It has been a busy two weeks for our tamariki and staff organising and competing in this year's Cross Country events.

On the 23rd of May, the Year 5 and 6 event was held on our school grounds. This was a really successful event. By hosting the races on our grounds, we were able to tailor the event to our children and add a fun and challenging element by adding obstacles and utilising key features of our landscape.

The following week, our Whakatipu and Poutama students took part in their event. By scheduling this event on a Thursday, we are able to include the Ko Taku Reo Day School students. It was great to see these tamariki join in with us.

A big thanks to Chris Thurlow, Shireen Myers, Kate Norman and Francis Jackson for their work behind (and at the front of) the scenes to make these events run so smoothly. We aimed to provide a fun and inclusive Cross Country experience and also provide competitive options for the students who thrive in this environment and enjoy a challenge.

Yesterday, 19 of our fittest and fasted competed in the North Christchurch Zone Cross Country Meet. Well done Darcy Tamaki, Paige, Rae, Chloe, Liahona, Mia, Mila, Lola, Eden, Mikaere, Zak, Harrison, Oscar, Ollie, Nash, Wolf, Oliver and Liam for qualifying for this event and competing with spirit and pride.

Izzy, Cooper, Braxton and Eric qualified for this competition but were unable to compete on the day due to illness. 

A special congratulations to Darcy, Liahona, Ollie P and Nash for qualifying for the Canterbury Champions Cross Country which will take place later this month.

Teacher Only Day:  Teaching and Learning / Staff Professional Development

Thank you for keeping your children home on Friday. I have heard parents ask / comment about what teachers actually do on teacher only days. Rest assured - we are working!

We had a full agenda on Friday, focussed on teaching and learning, specifically our Literacy/English curriculum. Our staff reviewed several of our structured literacy assessment methods,  DIBELs (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills. The focus was on the fidelity / consistency for administering these assessment to ensure we get quality information around each child's achievement and their next steps.

We also established norms around progress monitoring for tamariki who may be at risk of underachievement. For some tamariki, more regular testing is needed to ensure that our approaches and teaching strategies are working.

On Friday, we introduced "Kupu" to our staff. Shireen Myers and Jan Beck-Manawatu have been working on this concept over recent months. KUPU is the new name given to our structured literacy approach. 

Kupu is the Māori word for "word" and we have used this to make an acronym to help define what Structured Literacy means for us.

Knowledge

• Awareness and familiarity

• Practical life long skills

• Building knowledge to build comprehension success

Universal and inclusive

• Literacy skills are applied in all levels of learning and life

• Encompasses skills and components that can be applied to other learning areas

• “Helpful for all, crucial for many”

Pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept)

• A method and practice of teaching

• A combination of teaching methods, learning activities and learning assessments

• Using assessment tools to inform our teaching (DIBELS)

• Driven by the research and ‘Science of Reading’

• Scaffolding process of ‘I do, we do, you do’

Understanding

Understanding that…

• Level of literacy impacts upon the lives of our tamariki, e.g. self esteem, self confidence, seeing self as a successful learner, success at high school and beyond, life choices and career path

• Deep connections are needed - orthographic mapping, reducing cognitive load

• Redwood School embraces change and evidenced based programmes

• KUPU is a key part of our Redwood School curriculum

We are really proud of Kupu. Our approach to teaching reading follows a Structured Literacy Approach which the government have mandated across all state primary schools.

You might ask your child "What did you learn at KUPU time?"

A big thanks to Ruby Myers for developing the KUPU logo. Ruby completed her Bachelor of Design from Ara last year. Thanks Ruby, we love our Kupu graphic!

Have a lovely weekend. 

Ngā mihi nui

Nick Gunn | Tumuaki