KORERO FROM FRASER

Welcome back to Term 3 and Semester 2. I hope you have already heard lots about our new modules and have enjoyed hearing about the learning that is already happening.

As I mentioned in one of my eNews issues last term, this year as a school we have a focus on developing our approach to teaching literacy within all learning areas. Traditionally literacy teaching has rested within the English curriculum. However we feel with our integrated approach to delivering the curriculum, it is a huge opportunity for us to all become expert teachers of literacy within our own learning areas. Our goal is to ensure all of our students are independent and critical communicators whether it is through written, visual or oral texts. While the changes in regard to literacy are on the horizon, (now 2024) successful achievement in the new literacy standards at Year 9 and 10 is not our key focus, we want our students to be achieving way beyond these expectations by the end of Year 10. The NCEA standards will be achieved as a result of quality literacy teaching and learning practices across all learning areas from Year 7 onwards.

The last two terms have been spent scoping our current capabilities and developing a plan for how we are going to approach this staff learning. Our staff are all on board and are embracing this challenge. This term we are going to start exploring and implementing strategies that scaffold and support students when they engage with a range of different texts.

As part of our semester by semester analysis of student achievement we are also delving deeper into our data to establish links between literacy progress and progress in all learning areas. We are also tracking a group of 30 Year 8 students closely to assist us in measuring the impact of new approaches. I look forward to sharing some of this information with you all.

On a completely different note, have you as a parent or caregiver contemplated what it means to be parenting an adolescent? We often hear about how ………….. has changed since they started at RJHS and this is absolutely true! We see a lot of change in our young people and most of it is normal. If you are finding parenting a challenge all of a sudden then check out the information here, it might make you feel better:

Understanding Adolescence

Dr Michael Carr sums it up nicely, “Parenting adolescents can be demanding, terrifying, exhausting and a sanity threatening endeavour. Often it can be a lonely business with many parents being afraid to share their concerns.” I encourage you to check out some of the quick videos and tips on this page, it could change your life!