KORERO FROM MIRANDA

Kia ora Rototuna Whānau,

Welcome to Week 7 of the school year! As we move further into the term our focus at the Senior High School steadfastly remains on developing the critical, creative and caring thinking skills our students need to be successful at school and beyond. Quality thinking is demonstrated when students are able to link and integrate individual ideas to show a deeper relational understanding. We want our teachers and students to be able to have conversations that focus on developing this kind of thinking with their teachers and their classmates. This is something we are focusing on as a teaching staff, developing and exploring the ways we make this happen for your young people to support their success.

Your young person’s first progress report is going to be emailed to you in a couple of weeks, so check your spam if you haven’t received this by Thursday 28 March. Your student’s progress is indicated in two ways on this report. Firstly, achievement, whether your student is on track to achieve based on the work they have produced to date. Secondly, learning quality, the depth of understanding they are demonstrating in their learning. The progress for both achievement and learning quality are indicated by three colours: orange (not yet on track), green (on track), and blue (high quality evidence for progress/depth). Sometimes the indicators do not match what you or your student are expecting. In these cases I encourage you and your student to contact your kaiārahi to help you connect with teachers so you can talk with them, seek clarification and find out what to do to improve progress.

Later in this newsletter you will find information about upcoming events including an opportunity for you to connect with us to find out how we can work together to support your student’s success. There is also information about 'Iwi games', as well as some wonderful things that have been happening in and because of Puna Wānanga. Thank you for your ongoing support and have a great week

Ngā mihi,

Miranda