Week 2 - Term 2 - 2020

Whaowhia te kete mātaurangaFill the basket of knowledge.

When you stop learning, you will stop growing. Becoming mature not only entails your age, but it should also speak highly of how much you have learned through the years. Seize every chance to learn. Read a book. Listen to people. learn te reo. There are a lot of ways to learn and life is but a huge classroom.

Week 2 20 Āperira - 24 Āperira	Week 3 27 Āperira - 1 Haratua Anzac Day Observed - Mon 27 Possible TOD - Tues 28 ????
Assembly/Ako Meet with Ako Class Virtually - Wed 22	Assembly/Ako Meet with Ako Class Virtually - Wed 29
Meeting  Teaching and Learning - 3.30pm - Tues 21	Meeting  TBC

Information for staff

1. Welcome back to Term 2 - what a different start to the term this has been. There has been some amazing creative work being produced by everyone and the students are very appreciative. There is an L&T meeting on Tuesday and we have asked HOLAs to bring along some information regarding how things are going so please pass on any information you might want to discussed. More information regarding Level 3 and what this might look like will be made available from Christine once official information has come out from the Ministry.

Just a couple of quick reminders - please only schedule your face-to-face meetings during the time you would have seen the students during a regular scheduled timetabled lesson in order to avoid students needing to be in two places at once (also a request has come through to end on time as well to avoid 'lateness' to the next class). Secondly, a reminder to have meetings or discussions with students 'within a school day'. We are allowing the students to work asynchronously on work set but this does not mean that they can request or have a 'discussion' regarding content/learning at 8pm in the evening.

In this weeks newsletter, parents are being reminded about rules for online safety and introduced to the new tool put out by the Ministry and N4L to allow safe internet use at home - Switch on Safety - https://switchonsafety.co.nz/ 

2. A little starter diagram that you could use with your students - where are they at for their learning today?

3. Feedback from Surveys - A few staff were asking to see the feedback coming in from our student 'check-in' survey that was sent out to our students at the end of last week.

You may be interested in the following graphs for the different year levels regarding how confident they are around their online learning and how they feel about the workload. This information is based on the work from the end of last term and over the holidays, so it will be an interesting exercise to repeat and see if there is a shift either to the left or right.

Do you feel confident with online learning 1 -  Not confident and 10 is confident
How are you feeling with your workload - 1 not happy and 10 is all good and happy with what is provided.

Year 9

Year 10

Year 11

Year 12

Year 13

4. After filtering out what might be useful from the many emails coming through each day - you might be interested in the following....

a. Supporting the wellbeing of teachers, students and parents You are invited to join clinical psychologist Dr Natalie Flynn to discuss the research behind the importance of supporting the wellbeing of teachers, students and parents during this period of school closures as well as practical strategies to support wellbeing and mental health.  Natalie is the author of the book Smart Mothering and, alongside Nigel Latta, is the co-founder of Parentland, a revolutionary new parenting app.  Please join us for this FREE webinar for school teachers. As always, there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions.  Ngā mihi nui, Dr Nina Hood – The Education Hub Founder

REGISTER NOW FOR THIS WEBINAR >

b. CORE Education, in partnership with Microsoft New Zealand, is offering six FREE Minecraft: Education Edition virtual training sessions.

The training is aimed at primary and secondary teachers who would like to use Minecraft: Edu as a tool to engage students and ignite their passion for learning while building 21st century skills.

There are three workshop pathways to suit differing levels of experience and the details of each are below:

Beginning: Introduction to Minecraft: Education Edition

Term 2 Week 3: 9.30am-12.30pm on Wednesday 29th April
Term 2 Week 4: 9.30am-12.30pm on Monday 4th May

Intermediate: Lesson Simulation in Minecraft: Education Edition

Term 2 Week 3: 9.30am-12.30pm on Thursday 30th April
Term 2 Week 4: 9.30am-12.30pm on Tuesday 5th May

Advancing: Chemistry & Computer Science with Minecraft: Education Edition

Term 2 Week 3: 9.30am-12.30pm on Friday 1st May
Term 2 Week 4: 9.30am-12.30pm on Wednesday 6th May

The sign up page is located here.

And finally Minecraft Online Course

We are currently working on developing our Minecraft course online. We'll keep you posted when it's ready, but in the meantime you can signup and be the first to know when it's available. This is a free course funded by Microsoft, Thanks Microsoft.

Be the first to know

Microsoft Teams Support

We have funding from Microsoft to support your team to use Microsoft Teams. If you would like to access this, please let us know. We want to help you keep your well-being at the forefront through all of this, so the Teams support will be what you need, when you need it...with some tips and tricks of how to stay sane and healthy while working online.

Reach out about Microsoft Teams