From the Principal's Desk

Welcome back to 2025.

It has been a busy but great couple of weeks getting back into our learning routines, heading down to the pool for swimming lessons and of course, enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

Early in April, we will be welcoming back Michelle Irving from ERO who will be visiting for two days in her role as our Evaluation Partner.

This marks the end of a three-year cycle where we have been working together to evaluate the school's strengths and areas to further develop.

During her visit, she will be visiting classrooms to observe our teachers as they work with ākonga, meeting the Board of Trustees and analysing our student achievement data and other important documents.

Shortly after her visit, she will publish a report detailing her findings; outlining our strengths and highlighting priorities for future development. This report will be available on both ERO's own website and also on our Southbridge School website.

If you have anything that you would particularly like to share with Michelle then please let me know.

As you know the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) is currently undergoing a major refresh.

This year we are working from totally revamped Mathematics & Statistics and Literacy curricula.

There are no longer the familiar 3 curriculum levels as they have been replaced by 2 phases of learning.

This means that there are only 2 major milestones for students to aim for whilst at Southbridge School.

By the end of Year 3 students are expected to have completed Phase 1 and by the end of Year 6 they are expected to have completed Phase 2.

This change from curriculum levels to phases of learning has resulted in a major shift in the 'age-appropriate expectations' that students are assessed against.

The bar has risen sharply.

Many students who would have previously been considered as meeting 'age-appropriate expectations' will likely find themselves now classified as 'working towards' these expected levels.

While this may cause some unnecessary angst for you, the whānau, the marked rise in expectation is not necessarily a totally bad thing.

As we move further towards using NUMICON and iDeaL as our programs of choice it allows us to align these scope and sequences with the new expectations and assessment requirements. It allows for better clarity, more consistency and hopefully, easier-to-understand reports and next steps.

If your child is one of the vast majority nationally who will move from 'meeting expectations' to 'working towards expectations' please don't panic.

Yes, learning to read, write and count is vital to future endeavours and all of us need to be able to perform these skills regardless of the job we choose.

But, in my opinion, other parts of education are of equal or even greater value.

I call them my 7 C's, being able to :

• think critically,

• collaborate and

• communicate with others,

• be creative,

• be of good character

• be a positive contributor to society

• apply computational thinking (problem-solving)

are all skills equal in value to being able to read, write and count; all of which are developed through our play and project-based learning curriculum.

Our focus is on guiding the development of the whole child using a constructivist approach to teaching and learning.

If you have any questions about any of the topics I have discussed then please don't hesitate to pop in for a chat.

Ngā mihi nui

Ian Quilter