Welcome to the new-look Upper Hutt College Newsletter. We hope you enjoy this changed format, it will make it easier for us to keep you informed about school information, and student activities and achievements. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

I’d like to thank our parents, caregivers and whanau for their support during lockdown. It isn’t always easy to motivate young people to get on with their schoolwork, so we appreciate all that you did to keep things on track, especially when there were so many issues that families were dealing with at the same time.

We surveyed the students to ask them about their learning@home experience. Most students liked distance learning and the great majority said they enjoyed doing other things at the same time (eat and listen to music), liked that they could wear what they wanted, and preferred to work at their own pace and at any time they wanted. Over 60% of students found it hard to motivate themselves – they like having their teacher to push them and get them going. Nearly 90% of students said they missed their friends, and that they preferred to be able to discuss and work with other students in the class. They certainly missed having the teachers to explain things to them. When asked what they would like to see back at school, there was a strong call for flexibility – students liked working at their own pace, scheduling their own work and having independent learning time. They liked the flexibility of being able to work for longer time periods on one particular subject, and focussing on two or three in a day, rather than 5 subjects. Google Classroom was key in all of this.

So, we’ve been thinking about this, and how we can change how we do things in the classroom. Teachers have been told of the survey results and there will be a push to move more information onto Google Classroom. Opportunities for teachers to collaborate with each other are being explored. A small trial will involve a Year 13 class having flexibility in their learning, choosing what and how they learn, as well as where. We will be looking at how that works with interest.

The normal life of the school is returning. The Year 13 Drama class will complete their production this week, winter sports are resuming and we are starting the process of showcasing our school for prospective Year 9 students. Parent-Teacher Interviews take place on Wednesday 1 July – we look forward to seeing you there.

Ngā mihi nui

Judith Taylor

Principal

taylorj@upperhutt.school.nz