Kāhui Ako ki Orewa

Rāmere, te 30 o Whiringa-ā-nuku

Welcome to the world Malacai

We would like to introduce Malacai Hayward-Ngere to our community. Congratulations to Jo Hayward, in-school leader from Orewa College on the safe delivery of this 9 pound 10 ounce bundle of joy. Aroha to Jo, Sez and their whānau.

Happiness at School – Learner Support

When teachers make reasonable modifications to workload, to suit individual needs, it is amazing what the outcomes can be. Small modifications in literacy can help so many students to create deeper, more successful output, such as:

• adapting a text to make the words more understandable to all readers
• adapting the length of a text or reading in pairs
• writing 6 lines of poetry rather than 10 creates processing time
• providing sentence or line starters
• providing keywords to include in writing
• Peer feedback opportunities

Such adaptations can lead to a boost in confidence when students see what they are capable of when the pressure is removed and the mind is allowed to be free to explore and process ideas.

Here is an example of success for a student who has learning and processing difficulties. They have lacked confidence in the past because they have not been able to keep up with other students. They felt lost because they couldn’t retain instructions, generate ideas and process their ideas into writing in the time allocated to them.

• This student’s task began with 4 lines of poetry, repeating the same 2 poetic techniques
• Their face beamed with joy at their achievement using their real, fresh, fun ideas
• They then went on to create another 4 lines, by their own choice, quickly and independently.
• This confidence laid the foundation for more risk taking in their ideas and poetry writing, leading to more and more joy in their success.
• They are so proud that they send their poems home via email every lesson.

Maths/ Digital Curriculum Group

It was with much trepidation that we arranged a professional learning and development day. The reason for this trepidation was that we have booked this day twice this year, and both times coincided with the week we went into lockdown 1, then lockdown 2. But we are pleased to say that the day went ahead as planned. The agenda for the day was as follows:

1. A brief summary of what we have covered as a group

2. Complete the Pikau spreadsheet

3. DC POs quick overview sheet

4. Robotics discussion and demo

5. Pooling resources and next steps

We are pleased to share the following resource link here. This spreadsheet will help with giving you an overview of the digital curriculum, with NZC levels and links to lesson ideas. In addition, here is a blank planning sheet.

In addition, we had a pop in visit from an OC teacher, Josh Pinho, who discussed the use of robotics in maths lessons. We decided on two outcomes:

• Josh and Linda will take some students across to Orewa Beach School to share the robots and have a tuakana-teina lesson on the 18th of November
• We will be sharing resources, like our box of Spheros, between our kura to trial in class

Orewa Primary School Marae Visits

Last week, Orewa Primary School took over 250 students, whānau and staff to Te Herenga Waka o Orewa Marae for rolling pōhiri. The students took hold of many of the aspects of tikanga Māori in this immersed setting.

Karanga, karakia, waiata tautoko, standing on the paepae to deliver a mihimihi and doing the mahi in the kitchen were all a part of the process and it was so great to see how far these local tamariki have come in the past few years under Simon Koziarski’s leadership.

One highlight for us was to see the parents of our tamariki stand and introduce themselves in te reo Māori, many for the very first time. Having whānau from our community experiencing a pōhiri for the very first time is a beautiful thing as this is putting our kura and marae at the centre of change in our area.

We would love to see more of our tamariki and whānau head to the marae in the coming years so please, if you need support we can make it happen.

Understanding Different Text Types

Understanding text types. Follow the link here to this site that looks at specific text types, that looks at some of the main features and criteria of each of these. 

Google Docs for Kids

A brief intro to Google Docs for kids. This tutorial is the first episode of the series, Google Docs for kids.

Need a break?

In need of a staycation before the real thing in a few weeks time? This article might give you some helpful hints and tips to take a holiday without leaving the house.

Kāhui Ako Meeting Dates for term 4

22 October: Meeting at Orewa College all ISLs

29 October: Maths/ Digital Curriculum Group PD Day

5 November: Meeting at Orewa College all ISLs

19 November: Meeting at Orewa College all ISLs

26 November: Final