Term 3 Week 9 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

Tēnā kotou katoa!

Week 9 has been another busy week full of new learning, networking and getting stuff done. We are all so excited that our Learning Coaches are soon to be on board with us full time!


Communicative....


The Monday morning Admin meeting was a little different this week. Amanda, Michael, Diana, Kirstin and Wendy all completed activities reflecting on our journey so far. We shared what we love about our job, we then filled each others compliment buckets with lots of warm, genuine fuzzies, we ended the reflection exercise by being courageous and sharing our frustrations and pressure points, a great Team Building exercise!

Bright and early on Wednesday morning, Diana, Kirstin and Wendy headed off to AUT Northern Campus to attend our Te Reo course. We were experiencing mixed feelings as this was our first session after our mid semester break and we needed to perform our second oral assessment (Mahi Korero 2) in front of our classmates. We had been practicing consistently, even in Melbourne! The good news is we all passed and we received the results back from the Mid-Semester Test (Mātaitanga), again we all passed, Kirstin with full marks! Ka pai Kirstin!

Whanau (family) enrollment interviews have continued this week with Diana and Wendy, it is a real privilege getting to know our prospective learners and their families and we now have another 7 families pre-enrolled.

On Friday afternoon Diana met with Michael Hand from Torque-IP to discuss, plan and update our digital infrastructure.





Creative....

Friday morning saw Kirstin and Wendy heading off to Learning Network in West Auckland to attend a Makerspace Workshop led by Mark Osbourne. We found out about a little of the history of the Makerspace movement and how in our time of shrink wrapped technology people don't know how to fix things, the Makerspace philosophy is about building and making things not always about the technology. This is the link to Mark's presentation http://bit.ly/2RKHdak

We got to spend most of the session using and exploring the materials in Mark's Makerspace suitcase such as littlebits, polymorph plastic, conductive tape and thresd, Edison and Mbot robots, makey makeys, scratch cards, a bridge making challenge with string and popsicle sticks, and Wendy's favourite the 3D printer!

Wendy was fascinated by watching the 3D printer create a business card sized bicycle with panniers in a flat pack style. The components are then popped from the card and a miniature 3D bike is constructed, very cool!


For Friday afternoon Diana, Kirstin, Amanda, Michael and Wendy got creative with the itinerary for our first full team meet and greet. We started off the afternoon with a presentation from Otako Kaufusi who works at Microsoft.

Otako showed us the wonders of the Surface Pro and Surface Go and some of the practical applications of the interactive pen, the inking tool and touch screen features. This was to help the team decide on their TELA device so we can have it all ready for them at the beginning of Term 4. After some refreshments we moved onto a presentation from Diana about building the Dream Team. Diana also set us a challenge of  matching a Te Reo word or phrase to someone in the team based on their Bio or what we had learned that afternoon, we weren't allowed to go home until the challenge was solved!

A game of Human Bingo followed which gave us the chance to mix and mingle and find out a little more about each other. It was a great networking, connecting and relationship building afternoon!




Collaborative...


Kirstin and Michael on Monday were continuing to work on the Digi-badging induction programme for our Learning Coaches in Term 4. We are very excited about this innovative way to induct our new staff.
Thursday saw Diana, Kirstin and Wendy travelling across Auckland out to Flat Bush to take part in the New School's PLD at Ormiston Junior College. The day was hosted by the Te Uho o Te Nikau team of Mel, Bev and Leanne, who all did a great job of keeping us fed and on track.
The DPs of the four new schools had as their guest speaker Viv Mallabar who is the foundation DP at Ormiston Junior College. Viv generously shared her knowledge and experiences from OJC's establishment and foundation years. Viv emphasised the importance of turning values and vision to principles and practices and using this as a foundation of turning "I believe" into "We believe", developing a common language and group norms is the key to successful collaboration. Viv also talked about some of the challenges that can occur such as rapid roll growth, staff turnover and the rapid induction of new staff. A very thought provoking session.

The Principals of the four new schools had Luke Sumich, the foundation principal of OJC as their guest speaker, Luke was very informative and strategic as he took the principals through his start up journey at OJC. Luke was also the foundation principal for another new school so had a wealth of knowledge and expertise to impart.
This was the last scheduled PLG for the four new schools and we have all found the learning, sharing and networking from these PLG's invaluable as we all work towards our common goal of opening our schools in February 2019.

Curious

As part of the New Schools meet up and PLG, Diana, Kirstin and Wendy met up with the others Wednesday evening for a meal at Daikoku Restaurant in Botany Downs Shopping Centre. 

This was an informal occasion where we were all curious to hear about each others' journeys since the last time we had met. We were also curious to see what the Daikoku dining experience was about and we certainly weren't disappointed with a display of BBQ tool tossing, flaming hot plates and sparking onion ring volcanoes! 

A fantastic evening with fabulous company.

What's coming up?

• Whanau (family) Enrollment Interviews
• EBoT Meeting
• Parent Q & A session at Kereru Kindy
• MNS site visit