Principal News

What is a Normal School?

Tahuna Normal Intermediate has been even busier than normal with many First Year, Third Year and Masters College of Education students in the school on placement.

Normal Schools have existed since the 16th Century, when a group of schools in France became interested in preparing people for teaching. The French concept of "école normale” was to establish schools that would model best teaching practices, thereby setting a standard or norm for student teachers.

There are 29 Normal and Model schools in Aotearoa New Zealand appointed by the Government and provide a major teaching practicum facility for the six universities, and other Initial Teacher Education providers nationwide.

Being a Normal School has a number of benefits for Tahuna Intermediate and your child.  The playgrounds have been full of extra adults supervising and getting involved in the kids games, they have been working with individual and small groups in classrooms providing much needed additional support and they have also been making our experienced teachers reflect on what makes a great teacher and model those behaviours and skills. 

I wish all of our 3rd Year and Masters students the very best for their upcoming teaching periods.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the rigour of teacher training programmes and the lack of confidence that student teachers have to take full control of a class upon graduation.  It is interesting to note that some of the methodology used in this research appears flawed, according to university researchers. More importantly for me, the Normal School Associations or any of the 29 schools that specialise in providing placements for student teachers were not spoken to about what was happening in our schools.  We believe we may have some answers to improve teacher training in New Zealand.  

Next term highlights the need for quality teacher training, as we have two teachers stepping back from their classes and taking part in interesting education projects. Manuel Wehi has been released by the Board of Trustees to work with all of the teachers and students at Tahuna to develop their understanding and capabilities in Te Reo and Te Ao Maori. We welcome Morgann Price to cover his class until the end of the year.

Jade Witana has been seconded to the highly respected Education Research Unit for Term 3.  Likewise, we welcome Meg Goodwin to Tahuna and Room 15.

Ka Mihi nui

Simon Clarke

Principal