Term 3 Week 5

Kia Ora Koutou

2 September 2011

As a member of the NZPF executive I helped plan the National Summit that was held in Wellington at the weekend. Eighty representatives of Regional Principal Associations, invited speakers and the NZPF executive attended this. Peter Simpsonopened with a speech about the need to create global citizens and the moral imperative of education. NZ has to hold onto the education system that charts our future generations place in their world, and not return to educating students for our past. Ian LeckieNZEI; talked about quality learning environments for the good of society as a whole. He urged people to read the reports on the NZEI website, especially the from Good to Great one. He urged schools to reflect every child's individual needs in the curriculum, and reiterated our commitment to do better at creating access, opportunity and equity for every child. The successful countries in the world use evidence to guide policy. They reach consensus WITH THE PROFESSION on what is best for education. They listen to the PROFESSIONAL VOICE. The depth of feeling in many communities surrounding National Standards is being ignored by Government. The 'do as you are told' attitude, is not how we develop self management in our students. We encourage them to ask questions, explore ideas and problem solve. Teachers and communities must continue to express their concerns; this is our rightful place as a profession. We continue to invite the Government to listen to our concerns, act on the professional advice, read research. He urged educators to write to Mr. Key, expressing any difficulties the system shift is posing in your school. We all want standards in education; this however is creating national chaos. Winnie Laban - the Vice Chancellor of Victoria University. Winnie presented her Principles for Principals for Pasifika. Respecting the dignity of every family and access to ambitious public education. Her values of language and culture, family, spirituality, respect and reciprocity along with a holistic view of the student learners was engaging. She urged participants to use the research readily available to know what is working, to chart and navigate a more successful future in education. She advocated for a big push in linguistic competence and is saddened that we in the main continue to be a mono lingual country. Dr Angus McFarlane - said it was time to de story and re story, based on tatou- all of us! He wants a new narrative that is culturally responsive and that is based on orangatanga to grow the potential of learners. All Maori students have gifts, it is just a matter of whether the doors are opened for them.

Calendar:
Pita Pit Orders Sushi Orders Every Tuesday Subway Orders Every Wednesday Sausage Sizzle Every Friday $1.50each SeptemberRoald Dahl Month Library 15 SepILT Sing Out 15 SepNew Entrant Evening 16 SepCreative Southland Speech competition 26 SepBOT meeting 3 OctQuiz Evening 5 OctLiteracy Dayshared lunch 7 OctTerm 3

Luke Sumich Principal of Summerland, challenged the room withIs your local community designed school curriculum still alive? Does it reflect children at the centre? He spoke of the digital learning opportunities encompassed in the fabulous untapped potential of the NZC. Peter Lindreiterated the hallmarks of the profession. He warned that the new teacher criteria has a huge variance when school appraisals are compared. He wants to see responsive accountability from the profession, and NOT external regulation. He believes the profession should be developed and maintained as the engineers of NZ are. Peer observation and reflection build teacher confidence, and we must commit to ongoing learning. Make our practice transparent and keep our learners at the heart of the matter. John Langley Cognition. He wanted us to think as a profession. What does success look like for our school? For our education system? Are we getting our money's worth? Is our money making a difference? Education changes but we must lead society out of knowledge and into the light Learning is visible; we know what motivates learners and what teachers must do to cause learning. He stated that focus of all work by teachers must be on student achievement, if it is not do not do it! This was challenged and questioned by some of the audience Ann Milnedelivered a powerful presentation; I could listen to her all day! Her Thomas Jefferson quote Facts can be the enemy of truth woke the audience up! Literacy & its terrible twin Numeracy is NOT the Key to all learning success! We must name the elephant in the classroom, white privilege is what counts as knowledge and achievement. Education that enhances what it means to be Maori, PI, and Tongan As Maori" is NOT the same 'As Pakeha" Whose knowledge counts? Parents must have an authentic voice; school must be based on relationships, caring and aroha.

A number of themes emerged including: That we maintain a compulsory quality publicly funded education system That the NZC is championed as the central document to deliver an authentic and broad curriculum That the teaching profession be self-regulating set its own high professional standards for training and practice and govern itself. That there be continuing quality professional learning development available throughout ones professional educational career. That the current education administration system of Boards of Trustees and self-managing schools be protected into the future. That the growing inequalities in NZ are addressed by government policies because these impinge on students ability to learn These will now form any future discussion with political parties as we hit the electioneering leading into November. The profession still has many major concerns about the implications of National Standards and the lack of professional voice in fixing what leading academics state are flawed and unworkable.

7 days until World Cup! Go the All Blacks!

Marlene

HELP MAKE THESE KIDS HAPPY!

The PTA want to get these jungle gyms back in use, but we need a safe surface underneath them. On the night of the Quiz we will be raffling hampers to raise money for this, and are hoping for your generosity to make the hampers amazing. The hampers will be themed as follows: Garden Kitchen Bathroom Laundry

QUIZ EVENING
Please register your Teams of 4 players as soon as possible for our Quiz Evening. $20.00 per team. This will be a fun community evening and a chance for new parents to meet existing parents, for fun and laughter. Mark your diary now Wednesday, October 3rd at 7.00pmSchool Hall Posters are available from the Office if you can help distribute these it would be appreciated.

We need our jungle gyms back!

Bring anything along anything you think will be appropriate for a hamper youd like to win! There is a box in the office to collect these.... We appreciate your contribution!

Gillian Graham, Secretary, PTA

TUESDAY SUSHI LUNCHES Have started Cost $5.00 Six pieces of Sushiand children love them. Order by completing an order envelope, available at the Office. Please feel free to take an envelope home for next week.

Sick children - We are experiencing a number of unwell students

at present, with stomach bugs, headaches, and a nasty influenza. PLEASE ensure that you keep your child at home for enough days to stop the spreading of these bugs. We are also encouraging children to wash their hands with soap and hot water for at least 20 seconds.

DODGERS SOFTBALL CLUB -Welcomes you to

'HAVE A GO OPEN DAY' Saturday 4th September 1-3pm @ Aurora College,Tramway Road. There will be Have a Go Tee Ball/Childrens Softball, Home Run competition, Race around the Base, Batting machine practise, and Demo match (senior players) @ 1.30pm. Lolly Scramble..check out our website for Info and Registrations

www.sportsground.co.nz/dodgerssouthland URGENTLY NEEDED FOR MINIBALLYear 3/4 GIRLSwe are short of 2 Year 3/4 girls to complete this team. If you would like to play please see Mr Tuckerfirst to register will be part of the team.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES FUNDRAISER:

Many thanks for the ongoing selling of this fundraising product. We urgently require all product to be sold and monies returned to the Office.

NEWSLETTER SUPPLEMENT TERM 3WEEK 5

2 SEPTEMBER 2011

CHARTER 2011
The Salford School Board of Trustees has submitted the 2011 Charter as per the legislative requirements. Our student achievement targets are set against Writing, Reading & Numeracy strategy stages in various year levels. Our initial student achievement targets did not meet the new MOE requirements as they used Asttle. and our own criteria to measure the success. The MOE now require us to detail OTJ (Overall Teacher Judgement) and moderation processes. Norm referenced data in the MOEs opinion, is no longer robust enough following the implementation of National Standards. We have subsequently met with the Ministry and discussed how we make our target compliant without compromising our original focus and intent of the teaching and learning. We await the next MOE scrutiny of this document. A copy of the Charter is available at the office if you would like to read it. The Salford school Board of Trustees and staff promote high standards of student achievement, and had already developed the Salford standard with the criteria we report to you against. This comes from all of the national exemplars and learning progressions that were existing at that time. We have since attempted to align this against the new National Standards. We believe this system meets the National learning expectation with the language used being specific, measurable, observable and future focused with the next learning steps on the rubric. The new National standards statements are vague and very difficult to interpret let alone report against. The data we produce school wide is valid and reliable. It is concerning that the data produced using the new national standards maybe inaccurate and place learners at risk, when in fact they are achieving well. It also has no National understanding, as each OTJ (over all teacher judgement) at every school in New Zealand will look different and be interpreted differently. This is the Year 6 Maths National Standard By the end of year 6, students will be achieving at level 3 in the mathematics and statistics learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum. Number and algebra In contexts that require them to solve problems or model situations, students will be able to: apply additive and simple multiplicative strategies flexibly to: - combine or partition whole numbers, including performing mixed operations and using addition and subtraction as inverse operations - find fractions of sets, shapes, and quantities determine members of sequential patterns, given their ordinal positions describe spatial and number patterns, using: - tables and graphs - rules that involve spatial features, repeated addition or subtraction, and simple multiplication. An example of our criteria states: Know my multiplication and corresponding division for 3 4 & 6 times tables In the range of 0 1,000,000 say the number 1, 10, 100 or 1000 more or less when going through or over 10 8,999,999 +10 Name the family of facts to 10 for multiplication and division Recall compatible numbers to 1000 I hope you can see the difference. Our criteria is written in kidspeak. We have tried to make the language less teacher jargon and specific, to enable parents to grasp the meaning, and student learners to understand and articulate their learning. We will continue to do our very best for you and your child. We will continue to align our learning expectations to the new National standard, but there are significant professional concerns that do need to be listened to and understood by our Government. The Board of Trustees and myself, are always available to discuss any concerns you may have. I am including some article links for you if you are interested. http://thestandard.org.nz/welcome-to-finland/ http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/