Please read further for the Middle School news and notices:

A note from Lisa Lambert, Head of Middle School

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Middle School students have made a positive start to Term 4 by showing an improvement in the way that they present themselves in correct uniform for different occasions. It is very important that they always come to school in their day uniform and that they leave their uniform hat at school for easy access across the week. We aim to be sun smart so we suggest your child has sunscreen in their bag, however, we have stocked-up on sunscreen in all the Middle School classes as a back-up for them. Another area of improvement is the way that students are taking care of their classrooms and the outside environment.

Middle School Parent Night

It was a pleasure to see so many parents at our Middle School Parent night last week. What an involved community we have and the many new families who attended must have felt so excited to be part of it. As promised, you will receive an email shortly with the Activity Costs and Stationary Lists for 2020. These will also be onto our school website. It is an exciting time of year for our Year 8 and 9 students who choose their options for the following year.

Middle School Bulletin

Please refer to the Middle School Term 4 Bulletin emailed by Angela Andrew recently for details on the learning programmes and events in Middle School for Term 4 – remember to complete the online permission slips too.

Blessings

Lisa Lambert
Head of Middle School

Thinking in Action – Year 8

Thinking is one of the Key Competencies in our NZ curriculum and it is an essential part of teaching and learning. Learners thrive in an environment in which thinking is valued and developed deliberately through a variety of approaches in a variety of contexts.

Robyn Boswell, Director of Future Problem Solving NZ, describes three types of thinking:

• critical thinking: focusing, staying open to ideas, looking for possibilities.
• creative thinking: generating ideas, originality, curiosity, imagination.
• caring thinking: valuational (values, attitudes), affective (choices, right and wrong), active (acting on beliefs, taking action), normative (attitude, perspective).

In Year 8 we’ve endeavoured to create activities or projects that facilitate all types of thinking. Here are a few examples of these from terms 3 and 4:

• Election Project: the students work collaboratively through the election process. They come up with a party name, logo and write a speech highlighting the issues they value the most.
• Your Turn to Teach: the students need to plan and teach a lesson based on an environmental issue e.g. deforestation. They need to include a video clip, content and a follow-up activity e.g. crossword, quiz.
• Debates: in teams of 3, they need to prepare for a debate. Lots of research is done and they focus on using persuasive language that will hopefully help them to win!
• Design Week: the students are given a meaningful, practical problem to solve. They work within a budget to create a 3D or digital model. They present their ideas and justify their decisions and costs.

Colin Gray
Head of Year 8

Back to the Future

In Week 3 this term the Middle school Missions and Arts Councils organised an event called “Back to the Future” for Year 9 students. These council members did an exceptional job at hosting a fun event with 80s music, games, a memory wall collage where they could commemorate their favourite moments from the year and prizes throughout the night.

Our Middle School council members initiated the idea of this event being a fundraiser to assist Year 9 students who cannot cover the full cost of Year 9 camp. The night fundraised over $200 towards this cause. Throughout the night it was wonderful to see students serving and leading in many different roles such as being stage hosts, production managers, hospitality managers, graphic designers, photographers, event managers and many other roles. Servant leadership in action!

Lizzy Hagen
Year 9 Teacher