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

Term 3 Week 6 Spotlight @MatuaNgaru

We were excited to receive our banner flags this week as this has allowed us to become more visible at Huapai District School and has communicated to people and families meeting with us how to find us straight away. Thank you to Kirstin for researching and organising the flags, they look great!

 Di and Wendy have met with 8 families this week as part of family enrolment interviews. We have enjoyed learning about our learners, their families and establishing positive relationships with our school community. What talented and diverse learners Matua Ngaru is going to have with a fabulous group of interested and involved whānau to support and enrich our programmes and approaches!

Di and Amanda met with Spotless, who are our Property Management Company, they found out some useful things about our school buildings and how things will run once we open in February 2019.

Kirstin, Diana and Wendy are practicing daily, opening and closing Karakia, our Matua Ngaru waiata and a creative, scripted kōrerorero (conversation) which is our next Te Reo assessment in two weeks time and will be conducted in front of the rest of the class!

Diana, Kirstin and Michael were curious to find out more about minecraft and how the minecraft programme could enhance our learning and teaching at MNS. Crispin Lockwood led them trough some of the applications and features of the minecraft programme. The team are excited to find out more about the potential of this creative programme.

Michael and Kirstin have been ideating around options and ideas for using digital badging to induct our Learning Coaches in Term 4. We are all eager to see, hear and participate in their creative ideas around this project and achieve our badges in Term 4!

Wendy  had a wonderful time this week connecting with local kindy's and Early Childhood Centres in our community. At our Community Consultation night, 12 different ECE providers were identified as centres our newist Matua Ngaru learners will come from, so it is very important that we collaborate with ECE's and share knowledge and information so our tamariki get the best possible start at MNS. Wendy has been approached to be available for a Q & A session at Kereru Kindy, Huapai for prospective families. Emily the Head Teacher and Wendy have the planning for this underway.

Kirstin, Diana, Amanda and Wendy had the privilege this week of connecting with our colleagues and education partners at Arohanui Special School. We were made to feel very welcome and were lucky enough to visit two offsite Arohanui classrooms. One was at Te Atatu Intermediate and the other at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. It was fascinating learning to see a little of what these dedicated, passionate professionals do for a morning. We look forward to our continued close association and the opening of an Arohanui Classroom Unit and Outreach Centre at Matua Ngaru.

Diana, Kirstin and Wendy have been collaborating on our curriculum design and assessment approaches. We are enjoying the robust discussions and the opportunities to dive into research to back up our beliefs. This week we have focused on finding and making links between the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Whāriki - the Early Childhood Curriculum, both world class documents.

Wendy had an opportunity to further collaborate with Maggie Reid from Flanshaw Primary around how they use learning maps. Learning maps at Flanshaw are an integral part of what they do to report to family and whānau and maintain learner and whānau engagement, something Wendy and Di are exploring to become part of the Matua Ngaru approach.

Diana, Kirstin and Wendy all sat their first written Te Reo exam, as part of their ongoing AUT course on Conversational Maori, on Wednesday and are very curious to find out their results.

Kirstin and Diana attended a new product launch for Microsoft called Surface Go, they were curious about how the Surface Go could be used educationally.



Michael and Kirstin were able to visit the Flexible Learning Space at Huapai District School. They enjoy the visit in particular seeing how others have approached teaching and learning in a Flexible Learning Space.
Kirstin has met with a possible swimming programme provider, we are all curious to see the possible programme they could provide for our learners in the warmer months.

Our Senior Leadership Team PLG this week focused on John Hattie's latest article,WHAT WORKS BEST IN EDUCATION:THE POLITICS OF COLLABORATIVE EXPERTISE 2015. The article explored the idea of shifting to a collaborative expertise environment and had useful strategies to achieve this, as collaborative expertise is the best way to overcome within school variability and ensure our learners gain at least a year of learning for a years' input.

Term 3, Week 2 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

#UbiquitousLearning

We can't believe how fast the year is going!  It has been another jam packed week of making, doing and ubiquitous learning for the team.



On Tuesday, the wonderful Mandy Bishop from Argyle joined us for 2 afternoon uniform discussions with our community.  It was great to meet some our of our tamariki and their mums (plus one dad!).  Here are the highlights Kirstin has already shared on our Facebook page:

The key points raised by families included:

• A preference for a bright colour, but one that is still dark enough to hide marks and stains
• A colour that differs from those of our neighbouring schools
• A future option of a jacket that could be worn either as well as, or instead of a polar fleece
• The preferred fabric choice was cotton backed polyester

To begin with we will be offering a polo shirt, a fleece and a sunhat. Bottoms, shoes, etc are your choice. We also shared that staff will encourage the children to wear their uniforms with pride, however, they will not be enforcing uniform.  We are looking at adding a PE uniform at some point, however, we'd like the learners to design this, so are not including one at this stage.  From our discussions on Tuesday, we have narrowed the colour choices down to two possibilities. A poll has been posted on Facebook for you to select your preferred colour option out of 'Steel Blue' and 'Turquoise Blue' and with 89 votes- steel blue has the lead! 

Amanda, Wendy and Di also spent some time with LincEd in a Google Hangout learning more about how to capitalise on the affordances of using the our online enrolment form.  This was valuable and timely learning for us as we begin to make contact with our whanau next week to schedule family interviews.


Wendy has been refining our Enrolment processes this week- updating our Enrolment Information booklet and ensuring all of our processes are connected and clear for our whanau.  Kirstin, Wendy and Di also attended their third three hour Te Reo lesson at AUT on Wednesday morning.  We are learning a lot about how to introduce ourselves, our families and ask about others.  The opportunities to practice having conversations with our classmates has been useful and we are having our first 'mahi korero' next next.  I'm glad our kaiako has the motto "Na mai te hapai" ~ we welcome mistakes! We were also delighted to dine with the wonderful teams from Ararira Springs who were visiting schools in Auckland, along with our mates from Te Uho O Te Nikau on Wednesday evening.  Claire Howison, Mel Bland and Di had time to have an informative first time principals chat where they shared our progress to date.  


Our team spent some time this week designing our induction for whanau.  We are also in the process of collating our learning around the research and hype about Innovative Learning Environments...Modern Learning Environments... Flexible Learning Spaces... into some Fact Sheets that will help connect our interpretation to the research and hopefully provide some clarity around our vision for what teaching and learning will look like @MatuaNgaru.  
Watch this space....


Amanda and Di were graced with some time with the amazing Kerry from Leading Edge who is facilitating our learning as we set up and refine our processes around finance.  Both are thrilled to be learning with such an expert!  Di had the privilege of spending Thursday at a Professional Learning workshop by Evaluation Associates about Appraisal.  Dr Wendy Moore took the room of curious educative leaders on a learning roller coaster!  It was absolutely fantastic to have time to ideate with other principals and consolidate some embryonic ideas around our appraisal process.  Appraisal is about learning and achievement of learners and teachers and requires: open to learning conversations, evaluative capacity, responsibility and performance management with the ultimate focus on 'what we are trying to do as a school'.  Our areas of priority for designing our appraisal processes are: coherence, alignment with both the strategic direction of the School and key documentation (eg.NEGs/NAGs, NZC, Ka Hikitia, PEP and BES), keeping the Code & Standards from the Education Council and Tataiako at the heart, ensuring it is evidence based, grows capacity and is robust. An appraisal conversation, in our view, is about an educator sharing their story about their growth. Di is very interested in exploring teacher led appraisal and including educator 'passion projects' so the focus is on the teacher (read Learning Coach!) as a learner and not on compliance.

Perhaps this week we were most curious about our prospective Learning Coaches as we visited our applicants in their schools.  We are so grateful to their gracious principals for enabling us to do so and we really enjoyed seeing their schools.  Our candidates all presented to us on "As part of a collaborative team, how might you include our 4 Cs- curious, collaborative, creative and communicative, in learning design?" and we were blown away by the quality and creativity that unfolded before our eyes.  This made our choice very difficult as all were excellent candidates.  Designing the #dreamteam is our ultimate goal and we look forward to announcing soon.

#WaveofChange - Coming Up...

• An Evening of Reggio
• Uniform decisions with Mandy
• Announcing our newest additions to the #dreamteam
• More Te Reo on Wednesday
• Arranging a visit for our team @Arohanui Special School - our @MatuaNgaru flatmates!