'Feeling Good and Thriving'

We believe that wellbeing is at the heart of education. Positive wellbeing is vital for student success and is strongly linked to learning and the implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Our teachers have a planned approach to wellbeing that incorporates all the dimensions of the Wellbeing Framework. Teachers support students to develop skills that help them to strengthen their relationships, build positive emotions, enhance personal resilience, promote mindfulness, and encourage them to feel good and thrive.

Please find below an update from our teams regarding how they have been using our Wellbeing Framework to support their students this term.

Māunu

We have had a great start to the term with some big events already having taken place - the Cross Country, Bullying Free NZ Week, and Pink Shirt Day. We have also started an exciting new Inquiry topic that focuses on the Planet Earth and Beyond strand of the Science Curriculum. We have been doing lots of practical science experiments related to the sun, moon and stars - including; making tasty nachos in a solar oven, attempting to make raisins (possibly a bit hopeful at this time of year!), and shadow pictures that help demonstrate the effect of the sun’s light. We are looking forward to a parent speaker (Wilfred Walsh, who is an astronomer) coming to share his knowledge of stars with us.

This term we have started our 3rd New Entrant class. We have enjoyed welcoming a lovely new group of learners to the school as well as their teachers - Kimberly Russell and Kathy Phillips. It has been lovely to watch the older year 1 learners take the new students under their wing as tuakana teina, helping them form relationships and feel a sense of belonging in their new environment. The Year 8 buddies are also fantastic at welcoming our new students and helping them feel safe and happy at school.

Kōraho

We began the term revisiting our team treaty and how we can continue to have positive, collaborative relationships in our team. We discussed how we can be good friends and offer compliments and kind words to each other.

Bullying Free week was a great opportunity to revisit our definition of bullying and how to cope and help others experiencing difficulties. 

Both Youthtown and Cross Country have been an important part of our program. Many of our children were able to experience success at the Cross country, while others showed great resilience in completing something they found more challenging.

Introducing our Deep Learning topic on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle has ignited new interest amongst the students. We began by explicitly teaching the concept of cause and effect which has flowed into many areas throughout the day.   

Pīrere

Following connections made on camp last term, we have continued to connect weekly as a team for a hui or singing. We continue to focus on our school values; these are displayed in our learning spaces, and pre-teaching around these is done daily.

The NZ Bullying Free week enabled us to focus on the definition of bullying, the impact of bullying on others, and supporting those that need it. Our Wellbeing teaching has included learning about developing resilience.

Youthtown and Cross Country has been a part of our physical education program. Youthtown has focussed on team games (soccer) and students were grouped so that they were alongside learners from across the year groups. These lessons have been replicated with homeroom teachers.

We have begun our Deep Learning unit centered around the Oceans. Teachers led 4 different frontloading sessions on an Ocean subtopic with a focus on the concept of Cause and Effect. These lessons were through an interchange system so that learners could connect with all teachers across our team. Last week we visited The International Antarctic Centre to support our learning about Oceans and the competency of 'Creativity'.

Kātua

In the Kātua team, we are explicitly teaching our school values through group problem-solving challenges which also encourage students to build positive relationships. 

The senior students love their buddies in the Māunu Team and there is a long list of students who are looking forward to having a buddy. The buddy program continues to be a great way to build relationships and establish connections across the school.

Our student leaders are taking the opportunity to lead a variety of school-wide celebrations including values assemblies, Pink Shirt Day and World Vision. 

The Year 7 students are loving their American Football Unit as part of our Tuesday Interchange subjects. Each team has created a playbook and has a student coach, captains, and a manager. Students are being encouraged to take responsibility for the tournament based on the sports education style model. We continue to use Hellison’s Developmental Levels to explicitly teach sportsmanship including fair play.

We have begun our Deep Learning unit about the concept of Cause and Effect with a series of lessons based on student’s preferred topics. We are using and modeling SOLO taxonomy maps, focusing on creativity to support this. After this, we will explicitly teach questioning techniques to ensure students begin their individual inquiry with motivation and engagement.