Emily's blog

I have been very impressed with Emily's enthusiasm when it comes to blogging. She loves the fact that her learning can be seen by her parents.
Check out the link here on Emily's blog to see more. Here are a few examples of her posts.

Cultural Dinner

Had a wonderful time meeting new parents of other ethnicities at the cultural dinner. This occasion allowed parents to get to know one another, as this does not always happen automatically within the school.

Catholic Education Conference

Conference Notes

Had a wonderful time in Wellington to attend the Catholic Education Conference.

We spent the first day at Ahmsbury School finding out how the Modern Learning Environment is working. It was great to see the ways that reporting was done to parents and how National Standards are tracked.

Here were the workshops that were attended.

Driving Pasifika Achievement though effective Self review.
This workshop has established wonderful partnerships with the parents.
Oral Language has been a big focus and ensuring children are getting the opportunities to discuss what they are learning.

The board and senior leadership team shared some insights into how they strengthen faith, develop pride and seek excellence.

Prayer, Music and Being Maori.

This session gfave an introduction to prayer- karakia and music and hymns. Some aspects of Maori spirituality were addressed and what is is like to be Maori and Catholic.

How do you teach RE in the 21st Century.

What are the different ways that RE is taught: Traditional ( activity sheets handed out, teacher provides all knowledge), Blended (use of traditional methods and digital technology), Digital Medium ( Mostly done in an online environment, student driven, work is shared online)

This particular workshop confirmed how I was teaching RE in the classroom mainly through Digital Medium. I do like to use the activity sheets as follow up activities also, it seemed the presenter felt like this didn't give students the sense of ownership of what they were learning or build on their understanding and knowledge of faith.

New ways of planning using our sites page.

Ou google sites page is proving to be quite successful, as the children are getting familiar with how to get onto it.
What I also like is the way we are now planning. We all have the same named groups for reading and maths and as there are 4 groups in each, we plan for 1 of the groups each week as opposed to the 4 we were usually doing each week.
I found this to be wonderful as it means that I have more time up my sleeve to plan for other areas that I don't usually get round to doing like art or music.
All the children have access to the sites page which is great. It has been a real time saver.