Tuesday 31 May 2011

Incredible Years - parenting course

0 comments
Today we received this pamplet and referral form for a programme called The Incredible Years. This programme is a parenting course which I think would be really interesting and useful for any parent.

Incredible Years is a 12-16 week parenting programme for parents of children aged 3-8 years. It involves weekly sessions of around two hours. Over the weeks, parents develop strategies to build positive relationships with their children and to manage problem behaviours. They come to group sessions each week, talk through what has, or hasn’t worked, set goals for what they want to happen and ways to achieve those goals during the following week.

Topics covered include:
  • how to play/spend special time together
  • praising and rewarding children
  • communicating positively
  • setting limits
  • dealing with disobedience, selectively using distractions, ignoring, time out and other penalties
  • helping children to problem-solve.
For more information check this link on the MInistry of Education web site...

This programme is a research-based and proven as effective in helping reduce children's aggression and behavior problems and increasing social competence at home and at school. Here is the main Incredible Years web site... which also has this area with links and articles just for parents.

Downloads:

Monday 30 May 2011

Mathletics Achievement

0 comments

We've just had our first report on our usage of Mathletics. I must say, it is simply stunning to see the difference this online tool is making for our senior mathematicians. 

Below is a table summarising the usage and the amount of 'points' students are collecting as a whole when they get answers correct in the system. The star improvers is an interesting statistic, as it shows where students improved their results from trying things more than once.

Well done to the students and Linda, Kelly and Nathan for their great work with Mathletics.

Good example of our school value ACHIEVE - ANGITU in my view!

Term One 2011
School Curriculum Points
34493
Total School Certificates
193
Star Improvers*
617
Curriculum Summary
School Average First Score
70%
School Average High Score
94%
School Average Improvement
34%
Top Students in School - congratulations lads!!
First
Harley
Second
Carlito
Third
Kalani

*  Where a student has repeated a curriculum activity (answering a different set of questions) and improved their score

Thursday 19 May 2011

Positive Communication

0 comments
Recently I posted about Encouraging Positive Behaviour, with a focus on how to deal with bullying. This week I'd like to discuss how we encourage another important aspect of our positive school culture: parents dealing with concerns. Issues, challenges, misunderstandings and conflict are a natural and important part of any community and how we deal with these will help our young people to become emotionally intelligent and effective communicators.


We believe that positive communication to the right person at the right time AND in the right forum will strengthen our relationship and put us in the best possible position to make learning even better for our children.


With this in mind, our guidelines for parents or adults who may have any concerns is to always: "...contact the person involved and discuss the matter. We ask that parents approach the staff member concerned directly, and as soon as possible, to prevent issues escalating or remaining unresolved"


In the actual procedure document (p.1 of the handout) you'll notice it is worded guidelines for dealing with a complaint. This wording is somewhat negative as it may only be a niggle or a worry or concern, whereas a complaint is something that should happen after informal discussion has not resolved the issue.


In today's digital world, email is sometimes easy and quick, however we find that dealing with issues via email is never as effective as face to face dialogue. Please know we welcome your feedback and I encourage you to email if you can't come in and alert the staff member that you need to talk. That way we can make a time for you to come in or call. This information is in our Welcome Information Booklet as well as our web site.


If ever you find an issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, my door is always open and I encourage you to use our complaints procedure if you need to. My role is to facilitate quality dialogue and resolution so we can improve learning.

Writing Review

0 comments
Staff and children are currently reviewing our writing programmes. This involves finding out what is working well and what could be improved. Involving children in this process is an important way to give us as a school feedback on how we are going, for it is the children who have real insight into what works and how we can make learning better. These insights give us real opportunities for improvement. This is an important aspect of our curriculum development which we call Self Review through the use of Student Voice.

Our process involved children from the Student Leadership Council interviewing others using a form, taking a photo survey and videoing children talking about their writing. The photos to the right show that writing happens in a wide variety of ways - it also happens in conjunction with reading and other learning areas. Here are some of the quotes from children about what they like about writing at school:
Explanations and recounts because its lots of fun. Matthew, Y4

You get to do a lot of cool things and uses a lot of imagination. Evie, Y3

When he can write about show and tell. Jacob, Y2

Writing about stars. Sydney, Y2

Writing fiction and using my imagination. Trinity, Y6

I love to do free writing. Hannah, Y6

Getting to make up my own stories. Charlize, Y5

Writing about what he's done. Harrison, Y1

That you get to make up story. Emelia, Y3

It shows all of the hard work. Matthew F, Y4

It's fun and it has so many different types of writing and i just like writing. Shalagh, Y7

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Encouraging Positive Behaviour

0 comments
Recently I've been reflecting on some of the media attention that was focussed last term on the issue of bullying. This was the result of some rather nasty stuff that happened in the north island. You may have noticed some of this discussion. I agree with our Minister of Education's statement:
"...bullying does not occur solely on school grounds, but I do believe that schools have a leadership role to play in their communities on this issue." [stuff.co.nz 5 May]
We want everyone to be safe at our school and we take this issue extremely seriously. In fact, all schools in New Zealand are charged with ensuring a safe physical and emotional environment for children and staff (refer to National Administration Guidelines 5 for further reading). It is timely to remind you of some of the key messages relating to this:

What is bullying? Bullying is ongoing persistent behaviour that is negative towards another person or people. It can be verbal, physical, emotional and includes digital communication such as email/chat. While it can lead from a one-off interaction, it is generally negative behaviour that is ongoing or continuous.

How do we help children cope if it occurs? Children are coached in a range of ways to effectively deal with issues as they arise. We ask children to report negative behaviours they can't deal with themselves to a safe adult. We support students (and family if need be) in the most appropriate way and this could happen in a wide range of ways following our discipline policy. As part of our curriculum we teach Kia Kaha and Keeping Ourselves Safe programmes alternate years which allow us to explore these issues in depth to empower children to deal with them in positive and healthy ways.

How can parents/family help with this? We ask parents to reassure children to tell a safe adult as soon as possible so action can be taken to ensure their child is safe. We encourage families to use our school values of Respect and Responsibility when dealing with issues such as these. As always, if you have concerns please come and speak to us so we can help resolve them with you.

As an aside, when doing some background reading about bullying, I discovered that the word 'bullying' actually used to mean sweetheart! Who would have thought that!!

I think teaching our children to be resilient, confident and assertive when faced with adversity is really crucial in helping them learn to effectively deal with problems. It is also an important part of growing up and becoming independent and mature. This ties in with our goal for student learning for children to be self-directed learners as well as being prepared for the future (these are two elements of our vision for student learning). This secondary student is someone who epitomises taking positive action on this issue.

Here is our school procedure relating to bullying, it includes links to our behaviour management procedure and other useful references.

What do you think? Feel free to send us your views or make comments on this blog post.

Here are some good links I've come across relating to bullying. They include books, web sites, downloads and more.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Newsletter - Term 2 Week 1

0 comments


Dear parents/caregivers,

Our latest newsletter is now online for you. In this issue:
  • Bullying article
  • EnviroSchools - new vege garden
  • How we use student images/names/audio and video
  • Road safety success
  • Learning Conferences - these start next week
  • Cross Country - also next week
  • Student Leadership Council update
  • PTA tea towel fundraiser
  • ANZAC speech is online
Have a great mother's day this weekend.

Monday 2 May 2011

Learning Conferences 2011

0 comments

Learning Conferences start next week. We’ve decided to alter one of the dates for these important meetings with your child and class teacher due to various clashes and to ensure this reminder gives you enough time/flexibility to attend. The dates are:
  1. Wednesday 11th May - 2.15-7pm - school will close at 2pm the Wednesday 11th. 
  2. Monday 16th May - 3.15-5.30pm
If you cannot pick up your child at 2pm on Wednesday 11th May, they will be supervised in the library until 3.00pm. Please let us know (t: admin@burnham.school.nz or t: 347-6851) if you are unable to collect your child.
If you do not have access to a computer please call Trish and she will make a booking over the phone. You need to have made your booking by 2pm Monday 9th May.

Please bring your child’s portfolio back at school for this meeting. If you have not yet completed the 3 Wishes survey, we'd appreciate you doing this prior. Unless indicated by your child’s class teacher (or if you want to have a private discussion without your child), please ensure he or she attends the conference.

Instructions for Booking:
Please book in using our online system following these instructions:
  1. Go to www.burnham.school.nz and click the link. If you don’t have internet access, call Trish 347 6851 and she can book you in.
  2. Enter the school code: 2XFVR.
  3. The system will email you to remind you the time/day of your conference.
  4. We’d love to see every family at this important celebration of learning and we encourage you to bring a picnic for dinner - the staffroom and library are open for this.
See you there,
Rob and the team

Notes about portfolios:
Your child should now have their portfolio of learning. This is an important part of our reporting process and is a key tool for helping your child(ren) gain feedback. This is a time for you to celebrate what your child can do, and look forward to their next steps in their learning. Some questions you could ask your child could be:
What did you learn when you did that? How do you know? 
Can you show me how you know this?
What is the next thing for you to learn?

Our eportfolios are now set up so that when a child or teacher posts to the Ako Blog, it will email the parents/caregivers. We hope this helps you. It is great to see the children excited to be sharing their learning in this way. We will have a solution for printing the Ako Blogs out, if you would like this please send Rob an email and he'll send you the information.

Mothers Day Contest

0 comments

Calling all children and teens to enter the Twice is Nice Mothers Day Contest and possibly win a great gift to give to mum on her special day.

 

In 25 words or less complete this sentence: My mum is special because...


Mums and Dads please feel free to strongly encourage your children to enter the contest and to assist younger children with the writing. There are some lovely prizes! One entry per child or teen.

 

Return completed sentence to Twice is Nice shop or to Community Services Office or internal post to Cherie Mansell, our lovely Community Services Officer (CSO) by Thursday 5th of May. Please be sure to have your name, age and contact telephone number on your submission. If you do not live in Burnham Camp please put parents work extension number on the submission so we can get the prize to you prior to Mothers Day. Winners will be telephoned on the 6th of May.