Principal News

By Simon Clarke | Posted: Tuesday June 14, 2022

We had a very productive teacher only day where we spent the day planning for an exciting and interesting Term 3 programme.

Next term, the whole school will focus on the concept of kaitiaki or guardianship. In this context, it will be asking the students to see themselves as guardians of the past and look deeper into our local history.

The question we will be asking the students is; How do we celebrate, share and protect the stories of those who came before us?

This theme focuses on the Social Sciences Curriculum, with a particular interest in the Aotearoa Histories Strands, in particular the following two contexts.

Whakapapa me te whanaungatanga

This context focuses on how the past shapes who we are today – our familial links and bonds, our networks and connections, our sense of obligation, and the stories woven into our collective and diverse identities.

Tūrangawaewae me te kaitiakitanga

This context focuses on the relationships of individuals, groups, and communities with the land, water, and resources and the history of conflict over their control, use, and protection.

All classes will start by looking at the amazing early Pasifika explorers and how they arrived in Aotearoa. The science and skills they showed to navigate the Pacific ocean 600-700 years before Tasman arrived are truly remarkable. If you would like to learn more, Sir Ian Taylor's website, Maataranga is an excellent resource and one that we will be using heavily through the first few weeks of school.

Once all students have been introduced to the topic of early Pasifika migration, classes will branch off and look at a local history issue that interests them or their class. Tahuna prides itself on being a STEAM school, and we have been involved in a project to upskill our teachers over the last four years so that they are experts in using many of the new tools available to staff and students. We will culminate our learning about our local history and demonstrate many of our STEAM skills by having a community day where we want to invite you into the school to learn more about our history and see what your child has been doing at school. This will be towards the end of term 4.

If you have an area of interest or skills in this area, please make contact with your class teacher as we know a number of our parents are much more skilled and knowledgable, and we really want to work in partnership with you.

Another area of professional development that the teachers have been undertaking is improving their collaboration and co-teaching skills.

We have fantastic new spaces that are perfect for teaching in a variety of ways. The spaces still foster strong relationships between the teacher and students as they will be used for the majority of the time as one class, one teacher. But they can also open up and be used with a variety of teaching strategies with two or more teachers co-teaching the same or similar lessons with two or three classes at a time.

Research has shown connections between co-teaching and improvements in:

● the practices of teaching,

● individual teacher development,

● the collective capacity of schools,

● teacher job satisfaction,

● communication with home, and

● overall student achievement.

Conditions for improving teaching and learning are strengthened:

i) when teachers collectively examine less effective teaching practices,

ii) study new conceptions of teaching and learning, and

iii) support one another's professional growth.

I am very excited about what our students will produce as part of their learning through our kaitiaki studies, and the teachers work on co-teaching as we move into the second half of the year.

Kind regards

Simon Clarke

Principal