Teacher Inquiry into Practice

 I was given the task of issuing a "provocation" to our Kahui Ako teachers, on the subject of teacher Inquiry into Practice. I decided to go back to basics in this year of "doing the basics" really well, and as well as giving reminders, be really straight forward about what we're trying to achieve

Making Videos with Rangatahi again!

 Those of you who know me, know what kick I get out of writing songs and making music videos with groups of children.

This group (our 2023 Prefects) have quirky humour, have helped compose a great song and have contributed to our school values; -The Pt England Way. Enjoy!

Great News in March

 I'm delighted to share this news.

We've come through COVID and we've come through floods and our children haven't gone backwards academically!

Congratulations to all teachers, support staff, whānau and others who have contributed to this result.

Kicking off 2023

 The year we thought was going to be the first "normal" one in ages, began with floods.

More anxiety; -a new kind; -"Weather Anxiety". The first time we had ever experienced a simultaneous civil defense text out to all citizens of Auckland. Whānau rushed across the city to pick up their tamariki, many arriving in a heightened state. We had to invent new procedures for how to dismiss children safely as although we'd learned to manage lock downs really well, we'd never had every parent receive the same message on their phones at the same time, causing them to descend on the school all at once.

We did well. ..And of course we re-wrote some of policy and procedure!

The water rose and then stopped at our doorsills. We were blessed, others not so fortunate.

The recorded presentation below was my shot at guiding the staff into what we all thought mattered most as we kicked off another unusual year!

Focus for 2023

Manaiakalani Film Festival - Give It A Go!

During Term 3, 2022 I worked with 9 wonderful singers, songwriters, videographers, directors and editors.

I am very proud to tell you all, that with a little guidance and support from me, these gifted tauira created this song and music video and did the hard yards themselves.

Our song is about the importance of stepping up, putting your self in an uncomfortable space and having a jolly good go.

I'm happy to tell you that that's exactly what these tauira did and they have jointly modelled exactly what their creativity speaks to.

Well done Team, I'm extremely proud of you all!

Deep Dive into Reading 2020

During 2019, Dr Aaron Wilson of Woolf Fisher Research Centre, challenged all the Manaiakalani Schools to have "a relentless focus on Reading". Pt England School is picking up that wero, though we all believe we still have to work very hard on Mathematics.

The screen record below is the introduction to my own inquiry for 2020, which is focused on how to help all our teacher to build capability in the area of teaching children to read.

The Fa'a Pt England & 2020 Focus

 Our consultation and korero with our community at the end of 2019 and leading into 2020, sharpened our focus on what we need to achieve and how we need to achieve it. Having ERO review our performance in 2019 forced us to re-examine some of our beliefs and our kaupapa that we have brought forward from the past. This exercise made us realise that we needed to revisit these things with our staff and reinvigorate some of our highly valued beliefs and ways of doing things. This brief screen record presents the 'big ticket' items we expect to focus on in 2020 and places particular emphasis on our decision to reinvigorate the "Pt England Way" or the "Fa'a Pt England".