Tēnā koutou katoa. Nau mai ki te whānau o te Ōrātia. Malo e lelei. Zdravo. Talofa lava. Kia orana. Ni hao. Namaste. Kamusta. Greetings Ōrātia whānau.
There have been recent government announcements by the Minister of Education Erica Stanford and Act leader David Seymour that may have you wondering how Ōrātia School is affected by them. One of the first directives from Erica Stanford was that schools need to be delivering five hours of reading, writing and maths across each week. This can be a mixture of direct instruction and integration into all our other subjects that we are mandated to cover in the NZ Curriculum. Ōrātia teachers have a strong focus on quality teaching and were able to show how they were already meeting this expectation through their weekly timetables and planning.
The Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has pushed for schools to be cellphone free. At Ōrātia School our current policy already fits this expectation as we ask for cellphones and smart devices to be left at home. If a child must bring a cellphone or smart watch to school we expect them to be left at the school office for the day, and picked up at hometime for the journey home.
Ms Stanford's follow up announcement was that schools are to base their literacy programmes on structured literacy principles, and many millions of dollars have been set aside in the budget to facilitate this shift. Ōrātia School has been exploring structured literacy for reading over the past two to three years, and this year has expanded the focus to include writing. Our literacy programmes cover spelling, grammar, phonics, fluency and comprehension as well as a renewed focus on handwriting. We believe that we are making a difference for our students with this structured approach, but are still in the development stages in some areas and so know we have a lot more to learn.
This week David Seymour spoke about attendance goals for our NZ schools. The government are wanting our students to be in school more than 90% of each week, and have issued guidelines for parents about what that means for dealing with illness and other factors that may affect attendance. There is a link to that information later in the newsletter. The government has asked schools to have at least 70% of their students at school more than 90% of the time. Even though Ōrātia School has excellent attendance rates overall - ranging over the year from 88-92% attendance usually - at the moment we only have 61% of our students at school more than 90% of the time. Compared to many other schools across the nation, we are doing well with those statistics. At Ōrātia, the main reasons given by families for the absence of their children is illness or holidaying in term time. Our preference is for our students to be at school every day that they are well enough to attend. Research shows that learning is enhanced with regular attendance.
I acknowledge that we have families with relatives in other parts of the world who they have been unable to see because of Covid lockdowns, and that some of our absences can be attributed to the reconnection of these families. This has been a wonderful and healing experience for these families. Moving forward, we just wanted to let you all know that we hold regular attendance in high regard.
Take care and stay safe.
Kia kaha, kia atawhai.
Ngā mihi nui, Ms Linda
