Prep Week 2 Term 1 2019 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

Tena kotou katoa

Just before dawn on Wednesday morning, we gathered together at the entrance to our beautiful new kura (school). The silence was broken by the call (karanga) of the kaikaranga (caller) and the steady rhythm of the karakia (prayers) from the kaumatua (elder), two of our mana whenua. This was the beginning of our blessing ceremony, the first part of our official opening of Matua Ngaru School. As the sun began to rise, we moved through every part of the school, laying our hands on the walls, doors and furniture, ensuring that our school will be a place where our whole school community are safe, happy and well as they take each step on their learning journey. It was a very special and moving experience to be part of.

Communicative....

Once we completed the pathway through the school, we gathered together in our Whare Tapere (hall), where members of our iwi, eBOT, James - the principal of Arohanui, and Diana spoke to all assembled, and we shared several waiata (songs) in support of the speakers. This was followed by the Matua Ngaru and Arohanui educators, eBOT and mana whenua participating in hongi (the pressing together of noses and sharing of breath, which signifies the 2 groups becoming unified). Once this was complete, we were no longer considered manuhiri (visitors) and became tangata whenua of Matua Ngaru School. To conclude the formalities, everyone participated in the sharing of kai (food), which lifts the tapu (sacredness) from all those involved.

Curious 

Shortly after the first event on Wednesday morning, we gathered together again in Whare Tapere to welcome all of our learners and their parents as they came to meet their learning coaches and explore their kāinga before we open for learning on 7 February. We were so excited to see how many of our learners were curious about their new school as they entered the hall and participated in hongi with the educators us. The line went all the way out of Whare Tapere, along the hallway and all the way outside! Once everyone was seated, we again listened to speakers, sang waiata and shared kai so that our learners and their families also became part of the tangata whenua of our school.

After that, learners were matched with their learning coaches and everyone headed off to their kāinga to explore, get to know each other, engage with provocations and become familiar with their new learning space. At 12:00, the last of our learners headed home, and our educators spent the afternoon preparing for the next group of learners who were coming to the open morning the next day.







On Friday, Wendy, Yasmin, Heike and Anoushka were all curious to find out how they can promote well being at Matua Ngaru as they spent the day with other educators learning about Hauora (well being).

Creative....

Our educators had a busy day on Tuesday setting up their kāinga  and getting every thing ready for our 2 open mornings. They were showing amazing creative flair with some of their displays and with their designing of activities for all of our learners.






Collaborative...

Setting up Whare Hapori (our library) was the focus on Monday, with some of the team, along with their families, working together to set up displays, prepare and shelve books and work out the best configuration for the shelves and furniture.


While the rest of the team were away learning about well being on Friday, Di, Michael, Kirstin, Kate and Kelly worked together to synthesise and clarify our ideas around our Effective Educator Matrix, Learning Model and Educator Code of Conduct.

It's hard to believe that next week we will be welcoming our learners for their first day of school! We are all very excited and can't wait to meet you all.

Prep Week 1 Term 1 2019 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

Tena kotou katoa!

Happy New Year, we hope that you had plenty of opportunity to enjoy this amazing summer and that you have been able to create many beautiful and long lasting memories with your family and loved ones.

With spirit, passion and determination, we have returned to our project of turning "Ubiquitous Learning on a Wave of Change" into reality. 

Communicative....

Diana and Wendy have continued to conduct whanau enrolment interviews. Our school community keeps growing and we are thrilled getting to know our future learners so well through the interview process. Information shared in the interview really helped all educators to picture our learners, their interest and passions and we are feeling well prepared to support them from Day 1. #notlongtogo.

Only a few more sleeps to our official opening, so we are getting learner ready in all aspects. We are so looking forward to it! So, many of us were taking part in planning, organising and communicating this event. 

During our induction morning we debated our evolving Kahui Values (PB4L) Matrix as well as some lesson plan templates, drafts and ideas. We have deliberately chosen our 4 C's (communicative, creative, collaborative and curious) as our PB4L values despite recognising that these are not the first values that come to mind when addressing behaviour. Having said that, these values are learning values, indeed, and after all we are addressing Positive Behaviour for Learning. Now, we are having a fabulous struggle creating a matrix that serves as a tool for explicit social coaching as well as explaining learning dispositions and is cognitively portable. So, watch this space. 

Creative....

Continuing building our school culture all of us spent part of an induction morning on recapping and reiterating a cognitively portable model of our vision statement, learning value why's, purpose of learning and learning is statements. 

We collaboratively designed our code of conduct and our dress code.

As mentioned earlier, one of our top priorities for the week was to turn our office look alike learning spaces into clearly identifiable learning zones that primary school aged children find attractive, appealing and thought provoking. During term 4, we have repeatedly cogitated about implementing the environment as the third teacher. Ideally, the environment communicates desired and acceptable manner, our values that are celebrated in this space and the invitation to wonder, to investigate and to inquire. Now, we are making this reality.
Many of the attractive resources that Wendy and Kirstin ordered had arrived and they needed to be assembled, assorted and arranged in the learning space. Further, we were majorly impressed when Anoushka showed off her interior design and decorating skills. She sparked off a healthy competition between the teams. The Kāinga are beginning to look incredible and we are interested to see the learners interacting with the space when they come for their first visit next week. Michael and Kirstin set up the Steam & Art spaces and then gave all of us a tour so we know how to use them. 


Collaborative...


On Friday, we put our collaborative skills to the test by participating in Whare Hapori Action Day. Amazing Wendy, Kate and Kelly, our Whare Hapori team, had organised all the resources needed to get our library books ready for the shelf. So, the team created a production line implementing the following actions cataloging books, preparing books for the shelf and labeling all donated books to recognise the gifting person. Then the final act was to sort the books in the shelves and display them so our learners will be attracted and motivated to use these for their ubiquitous learning.  Many thanks go to Sandi Falconbridge the National Library Adviser to our school for her brilliant support. Also, thank you to the volunteers who participated in the Whare Hapori working bee. We really appreciate your support. Even one of our learners wearing his new uniform came to support us in this important undertaking. 

Our Travelwise lead educator Yasmin met with Senior Constable Bryan Ward Q.S.M (who some of you will know from "Brian and Bobby") to organise and discuss some learning experiences about road safety early in term 1. Naturally, the safety of our learners is paramount and education for safety is essential. We are glad to have these connections. 


Yasmin and Kelly also met with Russell French from Travelwise Auckland Transport to discuss Road Safety and Travelwise activities. We are proactively thinking about how we can make the drop off and pick up arrangements safe for all our learners, their siblings and their parents, in short for our school community. Having many learners and their whānau walk to school is beneficial for many reasons and it contributes to keeping the roads around the school safe. Walking to school also allows parents to teach their children being a pedestrian on our roads. We are a Travelwise School!

The Linc-Ed team: Diana, Kirstin, Kate and Amy, continued to set up interfaces and progressions which will support our educators in their administration work and in assembling Ubiquitous Learning Portfolios.

Curious

Team Wheke coaches and our two deputy principals Wendy and Kirstin went to a very worthwhile, informative and descriptive Primary Phonics workshop facilitated by Yolanda Soryl. We have been deliberating about what Phonics programme we are going to implement in our school.  After consulting  many sources we decided for Yolanda Soryl and for a start her workshop did not disappoint at all. 

Yolanda is an excellent facilitator in making sure that we have not wasted a minute of our time. She does share her strategies of making phonics a practical, effective and enjoyable part of a literacy programme in a very absorbable style. We left this workshop with many readily implementable strategies, which we will need to integrate into and weave through our timetable.  

On Wednesday evening Amy, Anoushka and Yasmin went to an information evening held by Te Wānanga o Aotearo and inquired about courses to learn Te Reo Maori. They have enrolled  in a year long course and will commit at least three hours a week, probably a little more to learning Te Reo Maori and Tikanga Maori. By the end of the course they will be able to hold a seven minute conversation. What a great ambition - congratulations and good luck to them.  


Coming up

• Official opening

• Open days

• More work on Kāinga websites, LincEd 

• Hauora wellbeing  workshop with Graham Watts