Newsletter Term 2 Week 5
Patumahoe School 01st June 2022
Principal's Desk
Kia ora parents, caregivers, and extended whanau
Cherie Taylor-Patel the president of the NZ principals' federation penned a thought provoking article recently. The article focussed on how the NZ education system should be relooking at assessment (measuring student progress and achievement) post -COVID. This relook at assessment will naturally lend itself to a conversation around what student success actually is. The reality being, is that after two years of covid impacts, every child has lost ground in their learning to some degree. There is no hiding from this truth.
Taylor-Patel calls for schools to start students from where they are now in order to reengage students in learning. This makes sense. Often we are so focussed on 'playing catch up footy' that the old 'goalposts' (where they should be) are probably a little unrealistic at this point in time, and this aspirational expectation only serves to tip the child over and put them off learning as it may simply be too hard. Taylor-Patel continues by stating that it is not about lowering expectations, but being more understanding that every child is in a different place due to a pandemic and we do not want to lose the love for learning and or make our students see themselves as failures.
We are very fortunate to have had a 100% return to school post lockdown, and while there has been an increase in social and emotional after effects across our student population, these individual cases have been manageable and are continuing to be managed. Our 'stable' current situation could be attributed to our 'all in' return to school late 2021 (which broke the 'school is not a scary place' barrier), positive reinforcement from home, and pragmatic and sensible health and safety measures taken by the school. So for all intents and purposes, learning has carried on largely unimpeded. This is not the case for every school.
I agree with a lot of what Taylor-Patel writes in the article. However, there are things that Patumahoe School is committed to doing differently. So I will try to explain where our thinking is currently by outlining key principles underpinning the Patumahoe School approach and the rationale behind each.
We expect to shift kids and make up lost ground
- A positive return to school and regular attendance
- Socio/ emotional challenged students are supported
- We have employed additional teaching staff who are running specialist acceleration programmes that are capturing a large pool of students across all year levels
- We want our kids ahead of the curve and equipped with everything necessary when they move onto the intermediate
We will start where they are now
- Plugging gaps and revisiting earlier curriculum knowledge and skills will support faster progress as students move into higher curriculum levels. This is not going backwards, it is more a case of one step back and three steps forward
- Teachers know the individual learning needs of their children. This means the starting points will be appropriate to the child
- Students revisiting prior learning builds confidence and self-efficacy (growth mindset)
Progress and student success will look different for each child. So we want to celebrate that
- Reading, writing, and mathematics whilst important, is not everything
- We are now documenting social, emotional, and personal milestones for learners who have additional challenges in their learning. We will report these to families on either informal or formal bases (reports, interviews)
- Milestones such as participating in lunchtime games, coming to school unassisted, speaking on stage at assembly, or completing cross country for some children are reasons to celebrate and are often overlooked in the big picture of student achievement. We want to celebrate these things
Finally, nga mihi nui to the the parents who helped transport, coach, and manage our soccer teams at the Franklin Primary soccer days. They are as exhausting as they are fun. Going by the children's faces, they had a great time. A big mihi must also go to our organising teachers Mrs Hancock and Mrs Harris.
Kia ora rawa atu
Jade Tawhiti
Our Year 3 & 4 soccer children looking very smart in our new sports uniform
COMMUNITY SURVEY
The School Board has commenced the process of searching for our next Principal. An important part of this process is to seek feedback from the school community about the next leader.
The School Board invites you to provide this feedback via the following link and thanks you in advance for your contribution.
UNKNOWN ABSENCE REASONS?
We had 18 students away without an explanation on Monday. Mrs Black had to follow up with each family via a text message in order to get an explanation. Without an explanation, absent children are considered truant and this activates a more serious follow-up process which at the extreme end involves Franklin Attendance Service and or the Police.
It takes some time for Mrs Black to send all of these text messages, whereas a simple absent notification via the school App, text to the school mobile or quick call to the absence option on the school phone does not.
A legal requirement for absences is indicating the reason for the absence e.g. sickness, Covid, holiday, extended weekends, appointments, funerals etc. Absences are monitored by the Ministry of Education.
ASSEMBLY
SCHOOL UNIFORM
Uniform is ordered online thru Uniform Works.
BOOK FAIR
JAMMIES IN JUNE
Patumahoe School is a drop off station for The Jammies in June initiative created by Middlemore Hospital. They are asking for the following Items
New PJs that they can give sick children
Pre Loved PJs that have no rips or stains that they can give to the community
Knitting of baby clothes to give to newborn babies.
We will be having a Jammies mufti day on 1st July. Above items can be dropped off throughout all of June into the box in the school office. We will be taking them up to Middlemore hospital early July.
Upcoming Events
- 03rd June - PTA Fun Day
- 06th June - Queens Birthday
- 09th June - Book Fair Opens
- 20th June - Photolife Photos - Class, student leaders, netball
- 21st June - Last day for Book Fair
- 23rd June - Matariki assembly
- 24th June - Matariki Day - no school
- 29th June - BOT Meeting - 5.30pm
- 30th June - PTA AGM - 2.30 - 3.30pm
- 01st July - Jammies in June Mufti Day
- 05th July - Franklin Zone Hockey
Newsletter proudly sponsored by
OUR UNIFORM
Contact Us
Email: admin@patumahoe.school.nz
Website: https://www.patumahoe.school.nz/
Location: 38 Patumahoe Rd, RD4 Pukekohe 2679 New Zealand
Phone: +64 09 236 3802 - 027 336 3802