Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Term 4 Week 9 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

Tena kotou katua!

Week 9 has come and gone. We can't believe how quickly this term has went, but it must be because we've been working so hard and having so much fun making our school the amazing place it's going to be!

After having spent the end of week 8 on retreat, we have forged stronger bonds on our team and are getting down to lots of work that will have a direct impact on our teaching and learning in 2019.

Curious 

Week 9 was a week where a lot of our curiosity was piqued because on Tuesday morning we officially started moving in to the new space. Though there is still a good amount of work to be finished, we're very excited with the new space and can't wait to get it ready for our new learners! We've spent lots of time learning how everything works and exploring the new spaces, all the while discussing the wonderful learning opportunities we can provide in our new building.

We have also been spending a lot of time developing our curriculum maps for term 1. These will serve as an outline of the learning experiences we will provide for our first ten weeks. Our two Kāinga teams have been discussing all of the different things together and fitting everything into our overarching theme for the term, which is  Ko wai au? Ko wai tātou?→  Who am I?  Who are we?


Communicative....


At the very end of the week, on Saturday, we were excited to have a Whanau Focus Group in our new building, which afforded us the chance to not only share our vision for both innovative assessment, Te Ao Māori, Te Reo Māori and Tikanga Māori at MNS and get feedback on those aspects of our school, but it also allowed us a chance to share the building with our new learners alongside their families and whanau. It was a great day with lots of positive conversations and many excited faces!







Creative....

Another bonus of moving in to the new space was that a lot of the resources we have ordered have arrived. We have spent a portion of our time this past week, unboxing and sorting some of our new resources that will enable us to deliver high quality teaching and learning. Seen here are the 15 Sphero Bolt robots which will be a part of our STEAM program at MNS.

We have also been working diligently to develop a number of inquiry processes that we will use for our Transdisciplinary Projects. We recognise that not all inquiries are the same and that each one will require a different approach. So far we have identified: a research inquiry, a scientific investigation, a statistical inquiry, a field study, a design thinking process and a few other ones. We're excited to refine these and then put them into action in 2019!


Collaborative...

One of the first things we did when we moved into the new space was to put our learner wall up. We use this as a way to start to get to know our learners so that on day 1 we know as many names as we can. It was also a popular stopping point on our tour of the school on Saturday.

Most of the week was spent in our Kāinga teams. We have been working on our MATES agreements (which are put in place to help us through the difficult bits of teamwork) and have been having a lot of discussions about how to use the advantages of our unique school (the amazing spaces, the incredible educators and our future outstanding learners).

We also spent some time early in the week, discussing our as-yet-to-be-named approach to PB4L (Positive Behaviour For Learning). We have had some great discussions and are beginning to define our systems so that we can teach, encourage and acknowledge behaviours that promote positive relationships and thus learning.

We also had the privilege of meeting with the Arohanui team which will be working on site and began some discussions as to not only how we can use each others' strengths to serve all of our learners, but also how our learners might work together to enhance everyones' educational experiences.


As the calendar approaches 2019 we are getting more and more excited. The idea of starting a new school became very real this past week and many great ideas that have been discussed over the past months (and more than a year for some of us) are starting to crystallise. It's not an easy journey and there will certainly be some bumps along the road, but we have an incredible team and the future is certainly looking bright!

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