OUR MISSION:
Maintain a challenging learning to learn community that responds to the interests, needs, and talents of our learners.
OUR VISION:
Positive difference, Creative learner, Effective communicator.
Week 1 Term 2
Tēna koutou Tūhono whānau,
Welcome back everyone for Term 2. We have kicked off the term in true Tūhono style - lots of learning, listening, laughing from all 50 of our students. A big welcome to Ella Malster who has joined us from Central School. We look forward to working with her and her whānau for the rest of the year in Tūhono.
We certainly started off our first day “freshly” and we bet that it was tough getting out of warm beds this morning. Our holidays were a good time to reflect on our term’s learning and refresh our ideas to suit the needs of all of our learners. There have been a few changes to our classroom environment and programme that will help our learners access their resources better and also add more personalisation and agency to their learning.
WEEKLY WĀTAKA
This is the name of our weekly timetable / plan that both the teachers and the students can edit and use to organise our daily lessons. As each day can differ, we are setting aside time each morning to go through the timetable so that Tūhono clearly know what is happening and what workshops etc. that they are booked in for. Click on this link to see a copy.
MATHS
Our first focus to start the term is Addition and Subtraction. In our workshops, we will be focusing on reviewing and introducing numeracy strategies that the students can use to solve. The students are again booking into teacher workshops at least once a week, using online programmes like StudyLadder and eAko Maths, working on their knowledge goals with others and practising problem solving strategies. Our online classroom has had lots more updated on it, so sit down with your child and have a look.
LITERACY - READING
Chapter Chat was definitely a hit last term with all of our students reading either the novel “Holes” or “Tuesdays at the Castle”. We were able to base a lot of our reading programme on these books and were able to dig deeper into the story and the authors and the features of the text. Tūhono also enjoyed participating in the weekly twitter chats connecting with other students from all over New Zealand. This term we have decided to carry on Chapter Chat for those interested in which Kim will be reading “Matilda”. For those that would like something different, Anna is going to run the Daily 5 programme, which consists of a combination of the following: Read to Self, Read with Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, Word Work. Check out our blog for more details throughout the term.
LITERACY - WRITING
We are so lucky to have such keen writers in Tūhono who love to share their creative ideas with others. At the end of last term, we introduced Quick Writes, which helped our students with getting their ideas down onto the paper or device and not worrying about spelling or thinking too much about it “Fingers of Fire”. This really helped improve the amount of writing students were recording and was a good starting point for our writing sessions. This term, Quick Writes will continue and we are going to also look at using graphic organisers for planning different types of writing, e.g. persuasive, informative… This will help our students understand the different forms of writing and when is the right time to use them.
LITERACY - SPELLING
Last term, each child was tested on the Essential Spelling Word Lists, which are the words that are used most in everyday writing. Each student has identified the words that they still need to learn and the part of that word that tricks them when learning. We have purchased notebooks for each child to use to record these words before inputting them onto our online learning programme “Spelling City”. Once they are entered onto Spelling City, they can of course be practised at home too if this is necessary for your child. Click on the link below to read about the spelling process. All students will receive their notebook, username and password this week. Tūhono Spelling Programme
INTERSCHOOL SPORTS
Term 2 sees the start of our annual Year 5/6 Interschool Sports Exchanges. For most exchanges, we will have a rugby team, football team and 2 netball teams. These teams are currently being trialled and selected and a notice will come home this week about our first exchange vs St John Bosco on Thursday next week.
WIT - WILDLY IMPORTANT TASK
This Friday (5th March) half of Tūhono will be going to the Bugs lesson at Puke Ariki. The following Friday (12th) the rest of our learning team will be going. We will leave school at 1.00 pm and travel by bus to Puke Ariki. It would be great to have some parents attend either of these events with us.
Please check in with your child to see which session they have booked into and let us know via e-mail if you can come with us. We would meet you at Puke Ariki or else let us know if you will travel on the bus with us. We will return in time for the end of the day. These visits will help set up our intrigue and enthusiasm for our W.I.T. inquiry.
MARK OSBORNE
Just a reminder that Mark Osborne will be back on Tuesday 09 May 7:00pm. Mark will talk about the future focus principle and look at what might you see in a learning hub, what teachers might be doing differently, how children might be learning differently. Please RSVP to Robyn admin@frankley.school.nz to confirm your attendance.
Following are the video links to last years presentations;- 08 March 2016 - "Why is education changing? Why are we moving to innovative learning environments and collaborative teaching?"
- 13 September 2016 - The focus on the changes that we’re seeing in education in response to a Future Focused education.
REMINDERS:
- Our whanau wall is still looking a bit bare considering we have 50 students in Tūhono. Please could you email through or send in a photo of your family for us to have up in our classroom.
- Please let us know if you can help out with our trip to the museum for this Friday or next Friday.
We look forward to having another awesome term with your tamariki. Remember our door is always open (unless it’s a really chilly day!)
Ngā mihi, Anna and Kim
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