8 August 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

Help! Drug Testing of Staff and Students

A full primary school is looking for a policy, procedures, practices relating to the drug testing of staff and children. If you can help, please send it to principal@deanwell.school.nz and I will forward it on.

Important Notice

Please note that Nigel Latta is NOT presenting at the Catch Up Day on September 7. The WPA sincerely regret this, but it is beyond our control.

Watch this place for the replacement programme.

WPA Subscriptions

Have you forgotten to pay your WPA member subscription? Please do it today…

Catch Up Day – Have You Paid?

12 schools have not paid for last term’s Catch Up Day. Please pay as soon as possible. You should have received an invoice when you registered; if you need another invoice please contact Sandra at rtlb.admin@mi.school.nz.

Attached is a list of schools that have paid.

WPA Dates

Other Dates

August 4 - NZEI/WPA Managing Mental Wellbeing Day

CORE Breakfast – August 11

The next CORE Breakfast is on 11 August with Cathie Johnson from NZCER presenting a seminar and workshop session on Improving learning: Student engagement using the key competencies as the tens

Using the NZCER 'Me and My School' engagement survey as a context, the seminar and workshop will explore what research suggests about how important it is to know both teachers' and students' views of what they think engagement with learning looks like. Cathie will connect the aspects of engagement explored in the survey with the front end of the curriculum, in particular thinking about the key competencies being ‘the key to learning in all learning areas' (NZC p12). Cathie will look at a variety of ways the data can be used to follow an inquiry into the strength of connection between student learning needs in engagement and teacher practice in your school.

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

Rant – Global Funding

No More Decile Funding

The Government seems to be proposing that children identified as being from an at-risk home environment (one parent family; a parent has been in prison, etc) will attract additional funding. In principle I believe this idea has merit; it disparages the myth that we have Māori underachievement and recognises that it is social factors (such as poverty) that links directly to underachievement – not ethnicity.

The gotcha… schools will not be able to identify which students are bringing in the additional funding. Simple – just trust the Government! That’s worked well in the past with this Government, hasn’t it?!

The scheme has some merit, but will be a money-saver for the Government.

Bulk Funding

We have been asking the Government to pay Support Staff from a mechanism similar to Teacher Salaries… so the response is to ‘bulk fund’ the salaries of teachers!

Make no mistake… this new proposal is bulk funding, something the NZEI fought against for a long time. If the Government is sincere in their wish to make a difference to our tamariki, they should provide funding at the equivalent of top of the scale.

Bulk funding will lead to (a) lots of beginning teachers being employed – great!! And (b) teachers above the middle of scale not moving schools… they could become unemployable as schools try to balance their books. Employ cheaper teachers!!

This scheme has no merit, and will be a money-saver for the Government.

Conclusion

This Government is desperately trying to save money to balance the books – understandable and possibly laudable. So why not be honest about it instead of wrapping their perceived need for thrift in ‘new’ policies?

Hmmm…

Hauora… Health & Happiness

Leadership…

A Thought…

A Laugh

How To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity in retirement… from Jeff Freeman at Knighton School

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars...watch 'em Slow Down!
2. On all your cheque stubs, write 'For Marijuana'!
3. Skip down the street Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you get.
4. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
5. Sing Along At The Opera.
6. When The Money Comes Out of The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
7. When Leaving the Zoo, start Running towards the Car Park, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
8. Pick up a box of condoms at the pharmacy, go to the counter and ask where the fitting room is.
9. And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity: my favourite.
   Go to a large Department store’s fitting room, drop your drawers to your ankles and yell out: “THERE IS NO PAPER IN HERE”!

Donald Trump

Donald Trump was visiting a primary school in Orlando and visited a grade four class. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked Mr.Trump if he would like to lead the discussion on the word 'tragedy'.

So our illustrious Republican candidate asked the class for an example of a 'tragedy'. One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs him over and kills him, that would be a tragedy." "No," said Trump, "that would be an accident."

A little girl raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove off a cliff, killing everyone, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not," explained Trump. "That's what we would call great loss."

The room went silent. No other child volunteered. Trump searched the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?" Finally at the back of the room, Little Johnny raised his hand. The teacher held her breath. In a quiet voice he said: "If the plane carrying you was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile and blown to smithereens that would be a tragedy." "Fantastic!" exclaimed Trump, "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?"

"Well," says Johnny, "It has to be a tragedy, because it sure as hell wouldn't be a great loss... and you can bet your sweet ass it wouldn't be an accident either!"

The teacher left the room.

Please support our WPA Business Partners