16 May 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principals supporting Principals… Principals supporting Principles!

Kia Ora

Please find this week’s Monday Mailing below.

You can access all Monday Mailings by clicking here or going to http://www.wpa.ac.nz/1/newsletter_sets/1-monday-mailing/years/2016 in your web browser.

Kind regards
Pat

Pedagogy

From Bruce Hammonds – Insightful!

I had a look at the Powerpoint about your principal’s trip to Singapore. With this in mind I thought some of your principals might find the below link of real value. I found it on Neil O’Rielly’s school site. I have been sharing material on one of the few successful open plan school of the 1970 led by John Cunningham and he is using it with his senior teachers!! A lot of good things have been forgotten from those exciting pre Tomorrows Schools days.

(been a really popular blog)

The publication ‘A Rich Seam- how New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning’ has been put together by Michael Fullan. It is a long read but I have found it fascinating as it relates well to the beliefs I used to share ( and still do on my blog) with the addition, of course, the addition of modern technology. Fullan writes with little appreciation of past teacher creativity but none the less is a very powerful document. It is all about ‘ Innovative Teaching Practices’ and see MLEs as a good move but not a necessity. So this document is for all schools at all levels.

This paper addresses the issue of the new pedagogy, which is central to the future agenda. The authors show that the new pedagogy is based on a learning partnership between and among students and teachers that taps into the intrinsic motivation of students and teachers alike. Crucially, this new learning is heavily based in the “real world” of action and problem solving, and it is enabled and greatly accelerated by innovations in digital technology. These forces converge to produce deep learning tasks and outcomes.

Of course much of what the authors describe is not new at all. It builds on a tradition going back through to Piaget, Vygotsky and other key theorists.

‘The new pedagogies model promises to drive out of our schools the boredom and alienation of students and teachers— an incredible waste when there is so much to learn. The next decade could be the most transformative of any since the creation of factory-model schools 150 years ago.

Imagine a future were students and teachers can’t wait to get to the learning – where indeed school never really leaves them because they are always learning. We see the directional vision. We detect elements of it in reality. We can taste the possibilities. It is a future that is distinctly possible to realise. It will take the learning ingenuity of the many. It is a rich seam worth opening.’

You ought to take a look at least. If I were you run off a hard copy (I did) . I am planning to use it for the basis of a series of blogs.

I am not for CoS as , as I see them unfolding as they relate too much to the Government's National Standards agenda, but I reckon if school used the ‘A Rich Seam’ document as a community guiding philosophy I would be all for it.

Ka kite ano
Bruce

WPA Dates

Other Dates

Computer Tip – Screen Capture

Want a quick way to copy part of your computer screen (such as a cartoon from the Monday Mailing!)? In Windows, use the Snipping Tool.

Access the Snipping Tool here: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Snipping Tool.

On a Mac, my experts (Tony and Nathan) tell me to hold down shift-command-4. Have a look at this link:

Rant – Special Needs Funding

Media Release: “An extra 1250 students will benefit from extra teacher aides thanks to a $15.3 million Budget 2016 funding increase for in-class support, Education Minister Hekia Parata announced today.”

Any funding that is provided directly to schools to support children with learning needs is very welcome.

However, children with learning difficulties are grossly underfunded in NZ compared with overseas counties. We have enrolled children at Deanwell in the past three years who have been supported with full time (or very near to full time) teacher aide support overseas – and they receive nothing in NZ; our school has to meet their needs from our very inadequate operational funding. This new funding, while welcome, is a ‘sticking plaster’ solution.

I would be interested in knowing how the money will be allocated to pupils. Will it be funded directly to our school based on roll numbers? Will it be a contestable fund held by a gate keeper such as the RTLB service or the Ministry of Education?

As always, NZ teachers perform magnificently when working with children with learning difficulties in our grossly under-funded education system.

As the Education budget has not increased, from which area of education is this money being taken?

Mainstreaming in NZ… a great principle made ruinous by extreme under-resourcing.

Waikto DHB

Please find attached correspondence in relation to the recent articles in Waikato Times – Waikato schools under fire from DHB for fundraising with unhealthy foods

We understand from the Ministry of Education that you are the appropriate channel for circulating information to principals across the district so would appreciate if this could be circulated

If you have any queries in relation to this correspondence please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards
Julie

Julie Wilson| Executive Director Strategy and Funding |p+64 7 834 3677|m +64 021 518 455|f+839 4327|email Julie.Wilson@waikatodhb.health.nz

Core Breakfast!

The next CORE Breakfast is on 26 May. There has been a change in the original programme with Mark Osborne now presenting a seminar and workshop on the 'Maker Movement.' Register here.

The maker movement in schools aims to give kids the time, space and resources to become inventors. Prototyping tools have been too expensive for schools in the past, but now they are cheap enough for us to put them in the hands of kids and encourage them to solve problems they see in their world. Students can use tools like electronics, thermoplastics, robotics, programming, game design and 3D printing to unleash their creativity. Think of the maker movement in schools as being like joining granddad's shed to a startup incubator with some good old kiwi number 8 wire.

The seminar will explore the history and ethos of the maker movement, look at tools designed to foster creativity and provide practical examples of how to foster maker culture in education.

The workshop will provide opportunities for people to roll up their sleeves and explore a range of different maker tools such as sewable and squishy circuits, thermoplastics, simple robotics and programming and game design.

Jo Wilson
Senior Consultant
CORE Education Ltd M: 021 2780768 T: jmw58

ULearn Conference 2016 | Rotorua 5-7 Oct | Register your interest to be the first to know about NZ's premier education conference | Follow @ulearnnz #ulearn16

Aided Language Workshop

Dear Colleagues and Friends

On June 1 Patricia Avenue School is presenting a two hour workshop “MAKING AIDED LANGUAGE HAPPEN” which is designed to support the use of core communication boards in a range of educational settings. The workshop will be facilitated by Sam Brydon our very experienced Speech and Language Therapist and the investment is $35.00 per person. It will be of particular value to SENCOS and teachers and/or support staff working with students with communication challenges. We are limiting numbers to 40 people but if there is enough interest we are happy to run further workshops.

Attached are a flier and registration information. Please share this with any others you know who may be interested and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Please refer to the attachment.

Nga mihi nui
Jennifer
PRINCIPAL
Phone 07 8569350

Quality te Reo Māori Workshops:

Kia ora koutou, principals and teachers,

The Jeanne Gilbert Consultancy will be facilitating the well received series of 3 workshops again this term for the last time this year, so be in to participate in this quality PLD!

Creating a Quality te reo Māori Programme - Big picture planning - May 25
Growing a Quality te reo Māori Programme - team collaboration - June 8
Practice in the Classroom for a Quality te reo Māori Programme - June 22

Full descriptions of this highly valued interactive PLD and the registration forms are on the following site:

Please contact Jeanne with any queries about the workshops or if you wish to register for individually co-constructed in-depth, in-school PLD.

Looking forward to seeing many enthusiastic learners at the workshops.

Ngā mihi mahana,
Nā Jeanne Gilbert

Jeanne Gilbert Consultancy
Pre- and In-service Teacher Educator
Ph 07 8255728 Mobile: 027 29 42178
jeanne.gilbert.consultancy@gmail.com

Fruit Tree Trust

The Avis Leeson Fruit Tree Trust which gifted over 700 fruit trees last year to Waikato schools, and ECE's is holding a Tree Pruning Workshop at Rhode Street School on Friday 17th June from 9.00 am to 11.00 am. All schools are invited to attend and please bring some students (up to 4 per school) to learn how to look after your fruit trees.

There is no cost. Schools interested in receiving free four year old fruit trees this season in July are encouraged to attend as well and register your interest in receiving fruit trees. Contact Alastair Kerr via alastair@rhodestreet.school.nz to register your attendance and/or expression of interest in receiving fruit trees this year.

Shane Ngatai
Principal and proud of it

Retiring Principals

Do you know of any Principals retiring in terms 1 or 2? Please email their names to principal@deanwell.school.nz.

Hmmm…

Hauora… Health & Happiness

Leadership

A Thought - Perspective

A Laugh

The prospective son-in-law was asked by his girlfriend's father, "Son, can you support a family?"

"Well, no, sir," he replied, caught off-guard by the question. "Your daughter and I were thinking we'd just have to support ourselves, the rest of you will have to fend for yourselves."

Have you been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, "Surely I cannot look that old?" Well, I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name.

Suddenly, I remembered that a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way, way too old to have been my classmate...or could he?

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

"Yes. Yes. I did...I'm a Morgan Mustang," he gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

He answered, "In 1959. Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely...and that ugly, old, wrinkled jerk asked, "What did you teach?"

A woman was out golfing one day when she hit the ball into the woods. She went in to to look for it and found a frog in a trap. The frog said to her, "If you release me from this trap, I will grant you three wishes."

The woman freed the frog, and the frog said, "Thank you, but I failed to mention that there was a condition to your wishes. Whatever you wish for, your husband will get times ten."

The woman said, "That's okay." and for her first wish, she wanted to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The frog warned her, "You do realize that this wish will also make your husband the most handsome man in the world, an Adonis whom women will flock to. "

The woman replied, "That's okay, because I will be the most beautiful woman and he will have eyes only for me." So, KAZAM! she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

For her second wish, she wanted to be the richest woman in the world. The frog said, "That will make your husband the richest man in the world and he will be ten times richer than you."

The woman said, "That's okay, because what's mine is his and what's his is mine." So, KAZAM! she's the richest woman in the world.

The frog then inquired about her third wish, and she answered, "I'd like a mild heart attack."

ADDITIONAL:

But wait! There's more...

The man actually had a heart attack ten times MILDER than his wife. Duh.

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