Nau mai haere mai.

As quick as the Term One holidays fell upon us, so too did the holidays finish and now we are halfway through week two. 

Today, as I write this, we have just completed our teacher accord day focusing on the changes to NCEA in three areas.

1. Mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori

• Integrate te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori into the outcome statements as part of the new ‘graduate profile’ for NCEA and in the design of achievement standards.
• Ensure equal support for ākonga Māori in all settings and equal status for mātauranga Māori.
• Develop more standards to make sure that mātauranga Māori is acknowledged and credentialed equally by NCEA, (e.g. Māori Performing Arts).
• Develop new assessment resources and teaching and learning guides for mātauranga Māori.
• Ensuring that, where possible and appropriate, te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori are built into achievement standards for use across English and Māori-medium settings. That might mean:
  • having Māori-centred contexts for exemplars and assessment resources e.g. local iwi history.
  • inclusive standards and assessment resources that allow for diverse cultural perspectives on what’s important e.g. considering community or hapū impact, not just individual user needs.
• Build teacher capability around culturally inclusive NCEA and assessment and aromatawai practice that is respectful to mātauranga Māori.

For more information about this please follow the link below.

Mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori

2/3. Strengthening Literacy & Numeracy and Te Reo Matatini me Te Pāngarauu requirements.

As part of the NCEA Change Package, new Unit Standards are being developed to assess foundational literacy and numeracy. Draft Te Reo Matatini me Pāngarau (Literacy and Numeracy) standards have just been released for public feedback.

For more information about this please follow the link below.

Strengthening Literacy & Numeracy and Te Reo Matatini me Te Pāngarauu requirements.

A large amount of this work has been underway for this school for the last couple of years which should allow us to incorporate these changes seamlessly.

This term, like all others is chocka block full of opportunities for our students. 

This Thursday our Year 7-10 students will have the chance to go to the Junior Formal with a Barn Yard theme. This is a fundraiser for the Senior Formal and a great opportunity for Ms McLachlan to dress up as a Bunny.

We are currently in Formal season with Maniototo School having theirs last weekend with six of our students attending. The formal committee assure me that they have taken some great ideas from them that they can look to  incorporate into their "Sweet Night Out" themed formal on the 28th of May.

The Tokomariro sports exchange on the 20th of May will also be a highlight this year. We currently hold the trophy and will be looking to ensure that this is kept at our kura. Students have been reminded that their behavior and attendance at school will be predeterminants of their participation.

At the end of last term we held our student led interviews with great success. A great turn out of parents allowed the students to articulate their goals for the year and associated action plans to ensure that these are met. We will be holding these again at the end of Term three so the parents can see how close they are to completing these goals and any work that needs to be done to make this happen can occur before the end of the year.

Our students are doing amazingly well in class as represented by the Fortnightly Indicator results. We had close to 25% of our students gaining perfect scores in our last 2 weeks. Keep up the good work. These can be checked out on the Parent Portal of Kamar. This hard mahi will result in great academic outcomes for our students. Keep up the good work!

Nga mihi nui.

Marcus Cooper

Tumuaki 

East Otago High School