Kia ora koutou e te whānau,
Parent questions and wonderings – *update
Since the last newsletter, I have now had 50 families respond to the questionnaire. This is great, thank you. I have looked at the questions and I am delighted at the quality of the questions. There are literally over a hundred questions! I have grouped the questions into different categories. They are curriculum, leadership, teachers, teaching and learning, assessment, parents helping at home, and general questions. I will take turns at answering the broad questions using different methods depending on the questions. I will begin sharing these next term through a separate Hero Post. Please look out for these posts. I will also contact families who want to join a whānau group to work on some initiatives together – this is very exciting!
Overall Teacher Judgement (Posted on Hero Week 10, Term 2)
In our last newsletter you would have read about the process we have gone through to report on writing progress. This week I will explain the OTJ (overall teacher judgement). We make an overall teacher judgement using a variety of evidence including classroom work and assessments. We think about the progress made so far into the year and decide if students are likely to make the progress needed to meet their expected curriculum level or not yet. A curriculum level is determined by the expectations in each year level (e.g Year 1, Year 2 etc) and if the students are meeting their expectations for that year level. You will get this information underneath the writing progress post during the last week of this term. You will receive the mid-year OTJ for Reading, Writing and Mathematics. We use this information to see which students are on track and if we can support those students not making the progress any differently. My suggestion (as always) is to make time to discuss any concerns you have with your child’s classroom teacher, you do not need to wait for any formal meetings to discuss progress.
Learner-led Conferences
As part of reporting to parents, students are asked to lead and demonstrate their learning to their families. This will happen on Week 3, Term 3 on Tuesday 1 August. There will be afternoon and evening sessions. More information about this will be shared early Term 3 with booking details. Please schedule this date in your diaries.
Changes to the New Zealand Curriculum
The Ministry is two years into a six-year programme to refresh The New Zealand Curriculum.
Te Mātaiaho: The refreshed curriculum will support every ākonga (learner) to experience success in their learning. It will give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and will be inclusive, clear about the learning that matters, and easy to use from year 0 to year 13.
The final draft of Te Mātaiaho will be released in Term 3, 2023, and it will include the three refreshed learning areas which have been released so far: Social sciences, English, Mathematics and Statistics.
The other five learning areas are being refreshed, and will be released in 2024 and 2025. Schools and Kura have until 2027 to begin using the complete refreshed curriculum.
The first stage of the refresh took effect at the start of 2023, and new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories content is now required to be taught in all schools.
Please note: as we move from the current curriculum to the new curriculum, schools will undergo changes to the way we assess and report to parents regarding the learning goals. This will take a while to establish, so in the meantime we have made the decision to take off the current reporting curriculum levels (on Hero) so parents can see the comments from teachers only. There is no point in parents understanding the current curriculum levels when these will be replaced.
Year 6 Graduation Evening
If you have a Year 6 student graduating from TPS this year, this will be on Thursday 7 December at 6:00pm.
Devika Tagg
Principal
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