing to share, please send them through to markralston@silverdaleprimary.school.nz so that we can share them far and wide. Together we aim to support, encourage and promote Te Reo Māori in ways that are authentic and can be carried on beyond the seven-day event.

He mauri te reo Māori nō Aotearoa māu, mā tātou katoa

Make te reo Māori an essential part of New Zealand for you, for us all

2. Ngaio pukapuka kōrero/ Professional Development

3. Rōpū Tuhituhi / Writing Focus Group

In May this year an ERO publication on Keeping children Engaged and Achieving in Writing was released. Over the next few updates we will share more of the findings and strategies presented. Approaches and strategies observed in successful writing programmes is particularly encouraging for our Kāhui Ako focus group.

• Working closely with parents to help them understand what the child was learning at school and; to determine the child’s interests and achievements at home and how these interests could further contribute to the child’s writing.
• Working with the secondary school most children went to next to find out how well writing programmes were preparing children for their next stage in learning. ( L.P.F. focus for our Kāhui Ako and focus for writing group)
• Sharing the teaching approaches between the primary and secondary schools to help teachers in each school understand what came before and what came next for children as they developed as confident writers. ( L.P.F. focus for our Kāhui Ako)
• Making clear for children the links between reading, speaking and writing. In some cases, oral language had a significant focus during the writing programme. In other instances young children’s learning about letter formation, sounds and words were deliberately combined as part of early reading and writing teaching strategies
• Deliberately emphasising the craft of writing to help children better organise their ideas. Children made considerable progress through learning more about the structure of a sentence, a paragraph, and an essay (focus for writing group this term)
• Carefully planning learning activities across the breadth of the curriculum to reinforce new writing skills, and making sure children understood how to apply strategies learned during writing time to all writing activities across the school day. (focus for writing group this term)

A reminder for our Across Schools moderation in week 8, Term 3.

Aspects for moderation: Text type – Information Report

• Using writing to think and organise for learning
• Creating texts to communicate current knowledge and understanding
• Writing meaningful text: vocabulary knowledge

Please send your writing samples to sblackburn@wainui.school.nz by Monday 26th August, week 6.

4. Rōpū Taunaki Ako/ Learning Support Group

Sometimes it is hard to reach that one student who just doesn’t seem to be happy, want to be at school, or looks alone. Sometimes they are reluctant to engage or learn. It is easy for them to lean against a wall and disappear to another land.

Here are some tips on how to engage with these reluctant learners:

5. Rōpū Pāngarau/ Maths Group

Professional development run by Marie Hirst and Jo Knox:

Term 3 Maths Made Easy Workshops: Please click here to register.

Spaces are filling up fast. See workshop descriptions below for more information

• Northcross Intermediate: Monday 2nd September OR
• Orewa Primary School: Wednesday 4th September

6. Pānui ngaio/ Professional Reading

AKO Magazine Hōtoke/Winter: Community of Kapa Haka

We have seen first hand the transformation kapa haka can have on a kura when offered to all students. As teachers, we can use resources such as YouTube to offer our students this experience in our classrooms if there is no other option, particularly in the younger years. Below is an article from the Ako magazine that discusses the benefits kapa haka can make to a kura.

“We know from research that children involved in music are academically more successful – (kapa haka) is a super learning tool”

Des Hedley

Link here

7. Podcast number 6:

Podcast link here

When you’re hungry, it can be hard to think of anything other than food. When you’re desperately poor, you may constantly worry about making ends meet. When you’re lonely, you might obsess about making friends. This week’s episode is about the psychological phenomenon of scarcity. Researchers say this form of tunnel vision can affect our ability to see the big picture and cope with problems in our lives.

To keep up to date, follow us on our Kāhui Ako website: https://orewakahuiako.com/

UPCOMING: