Community Connections

Today in our staff meeting our focus is around Community Connections. We looked at the Kahakitia Accelerating Success 2013 - 2017 document. We read through page 37 and the main idea we gained from this, is that Maori students in the last decade have made massive improvement in achievements through explicit learning. On page 42 it also mentioned that making connections from schools, whanau, hapu and iwi are important and vital to student achievement in schools.

As a staff, we made a discussion spectrum. The statement was "Maori and Pasifika children need explicit teaching". Each learning coach was to stand in a position that represented their own point of view. One side being agree, the other end disagree and in the middle more a neutral opinion. It was interesting to see and hear the arguments bought forth. Lots of learning coaches had looked at the statement from a different point of view and some were quite passionate about how they looked at it. My personal view is, that I totally agree. Being of Pasifika descent but also to keep in mind that Pasifika and Maori students across New Zealand have the lowest levels of achievement.

What challenges can you see yourself as an educator moving forward with your learning today?
As a learning coach, some of the challenges that face will be to ensure that my teaching is explicit for all learners, keeping in mind the learners who are target learners. I'll need to go away and have a think about how I am going to integrate this in my hapu group and in our habitat. I'll be sharing on my blog what works and what doesn't.

Sports and Clubs @ OrmPS

As part of my role here at Ormiston, I am in charge and helping to support the sports teams and clubs. Our sports shed is well equipped with whole lot of sports gear like: soccer balls, basketballs, a sports trolley, hula hoops, tennis balls, badminton racquets and a whole lot of other stuff.

The exciting part is ordering new sports gear to get our teams up and running. For example: cricket which our learners love and softball which is a sport that learners are still learning more about. Here is a short clip of some learners practicing football skills.

We have tennis lessons for learners from LH1 and LH4. We've had football sessions and there are rugby sessions that are up and coming. We are all excited to be involved in all the different sports taking place.

My goal is to get as many learners participating in sport here at school and hopefully representing the school at InterZone and within school competitions. The school is filled with lots of sporty talented learners.