Here is a summary from our school SENCO Keryn Wilson about our GATE provision.

Production practices are taking place every available afternoon so specific withdrawal programmes like Maths Achievement Challenges (Maths Badges) and Future Problem Solving won't be on every week. I will squeeze them in when I can until after production and then we will do a few extra sessions after our performances are completed.

Helpful and comprehensive feedback from the Future Problem Solving moderators has been sent this week which will be shared with the groups. Certificates were received for the senior group, which is an amazing achievement and not a common occurrence! The second problems for FPS will be done after production has been completed.

Children's University is in its last term for collecting hours and so participants and families are busy getting hours in for verification rather than leaving it until the last moment - a great idea! Attendance at the graduation ceremony does depend on having the required number of verified hours.

Our Learning Assistant, Lesley, is checking in with Science badge children every week to see how the school can support any current learning children are doing in that space.

Mary-Anne (Learning Assistant) will be working with Adventurous Thinkers (junior thinking group) this term because of the reduced timeframes available with production rehearsals.

ToM (Tournament of Minds) group will take priority next term as our school drama production has similar learnings and goals and will cross over with children who are to be involved in ToM.

The Patupaiarehe Garden Project (to be led by KLC student Janna and joined by other children) will commence this term with planning out the project in depth. I will be working with Janna and the group starting next week. The construction will then be actioned next term.

VLN (Virtual Learning Network School) continues with Digi-Tech and Biology being active this term. Three children from KLC and RLC are continuing this online learning each week.

It looks like we will have enough keen riders to participate in the Primary Schools Show Jumping competition in September. A good example of our Talents and Passions in action...

Our school had great results at the ePro8 and chess competitions.

Our Kahui Ako has been running workshops which teachers have nominated children to participate in and children have then been approached to see if they were interested. There have been a great variety of these running at our school and other local schools. It is awesome to see links across the Kahui being made.

The website was updated last term following an "@ the GATE" meeting discussion so it now has links to forms and the Facebook page, too. It also lists our GATE provision there.

At a recent meeting, we discussed the idea of running workshops where individuals/whānau/local people would come into school to share their expertise with a small group of children. I would love to hear from anyone interested in looking to help organise this for Term 4. I'm not thinking of this as a massive day-long thing, perhaps 3 or 4 workshops spaced during the term where someone with a particular passion comes into school for an hour to share their knowledge with a small group of interested tamariki. Please email me if you would like to help make this happen.

If you'd like to discuss any GATE questions, there will be an opportunity to book in to meet with me during the parent learning conference times. You can also email me if you need at any stage, too. keryn.wilson@ladbrooks.school.nz