From our Tumuaki / Principal

Kia ora e hoa mā,

As we head into a long weekend, I hope you have plans to spend time with whānau and friends, and make the most of the extra time together.

The extra long weekend for our school families is due, in part, to a staff only day on Friday. Part of this day was spent exploring and delving more deeply into several key learning areas of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed curriculum, and was really useful. The three learning areas that have already been refreshed and released by the Ministry of Education are Te Ao Tangata / Social Sciences, English, and Maths and Statistics, and schools will be expected to be using these three refreshed curricula by 2025. Our team has already spent some time exploring the overview of the refreshed curriculum, and we spent further time on Friday looking in more depth at the three refreshed areas.

The refreshed curriculum is centred around equity and inclusion for all students, based around five key learning phases, rather than the curriculum levels model we are currently using. The phases are:

Phase 1: years 0-3; Phase 2: years 4-6; Phase 3: years 7-8; Phase 4: years 9-10; Phase 5: years 11-13

The curriculum uses a model of ‘understand, know, do’ which outlines progress outcomes that ākonga should understand, know and do by the end of each phase. Students deepen their understanding of the big ideas (understand), as they explore the context (know), using critical practices (do). It is a great approach to learning that fits wonderfully with the way our learning programmes are structured at Amesbury School.

We will continue to explore the refreshed curriculum throughout next year, using it to develop our own local curriculum, including the matrices we use to track learning progression in key learning areas. All schools have two additional staff only days in 2024 to help us with this work and, as a kāhui cluster of local schools, we have all agreed on the same two days, to make things easier for families with children at multiple schools in our local kāhui. The days are:

• Tuesday 4th June (directly after King’s Birthday public holiday on Monday 3rd)

• Friday 25th October (leading into a long weekend with Labour Day public holiday on Monday 28th).

The days are in the school calendar for next year, to help with planning.

In the meantime, enjoy the extra time with your whānau this weekend and have a restful break.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Urs Cunningham