From our Tumuaki / Principal

Kia ora e te whānau, 

In typical fashion, the term is speeding by at a tremendous pace. We are already at the end of the third week of the term, and before we know it, we will be at the end of term. As is usual for the final term of the year, there are a lot of things going on, so please keep a close eye on the weekly notices and on the school calendar, so you know what is coming up. 

We are currently looking at organization for next year, and an accurate idea of our student numbers helps hugely with this planning. If you know your tamariki currently in Years 1-5 will not be returning to Amesbury School next year, please let us know by contacting myself (urs@amesbury.school.nz) or Rachel in the office (office@amesbury.school.nz). Thanks so much.

Curriculum planning day last week

Last Friday we held a curriculum planning day, which was our final minister-directed curriculum planning day for the year. The day was to enable teachers the time to continue exploring the draft English and Maths curricula, and to be planning implementation of these curricula in our kura (school). It was a very positive day, with teachers spending time delving deeper into the English curriculum, which we had already started exploring and we had already given feedback back to the Ministry of Education about. We spent time pulling out key features of the curriculum, and looking at the expectations around what literacy will look like in action. 

We have been partaking in professional development this year around structured literacy, with the Koru team receiving ongoing development and modelling around structured literacy and what it can look at Amesbury School. Pōhutukawa Hub has completed some initial learning around this, and this professional development will continue for their team in Terms 1 and 2 in 2025. 

Part of the day was also spent looking at the draft maths curriculum. The refresh of this area is much newer to the team and, as with the English curriculum, it is still only in draft form. As a school, we are keen to implement these changes thoughtfully and in a measured and considered way. Given the rate of change with the refreshed curriculum, these changes cannot be implemented all at once. As such, as a school, we will begin by focusing on the implementation of the English curriculum and a structured literacy approach to literacy learning. As we move through the year, we will continue to explore the new maths curriculum, with a view to implementing it once our literacy professional development has been completed across the school, and teams are more comfortable and confident with the content. 

Please be aware that with the changes to these curriculum areas, we will also need to change our learning goals on Hero. This will happen next year as part of the change to the curricula, and it may mean that our reporting looks a little messy for a while, while we make the changes and move from one set of matrices to a new updated set, that align with the new curriculum. We will endeavour to make the changes as smooth as possible. 

Food at school

Over the previous term we had a number of requests for families to bring food to school, or instances of ākonga bringing celebration or ‘treat’ food and drink to school. As such, it is a good time to remind our whānau about our Food and Nutrition procedure, which lays out the expectations for food at school. 

Ākonga are not allowed to bring fizzy or energy drinks to school, and this includes bringing take away fizzy drinks into school after spending time offsite. In terms of food, lollies and sugary food are also strongly discouraged, and certainly should not be sent into school in large quantities. The occasional small treat can be permitted and we certainly do not want to become food monitors, deciding which food is or is not acceptable. We ask families to take a practical approach, and leave ‘treat’ food and snacks, including take away food, for after school. 

We are aware that some tamariki (children) like to celebrate birthdays by sharing chocolate or lollies. Given the large collaborative group sizes our ākonga work in, we ask that this does not happen, otherwise ākonga end up receiving treats on a very regular basis. Thank you for helping us keep our school a safe and healthy place for ngā tamariki.

 Have a lovely weekend and enjoy time with whānau and friends. 

Ngā mihi nui

Urs