Click here to see our Video Newsletter Term 2 Week 3.
Coming up…
Friday 12 May – Years 3-4 Swimming at AUT Millennium
Friday 12 May – Years 5-6 Movie Night, 5:30 pm
Tuesday 16 May – Auckland Writers Festival
Wednesday 17 – Friday 19 May – Year 6 School Camp at Carey Park
Wednesday 17 May – Years 3-4 Swimming at AUT Millennium
Friday 19 May – Pink Shirt Day. Please bring a gold coin donation
Friday 19 May – Years 3-4 Swimming at AUT Millennium
Tuesday 23 May – New Date for Parent Interviews
Thursday 25 May – Whole School Cross Country
Friday 26 May – Cross Country Save Day
Monday 29 May – Class and individual school photos
Thursday 1 June – Northern Dance Competition
Friday 2 June – Sports Cafe, 1:45 pm in our staffroom
A message from our Tumuaki
Community Working Bee
It was great to see so many parents and students supporting our community working bee last weekend. From 9 am -2 pm, we managed to water blast the amphitheater area and the front of the school/ office space. We also cleared the land behind the site manager’s shed in preparation for the next phase of our kaitiaki garden. We also cleared the land beside Room 9, ready to install native plants to protect school neighbours with the support from Eco Neighborhoods and Hibiscus Coast and Bays Local Board. We want to take this opportunity to also thank Will Hopcroft from Gill and Grundy, Concrete Construction, for providing a digger to clear our land of waste and debris, Kris Cunningham from Ray White Mairangi Bay for the free coffee, and our PTA for feeding our community with a well-deserved sausage sizzle.
Community Feedback Term 1 – Recommendations
Thank you to all our whānau who participated in the Term 1 Community feedback survey. In summary, the responses include:
Keep:
- Individualised programme to meet student needs
- Community valued – invitations to assemblies and classroom programme
- Celebrating student culture and success
- The school environment looks refreshed
Stop:
- Limit Hero posts with the user in mind
Start:
- Vary learning activities to cater to all interests
- Enhance calm spaces to learn and play
- Help parents to understand how they can support their child at home
- In response, we will be working together to address these recommendations
Building Whanaungatanga – Home-school Partnership
By working together, teachers and whānau can ensure that all ākonga receive a high-quality education, helping MBS achieve our strategic goals and school mission – Learning together to create a better tomorrow. Listening to our community feedback from Term 1, we would like to clarify our programme through a series of newsletters. The purpose is to help our whānau (families) understand what teaching and learning look like at MBS and how they can help their child at home. This week I would like to provide some context to help understand our curriculum.
The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) – A summary
The New Zealand Curriculum was established in 2007. It specifies eight learning areas: English, the arts, health and physical education, learning languages, mathematics and statistics, science, social sciences, and technology. Five key competencies also weave across the programme. They include
- Thinking
- Relating to Others
- Understanding language, symbols and text
- Managing self
- Participating and contributing
While the learning areas are presented as distinct, this should allow how schools structure the learning experiences offered to students. All learning should use the natural connections between learning areas and that link learning areas to the values and key competencies. This year, we are working collaboratively to refresh the NZC (Te Mātaiaho) in line with the Ministry of Education’s progressive six-year change plan. We have implemented the new Social Studies Curriculum – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum during our Term 1 topic – Identity. We are now exploring a new collaborative planning framework to develop an Understand, Know, Do approach across our programme.
Our Localised Mairangi Bay School Curriculum
The New Zealand Curriculum sets the direction for teaching and learning in English-medium New Zealand schools. Note that it is a framework rather than a detailed plan. This means that while every school curriculum must be aligned with the intent of the NZC document, schools have considerable flexibility when determining the detail through a localised curriculum approach. To know more, click on this LINK.
Over the past year, we have enhanced our school identity across our physical, virtual space and learning environments. This includes painting refresh, signage, cultural gardens, new sports uniforms and a new website (to be completed soon), helping to represent who we are through image, metaphor and story. These approaches will enhance our local curriculum, connecting our learning to our tūrangawaewae – a place we belong – Mairangi Bay. It will reinforce our school values, vision and mission, building home-learning partnerships with parents, whānau, and other community stakeholders through kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga (guardianship and care).
Teaching and Learning at MBS
Despite the visible changes across Mairangi Bay School, our priority is developing and delivering high-quality teaching and learning. A shared understanding of a school-wide curriculum ensures that all teachers and staff are aligned with what our students are learning and how they are learning it. This shared understanding can be achieved through collaboration, strength-based approaches, evidence-based practices, coherence, and alignment – a key focus we have been developing as a staff this year. Teachers can share their expertise, experiences, and ideas when they work together. Collaboration can help teachers identify areas where students may be struggling and develop strategies to support them to ensure coherent pathways school-wide.
At Mairangi Bay School, our teachers embrace learning-focused relationships and apply a strength-based approach. They are helping students to build on what they already know and can do. This approach increases student engagement and motivation, leading to better outcomes. Evidence-based practices are a critical element of a shared understanding of the curriculum. By using evidence-based practices, teachers can make informed decisions about what instructional strategies and materials to use.
Next Steps
From next week, I will start to unpack each area of our curriculum to help our whānau understand what learning works like at MBS and how they can help at home to support our tamariki to reach their potential.
If you wish to know more about our localised curriculum, please contact me at [email protected]. Alternatively, sign up for our Principal Cafes this term.
Notices
Te Marama Puoro o Aotearoa
NZ Music Month 2023
‘COMMUNITY + COLLABORATION’
A celebration of working together to build a more connected and collaborative musical landscape across Aotearoa. From songwriting experiments, content co-creation, partnerships to engage and grow audiences, through to community events — working together is incredibly valuable for a thriving and creative music sector. This May we encourage you to get involved by thinking outside the box about what is possible to do together, and pushing forward in ways that both support artists’ personal journeys as creators and building a connected and rewarding local music community.
Tutahi – Stay
Rangitoto College Chinese Night dress rehearsal
Our families are again invited to the Rangitoto College Chinese Night dress rehearsal.
We do not require families to register in advance, but you will need to sign in on the night.
There is no cost for this.
Date: Week 4 Thursday 18th May
Time: 7 pm
Location: Rangitoto Auditorium
Reminders
Parent/Teacher Interviews
The new date for Tuesday’s cancelled parent interviews will be Tuesday 23 May. Your time slot will remain the same.
Pink Shirt Day – Friday 19 May
Mairangi Bay School is joining the movement on Pink Shirt Day (Friday 19 May 2023), and encouraging our staff and students to Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora – Speak up, Stand Together, Stop Bullying!
Bullying in Aotearoa is a real problem. We have the third-highest rate of school bullying out of 36 OECD countries and one in five workers feel discriminated against or bullied at work. Those bullied are far more likely to experience mental health issues.
Pink Shirt Day works to reduce bullying by celebrating diversity in all its forms and supporting schools, workplaces, and communities to be safe, supportive, welcoming, and inclusive for everyone.
To celebrate this important kaupapa we’ll be having a wear pink, non-uniform day on Friday 19 May. We’ll also be fundraising to support Pink Shirt Day with all proceeds going to the Mental Health Foundation so please bring a gold coin donation along.
You can learn more about Pink Shirt Day here: www.pinkshirtday.org.nz
Community Notices
