No excuses

We shared this with some of our older children today. Developed by high school students in Santiago it covers all the reasons why kids could not be part of contributing to a school cultures and success and then shares why offering no excuses is their school mantra - to succeed. What a powerful clip.

Lessons in leadership

This short clip is how leadership works. I hope you enjoy viewing how you can get the desired results in unusual ways.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM ANDREW ON NATIONAL STANDARDS

The impact of National Standards in literacy and numeracy on primary and intermediate schools across New Zealand must not be underestimated, and the approach taken to incorporate these into the successful programmes that schools are already running requires careful consideration.
Some key points from policy -
• The standards describe the benchmarks all children need to meet to keep up with the curriculum at primary and intermediate schools.
• Teachers will decide whether a pupil is at, above, below or well below standards of literacy and numeracy.
• The standards will require teachers to make an overall judgment on a child’s progress based on comprehensive evidence including tests and observations.
• The Education Review Office will check schools to ensure they are using the standards properly.
• The Board of Trustees will have to report to the Ministry of Education by May 2012 on the numbers and proportions of pupils at above, below or well below the standards.

At Muritai School our priority is to balance the importance of being able to report on our children’s levels of attainment in a set of nationally accepted benchmarks with our current direction and focus in developing thought processes, key competencies and values, and extending learning abilities thorough the creative and innovative teaching styles our teachers are encouraged to employ.

Fortunately at Muritai we have been using a comprehensive range of assessment and reporting procedures that already provides quality information on achievement growth, trends and comparisons within individual and age group expectations. Our current procedures are well placed to incorporate the National Standards, and I therefore expect the refinement needed to incorporate any national testing tools that are yet to be developed will simply be an addition to what we already do.
You can get a picture of what we do by accessing our Charter and our Reporting improved student achievement to community.

Our challenge will be to ensure that we do not lose sight of the vision that we have for the ‘Muritai Child’ and the exciting work we are currently developing through children’s engagement, learning opportunities, key competencies and values education. While reading, writing and arithmetic have been given high priority by the current government, parents can be assured that we most certainly will not be undervaluing or sacrificing our vision or the importance of social sciences, sciences, technologies, the arts and sports as we believe these have a significant positive impact on the development of our children.
Of course there will be teething problems with the new standards and much will be required of professionals to work with the Ministry of Education to find solutions. Indeed this may take several years before all are satisfied. Undoubtedly however, the successful implementation of the new standards will rely greatly on principals and teachers themselves, how they approach and embrace these and how they successfully incorporate them into their current programmes without undermining what they are currently delivering well and striving for.

National Standards discussion on National radio

This discussion was on National Radio on Monday. With Kathryn Ryan were Professor Robin Alexander of Cambridge University;
Professor Tom Nicholson of Massey University and Ray Newport of the School Trustees Association. It is a rigorous debate really as each person advocates their point of view.

National standards discussion

This is a worthwhile discussion, particularly from Robin Alexander who outlines the impact of national testing on UK schools (which is different to the National Standards). He advocates a broarder curriculum with greater recognition of oral language, thinking and problem solving and discusses the potential of narrowing curriculums to meet governmental directives to raise achievement in literacy and numeracy. UK achievement has been falling as a new generation of children are immersing into a teaching process that is narrow and specific by nature.

You can read the Cambridge report on my blog.

Cambridge report

A different set of 3Rs

I particularly enjoyed Natalie Anderson's commentary on a different set of essential skills that children should be taught through education - resilience, risk and rebellion.

Resilience is one of the foundation attributes she would like her kids to develop. Life has its knocks. It just does. It isn't fair and it isn't always easy. But the ability to pick yourself up and box on is essential.

Risk taking is something that she notes can be hard as a parent to watch. "I turn my back as my lot ride a foam mattress as fast as Schumacher down the stairs and shut my eyes when the three years olds climb onto the trampoline." Learning to be ok with making an idiot of yourself - and to be ok with giving something a really good go and failing, is something else she wants for them.

Rebellion is to have courage in their convictions. To be able to take a stand against authority or against the tide of popular pressure.To be strong individuals who are confident and who want to make a difference - who are passionate enough to make a stand against something? That would be awesome.

It is an excellent article and shows the width necessary in children's development. You can read the full article here.

National Standards

National Standards were introduced last week. Sadly the teaching profession was absent from the celebrations, not because they weren't invited, but more to do with their frustration at the process and based on the empirical evidence that they won't improve student achievement. While the process around the excellent new curriculum has seen it richly embedded into schools, through a lengthy consultation and implementation process, National Standards are being introduced on a much quicker scale. For us at Muritai, I feel very calm about things. We are self-managing, have good processes, our kids achieve well, they are well resourced, and we report to parents in writing about student achievement in regards to below, at or above twice a year. Any change? Well yes - and it is all to do with creating a them and us atmosphere between government and parents and the teachers. It will be a test of leadership to keep a handle on this potentially difficult situation which has changed the education landscape that was progressing so nicely under Labour on the back of John Hattie's and Helen Timperley, BES and others excellent research. The focus on developing quality teaching environments, on the back of assessment for learning, has now shifted to accountability processes based on assessment of learning. While we are currently highly regarded internationally for our education processes we seem to have adopted systems that most mid-ranked countries employ which only serve to achieve longevity of politicians careers.

I particularly enjoyed reading this article from the New Zealand Herald; one of the very few media articles to reflect on the school's side of the fence.

New Zealand Herald editorial

Enviroschool Interview with Radio New Zealand

I enjoyed listening to Ned and Samantha being interviewed by Jim Rose on Chris Laidlaw's sunday morning radio show. The whole article is 45 minutes long but Ned and Samantha are first up. they did really well - sounded so articulate and confident. We have become a leading school through our Gold award. Overall it is also an interesting discussion about education and action learning.

Listen here

Cambridge review of UK primary education systems

This is the most comprehensive independent review done on the UK education systems in the last 40 years. It is very telling and worth a read as it suggests the government has gone down the wrong path - narrowing the curriculum and placing children's education at the whim of a testing regime. Sadly the UK Labour government has distanced itself from it preferring their own commissioned report which endorses what they are doing. The crux of the Cambridge review criticizes government control of classrooms and teaching via testing and standards and suggests that the curriculum is more narrow than in the Victorian era. Their recommendations are pretty much what is happening in New Zealand (before National suggested National Standards).

Summary -


Synopsis -

I'm back - Rory Sutherland

Hi all. I have been enjoying my study break and with 4 weeks to go before I head back to school I thought I'd get back into the blogging cycle again. I decided to quit for a bit and focus just on reading and researching. Anyway - just to get back on the bike I thought I'd post this excellent talk from Rory Sutherland. He is an advertising man and talks about real v perceived value/change. Although it is really about advertising it is transferable across a whole swag of concepts. There is a short segment about education around the 3 minute mark but worth watching for the whole 16 minutes as has a great ending and is pretty funny all the way through. From leadership view it is challenging about real change v perceived change - and challenges the notion of ... ‘if we say we’ve done it then we must have done it’.

I'm on study leave

I have been out of school for a week and I am slowly getting my head around being away for the next 32 weeks from Muritai School. After 8 years at the helm it feels weird not being there. I been removed from all distribution lists and am receiving no emails at all from school. It has given me a huge realization about how much time, effort and commitment we put into our schools.

This is a great opportunity for me and I have a heavy study workload as I aim to nearly finish my Masters of Administration and Leadership through Massey University. Just one week of being away already has given me some new ideas about how to tackle issues to do with learning and management at school. What I am particularly enjoying is the concept of being a learner again. We never stop learning but there are times I think that it is prudent to concentrate and be disciplined in the learning process. This year is my year.

The school is in good hands and you may like to sign up to Matt's blog as he keeps you in touch with the day to day life of Muritai School.

Secrets of Success

I love this brilliant 3 minute presentation from Richard St John at the TED website. He talks about how he identified the 8 secrets of success which he gleaned from 500 interviews /coffees with successful people over 7 years.

So much these days is said of a person's connection to their environment that they are engaged in. We looked very hard before school started at key elements we had to display as a staff to inspire our children to do their best. I think Richard St John sums it up superbly in his presentation.

The 8 secrets of success are - Passion, Work, Improve, Focus, Push, Serve, Ideas and Persist.

You can view the presentation here. Enjoy!

Wordle - The words of Muritai School.

I love using wordle. Here is a wordle image which displays all the key words in our Charter and Strategic Plan. Lots of these words were reinforced through our recent community survey and when we asked the children what was great about Muritai School. It covers a lot

Eastbourne Village Carnival

Once again the Muritai School Eastbourne Village Carnival was a huge success. Developed 7 years ago as part of our commitment to our community the carnival is principally a fundraiser for the school but the size of the event must also have huge spin offs for the community of Eastbourne. About 10,000 people came to our little village to see what was on offer and experienced various forms of entertainment from music, stalls, fun for the kids and wholesome food. An amazing group of parents put together a wonderful event and we raised around $60,000 for an upgrade of our school library. We managed to get 150 stalls into the surrounding streets which was a real achievement. Almost every school parent became involved in some way or another from donating gear, baking or making, running a stall or setting up or cleaning up. Our children were heavily involved as well with all our senior students contributing in some way or another. Thank you carnival team. You have done us proud.

Orchestra

We have, at Muritai, an increasingly competent school orchestra. Started early in the year by Kate Donnelly we were treated to a performance by them at a recent school assembly. They have really improved over the last half year and should be proud of their efforts. After Kate left to go to Cambodia, Oli Ryks, Ruth Hooke and Jenni Champion, all extremely competent musicians in their own right, have nurtured them through so they are playing well together. Our orchestra is very young and showing a lot of potential.

 It is difficult enough to learn to play an instrument but to learn to play with others and different instruments - that requires a lot of skill. Well done to them all, we appreciate their contribution.  Watch them grow over the next few years.

Blogging at Muritai

As you know all classes have blogs. A trip to feedjit indicated the Stu Devenport's blog in room 13 was the most visited blog in Wellington with Kim Cookson in third place. It is nice that people are visiting our class blogs as it opens our classrooms to the wider community without having to visit into class. Stu and his year 5 class have made an awesome video of how to make paper and Kim and her year 1 class have blogged the visit of her father, an electrician, in support of their inquiry unit on 'Flick that Switch'.

It is a very interesting development and by being part of the 'blogging community' we have huge access to some really neat things being done by teachers and classrooms around the world. You may like to visit this really neat site about logging the teaching of  maths in a  virtual way.

Armistice Day - 11.11.08

We were pleased to be able to be part of the Armistice Day celebrations at the Eastbourne War Memorial last week. The Eastbourne RSA invited the senior students to be part of the procedings and we chimed in with haka and waiata to show our appreciation of the contribution our armed services have made to our countries history. Feedback from the RSA has been hugely positive and it is nice to be able to continually play our part in our community celebrations.

You can see the performance by watching the movie below.

Life Education

This week we have hosted the Life Education Trust's mobile classroom so our year 7-8 children could partake in the From the Shadows programme about drug education. This is another part of our lives today that 'would never have happened in my day".

Life Education has a mission statement to help give the young people of NZ, through positive health-based education, their knowledge and skills to raise their awareness, to live a fulfilling and healthy life.

As children grow they face a number of negative influences that over time can have a negative effect on changing their desires and leading to problems associated with poor health, low self-esteem and abuse of people and substances. Life Education is a non-profit organisation that works in schools and is linked to the school curriculum. They teach children about the wonder of life, themselves, and other people, with the aim of showing them how to reach their full potential. The Life Education philosophy focuses on creating sensitivity to values which lead to an understanding and appreciation of human life. This enables the child to make decisions about any negative influences that might impede the development of their fullest potential.

I spent some time in the 'classroom' and was  very impressed with teacher Jo Manks, the delivery of the programme and the children's engagement in such a controversial issue as drug education. The talk was hard-hitting, relevant and educational.  Check out the Life Education website to see what a wonderful resource this is. . There are some great resources at their parents link here.

World Teacher Day

Today in New Zealand we are celebrating World Teacher Day. Teaching is a profession that is immensely rewarding and working with the children is an absolute privilege. The rise of the world wide web has enable education to much more global in nature and we have abetter understanding of the key issues our colleagues are confronted with in their own communities.

The teaching profession across the world faces the challenge of providing a quality education to meet the new demands of the 21st century. Economic, social, scientific and technological needs, the issues of sustainable development, poverty reduction and related questions of decent work for all, the AIDS epidemic and school violence are increasingly impacting on the profession.

In addition to this, not just in new Zealand but in many countries, there is a severe shortage of teachers, with an estimated 2 million 18 million additional teachers needed worldwide if universal primary education is to be achieved by 2015. A staggering figure!

The reason why we went into teaching is to try to light the flame of learning in each child that comes through the door and to nurture relationships to enable the kids to be the best that they can be. Faced with such high expectations, teachers often feel undervalued, insufficiently supported and ill equipped professionally to cope with the realities of the environments in which they work.

On World Teachers’ Day we celebrate teachers across the world, in all countries, towns and villages. The role of teachers in achieving quality education for all and on this World Teachers’ Day we thank the teachers, at Muritai and across the world, and affirm that yes, TEACHERS MATTER.

If you haven't thanked your class teacher lately you will be surprised how much that endorsement can do to help them do the job they do so well.

Interesting stuff

I follow the class blogs quite closely and always enjoy the presentations that the teachers and children make to share the things that they are doing at school. Kirsten Berry and Room 22 has been doing some great stuff lately and by visiting their class blog you can see the extension that the children have involved in as they enter the last term of the year. I found the Dangle experience a stunning piece of work and their logging of their new Innovation unit really exciting. Clearly the kids are engaged, finding things enjoyable and being the best that they can be. Barbara has been recording our new entrants first days at school in slideshows. This is a nice record for all the families can enjoy. Starting school can be a daunting experience for a 5 year old but when you see them in the blogs then you can see the kids are pretty happy to be at Muritai.

The Eastbourne Carnival

Just to prove that the school never sleeps we have been working hard to put the Eastbourne Carnival together to raise money for the school. We are looking to refresh and expand the library and so will need lots of money to develop this and bring it into the 21st century. The carnival is our biannual fundraiser and it allows us to meet one of our school objectives - to play a leading part in our wider community. It is looking as though it will be a fantastic day and usually 10,000-15,000 flood into our little community to enjoy what we have to offer. A huge thank you to the dedicated group of parents who undertake this massive organizational challenge. It will be a great day. Check out the carnival website that Arini has put together with all the information you need to know.

The End is Nigh!

Tomorrow is the last day of term. Sad in some ways as it has been fantastic but we are all very tired and could all do with some family time. The Lorax last week was a huge success and I was so impressed with the confidence and the capability of the children. It is well documented that the year 8 children were my new entrant group when I started and they really raised the bar when performing in the show. It is so nice to see them progress from 5 to 13 - it is a real journey for them. I was so impressed with our lead actors that carried the show. Georgie and Finn as the Lorax and Michaela and Kate as the Oncelor were just superb. We haven't had that level of dialogue in a show for a long time. Overall everyone pitched in and played their part and that is what helped it to be such a great show. Thank you all for your continued support.

Amazing website

In an email chat staff were having around a website called Free Rice that involves children playing learning games to donate rice on correct answers to countries that are experiencing famine, Stephen introduced this stunning, factual website called Breathing Earth on population growth and CO2 emissions. Check it out and be amazed, educated and challenged all at once.

Thinking workshop

On Saturday Muritai hosted Michael Pohl, an international expert on using thinking skills in the classroom. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day based around three main sessions - a school-wide culture of thinking, using thinking skills in the classroom and developing students interaction with thinking skills. Michael really stretched us throughout the day and really challenged us to think about how we were constructing learning tasks for the children. Thinking is one of the five key competencies in the new curriculum so this was timely PD for us as we look to strengthen our knowledge of embedding the KC into our learning framework. One key thing shared through the day was how influential thinking skills will become as our children head to the future and our five years olds hit the workforce in thirteen years time. Their workplace won't be likeit is today and certainly like it was in 1990 so we have to keep refining what we do. You may like to read this excellent 2008 article entitled All Our Students Thinking, by Nel Noddings, Professor of Education at Stanford University.

Solar Power at Muritai

We always have new things on the go at Muritai. One of the latest things is the prospect of linking up with Genesis energy and their SchoolGen programme. Schoolgen is a programme developed by Genesis Energy to bring solar energy to life for children and schools across New Zealand. When our year 5 and 8 children looked at renewable resources as part of their inquiry, solar and wind power was investigated very closely by the children as potential dominant forces when oil is no longer available. Working with Matt Skilton and Stephen Eames we have got ourselves involved in the process to bring solar power to Muritai. Today we were visited by a team from Genesis Energy and Lulu, Georgie and Ned gave our visitors a very thorough tour of our school with a specific focus on the Enviroschool programme which is such a dominant part of our daily life. This is the big world in action. Well done team and fingers crossed for sustainable energy at Muritai School.

Artsplash Choir Festival

Each year our choir performs at the Artsplash festival at the Michael Fowler Centre. Most schools do this and the show is performed using a variety of different choirs over a number of evenings. It is always an excellent show. What I love about this opportunity is how inclusive the event is. Any one of our children over year 4 can be involved and then they have to work hard to know the words and of course sing in tune. It is a great example of what life is all about. Choose something you are interested in and do your best, not just for yourself but for others and for team mates as well. Our performing arts teacher Ruth Hooke has been tutoring our choir for many years now and this years team were very good indeed. Well done all - a great show.

International Literacy Day

Today was International Literacy Day around the world. We celebrated with a dress up day where staff and children came as their favourite book character. This afternoon at 1.30 we jumbled teaching and support staff and children around and had shared reading sessions with staff reading their favourite books to the children. Every day this week staff are reading to the children in the library at lunchtimes. What a neat event to promote literacy to the children of Muritai.

Professional feedback from I Can We can ICT cluster

Recent visitors to the school from the Horowhenua were most impressed with what was on display. Their cluster keeps a blog record of their development in Inquiry. You may like to view some of their thoughts on what they saw at Muritai.
Oroua Downs
Koputaroa
Opiki
Levin North

Thanks guys. We loved hosting you here.

Professional Development

We do many forms of Professional Development at Muritai. As a school we have main focus which we collectively work on. Teams have learning talk each week in team meetings where they problem solve a learning or teaching aspect putting their collective minds together to identify best practice to improve learning outcomes. Staff attend various workshops based on their identified development goals. In September Michael Pohl is working with us on enhancing our thinking culture and developing questioning skills in teachers and children. Often the best development though is to watch each other teach. Matt has blogged about the recent VCOP presentation that Belinda did for many of the staff. VCOP is a structural support mechanism to improve writing knowledge to help develop children's writing i the middle school. It is making a great difference this year. Great stuff. Check it out on Matt's blog.

Visiting schools

Often at Muritai we have visiting schools. They are specifically interested in our learning ecology and in particular our inquiry learning and ICT programmes. Last week we welcomed 39 teachers from the Horowhenua district who spent the whole day at school. I spoke on the work we had done to develop our learning ecology and then three groups of children fielded questions on their learning programmes - year 2 on their Inquiry on Friendly Footprints, year 6 on Energy and year 8 on their experience of 8 years of learning at Muritai. Hearing the children talk endorsed what we are trying to do and they were able to share their learning experiences which pretty much replicated our ecology intent.

One of the cools things that came with the visit was the powhiri where we welcomed our visitors onto Muritai School with waiata, haka, korero, mihi and hongi. A neat experience for all concerned. Rahania has documented it in his blog and you can view the powhiri here.

Wednesday's in the classroom

During the holidays I attended the New Zealand Principal's conference. Keynote speaker Malachai Pancost urged us to set aside a day a week to work with the children and the teachers during the process of learning. This term I have been out and about on Wednesdays. Today I enjoyed my time in the junior school. A neat thing that I saw was buddy classes - room 4 and room 11, split in half and were doing some buddy maths together. This was because of Maths week and gave an an excellent opportunity for the older children to explain the maths and for the younger children to understand the maths. Check out Karen's and Hayley's blogs to get closer to the action on these splits. I was also involved in working with groups, creating paper planes, conferencing writing, listening to reading and developing questions with children. I had a great time and felt really useful. I'm really impressed with the teaching and learning going on in the classrooms. Very proud to be Principal of this school.

Progressive Education in the 1940's

Here is something different. For those that shake your heads at the education of today might like to have a look at this movie from the 1940's which is where it all came from. Controversial - not anymore; appropriate - yes. To think 27 years later this group of children put a man on the moon! Education must change with the times.

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Ministry flyer on Bullying for children

Children from year 3-8 have been all issued with a neat little flyer from the Ministry of Education called Step Up, Be Safe. This booklet which folds down into a pocket size, is an excellent resource that defines behaviours on promoting an awareness on bullying,friendships, types of bullying and some strategies to help children dealing with situations of bullying. You can access the booklet here.

Bullying has always been around in society and is very unsavoury and causes much distress. The power struggle usually centres around dominance for social gain. The key often is the group being totally intolerant of this behaviour and supporting the right behaviour. We aim to stamp all bullying out because it is totally unacceptable at our school and prohibits children's rights to be happy. As the booklet suggests - we have to all work together to beat the bullies, stick up for children, inform adults so that bullies can change their behaviour.

21st Century Learning

With a new curriculum that is innovative in structure we are constantly trying to formulate learning that best suits the children as they prepare for their future. The days of replicating the classrooms of the 1960's are over and workspaces and jobs have changed dramatically over the last 17 years that I have been involved in education. I really like this short video on what the kids need to be aware of as they prepare for the new global village. Clearly they are advocating a learning environment that promotes competition with themselves so they are working at full potential and collaboration and cooperation with their colleagues. This video encourages teachers to be creative in nature and introduces the concept of the global schoolhouse - all possible in today's world. . ENJOY......

New teachers

I am so impressed with our new teachers Kim Oaten and Kim Cookson. Picking up a class half way through the year is very tricky and can be very overwhelming as there is so many new faces to 'instantly' know. Have a look at their blogs to see what they have going in the classes already. Kim Oaten is from Australia and her teaching experience is really showing through with the kids continuing on the smooth pathway provided by Kate. Kim Cookson is in her first teaching job, a bundle of energy and is really shining in this opportunity. Both Kim's have settled in so smoothly and are immersing themselves into the Muritai family, who are very lucky to have these two very accomplished people at our school.

A new term

I've been missing in action in regards to my blog of late. I enjoyed a decent break in the holidays with the family and have been chasing my tail ever since. If you are wondering what is happening with Muritai check out the teacher's blogs. They are all updated and have information about what is happening in classes this term.

This term we have a short dash until we get into production mode. This year The Lorax is the subject and a hive of industry and a constant stream of meetings and minutes as the team seek to put 420 kids on stage for an hour. Always good fun the school production is something that amazes me about teachers, skill, ambition and resourcefulness. I am looking forward to the 16th September to see the talented people at Muritai perform.

The end of term

With 3 days before the end of term I am looking forward to heading to the NZ Principal's conference in Christchurch tomorrow. A good chance to catch up colleagues from around the country and listen in to keynotes focussing on the concept of leadership. These sort of events tend to fill your head with possibilities and the challenge is to convert good ideas into action. I look forward to it.

Muritai is hosting a conference on the first day of the holidays. Guest speakers include Mark Treadwell (new curriculum) and Rachel Boyd (classroom blogging). 110 teachers from Petone are coming. Muritai staff are running 10 workshops - a good chance to share the good work that we are doing with others.

It has been a very good term. Parent interviews tomorrow reflect back on the written reports from last Friday which summarised the half terms work. The kids seem in good spirits, if a little tired. The staff are pleased with their term's work and looking forward to some non-contact time. Next term's programme looks exciting culminating with the School production in week 9.

Looks like the Muritai juggernaut is set to continue next term.

Dyslexia Awareness Week

This week is Dyslexia Awareness Week. Check out the website. Defining dyslexia is a complex and contested process and there are no agreed definitions internationally. The Ministry of Education has drafted this definition as a starting point for our work and as such, it is as a working definition with further refinement expected. The key is the Ministry has recognised dyslexia as a learning difference, rather than a disability and by doing so have turned it into an opportunity for better understanding.

A working definition alludes to Dyslexia as a spectrum of specific learning difficulties and is evident when accurate and/or fluent reading and writing skills, particularly phonological awareness, develop incompletely or with great difficulty. This may include difficulties with one or more of reading, writing, spelling, numeracy or musical notation. These difficulties are persistent despite access to learning opportunities that are effective and appropriate for most other children.

Have a look at this great Youtube ">presentation on Dyslexia.

Dyslexia however is not an end point. It makes things very challenging, especially for children at school working within the ‘traditional’ classroom environment. In my reading about dyslexia I have been inspired by a useful article, written by Jacqui Taylor in an edition of a monthly magazine called Parent and School Today. Jacqui describes dyslexia as a gift and defines it as being able to perceive the world from many perspectives, to view the same thing from many different angles allowing special talents and skills in fields such as art, creativity, design and leadership. Two very well known New Zealanders to have experienced dyslexia are John Britten (motorcycles and engineering) and Richard Taylor (Weta).

Research suggests that people with dyslexia think predominantly in pictures, not the sounds of words and as school tends to cater for word thinkers there needs to be adaptation to the curriculum and the teaching process to cater for all child. It is thought that 10 % of children think this way. That is why there is a variety of approaches to learning to Muritai and why a range of different learning experiences is so vital to make a students day, with their colleagues, a positive contextual environment. Go to the Team Up website for more information.

Dunes for restoration

As a village school we try to play our part in keeping up our profile in the community. This involves being responsible and making a contribution. One way we do this is through our Enviroschool strategy. Kirsten Berry has posted some information about being involved in the Dunes for Restoration project. They also managed to see some nesting Blue Penguins and understand the power of why we look after and enhance the environment. Karen Chao has posted room 11 rubbish collection on World Environment Day. Kids love to be part of making the world a better place. Starting close to home is the best way to do this. Check out our enviroschool blog while you are having a look.

Learning for the future

Looking at this wave power generator - don't you find it fascinating that someone thought of that?
I read an interesting article the other day in preparation for some strategic thinking exercises. The report was by the NESTA and focussed on students interaction with schools, employers views and skills needed for the future. 'Ready for the Future' explores the skills that will drive innovation in the future. What I found interesting in the report was that employers stated that school leavers have significantly more skills entering the workplace than the previous groups of the last 10 years but they still see a disparity between what they need and what the school leavers can provide. In this ever-changing world the skills of innovation, communication, problem-solving and collaboration are a very high commodity. In reference to this I loved Kirsten Berry's work today in maths in room 22. She took a newspaper article, dissected the maths components and launched a problem solving exercise based on the article. This was real maths, new, fresh and dynamic. INNOVATIVE.  Read the kids responses on their blogsite. They clearly really enjoyed the exercise.

Team-Up ~ a great resource for parents

Team-Up is a fantastic website designed by the Ministry of Education to provide information, ideas and materials to help parents support their children and get more involved in their education. You may have seen these advertisements on TV led by Team-Up education ambassador and former All Black captain and legend, Tana Umaga. Read about Tana's foundation for under-privileged children. Research shows that parents who are involved in and encourage their child's learning can make a real and positive difference to their child's achievement. We are very lucky at Muritai with parent support for our children and this website offers strong information in down to earth language. The Team-Up programme is part of the edcentre web portal, developed by a group of education sector agencies. their is an excellent user-friendly section on the new curriculum, including health and physical activity. Check out other links to education sites by visiting Team-Up.

Room 4 - Protecting our future?

Hayley Skilton teachers a year 2 class in room 4. Hayley used to be our thinking skills teacher before returning back to full time teaching last year. The children really benefit for her extensive experience. I really like the way the she has blogged a simple example of EOTC. Muritai, of course, has a split site - our senior school is on the other side of the room. Hayley has used our senior school as an example to see our Enviroschool energy source as her young children inquire about and study the concept of Friendly Footprints. They visited the year 7 and 8 to get a background as to why Muritai is determined to achieve Green/Gold status by the end of this year. Our senior students are only too happy to share their learning journey. For us to be an Enviroschool our younger students need to be part of the movement as well. Have a look at the room 4 expedition and how they shaped their journey by visiting their blog. 

Room 23's learning log

I really like the way that Stephen Eames uses his learning log. When you visit the log it reflects a very interesting collection of things that the children have been doing in class this year and shows the incredibly diverse nature of the 'modern' classroom. It shows their learning journey. 

Stephen uses the children to do the posting and you can see with the accuracy of their work that they have a very clear understanding of what they are doing during their learning sessions. Parents of room 23 can check in all the time and get a clear picture of what their children are doing at school. Great communication and using ICT tools extremely well.

Stephen is also using a wiki to support his year 7-8 children through some of the more time consuming 'assignment' work they are doing. Check out his science fair wiki which the children are currently working on. It is very impressive.

Using community expertise

Room 14 were very lucky today when parent Lindsay Mitchell ran a workshop for the children on drawing. Our Eastbourne community is a wonderful source of expertise.  Lindsay is a very accomplished artist in her own right and gave up her time to work with the children on understanding all those little bits and pieces that creates accuracy in the art work which often frustrates children so much. Others have that lovely confidence to explore and create according to their own view. Have a look at Lisa's blog as you can see the outcomes. No doubt she will slideshow it soon so you can see them all. If you would like to see the finished products just pop up to room 14 and say hello, have a look around and talk to the children about their quality work.

Maths development in year 5

Yesterday I wrote about Richard Dobson's use of digital learning objects. Today I want to steer you to year 5-6 senior teacher, Karen Chao's blog and her work on improving basic facts outcomes with her class using a wiki. All teachers this year are undertaking action research to gather information that shows gains in learning through the use of ICT. Karen is looking to improve basic facts by developing a wiki as a centre for resources related to her targets. Children can access this in class, or at home, and run through the drills that help them build up recall knowledge to improve their speed and accuracy. Check out Karen's good work on her blog.  You can go straight to the maths wiki now if you like.

Digital Learning Objects

The Internet  is very much part of our daily life these days. Often very contentious, our children are growing up in a world that is online and interactive. Someone who is at the forefront of promoting social software in education is Ewan MacIntosh from Scotland who provides an interesting commentary on the use of social software in his blog .

I like the way Richard Dobson, senior teacher and year 4 teacher in room 7 shows the use of digital learning objects in his blog. See how Richard uses DLO to explain the tides to children as part of their inquiry on the Seashore. Check out their class blog while you are there and see what else they have been up to.

One Day School

At Muritai we have a wide stretch of skills. All our kids have strengths in different areas, whether it is arts, sports, language, maths etc. Muritai kids are great thinkers and our inquiry model supports the children in being creative thinkers. Each Thursday 16 children from year 5-6 join Mr Skilton for a day to work on one of his ideas. It is a fantastic programme and I know how much the kids absolutely love it. He writes about it in more depth in his blog. He gets all the technology and the children work slowly and accurately at a very high level to produce their outcome. 

The Flag

Well it has been a long time coming but the New Zealand flag is now flying above the war memorial in Muritai Rd. This is something we have been keen to do for a long time and we are grateful to the Eastbourne RSA of being supportive of us to use their flagpole. Our road patrollers are responsible for raising and lowering the flag and observing the correct protocol that comes with such a responsibility. As the centrepoint of the community it is nice to be able to share our property with the war memorial. It looks great and acknowledges the respect that we have for the soldiers who gave their lives for our wonderful country

Extra-curricular life at Muritai

I was really impressed with year 3 teacher Sarah Drinkwater tonight. She was out at 3.00 with 22 6-7 year olds working with them to develop their netball skills, with parents Astrid Cheyne and Hillary Beadle in support. Sarah is a fantastic first year teacher, much loved by the children and she has the right ethic. One of the things our teachers have to do is contribute something else to the school environment beyond just classroom teaching. Teachers are passionate about doing their best for the children that they teach but classroom management is just one string to their bow. Staff at Muritai spend much of their additional spare time, in their lunchtimes or after school, working with the children in some context and this creates extra opportunities for them. It adds to their workload but is vital as it adds to the children's experiences at school.  Our annual school production is an example of this - so much work but great fun and very satisfying and the kids just grow so much through the process. Eastbourne has so much going for it with strong club and activities for children. These are all run by adults and parents. The media laments the loss of the outdoor lifestyle but in Eastbourne it is central to what makes it so special.

Forest Lakes Camp Movie

The children, teachers and parents of year 5-6 had a very successful camp early in term 1. Well organised by senior teacher, Karen Chao and well supported by Stu, Pete, Matt, Ruth, Lisa and many parents, the venue was Forest Lakes, just out of Otaki. This experience used to be a camp for Muritai's senior school and we changed it to year 5-6 in 2002 to share the opportunities around a bit more. Now from year 5-8 the children all have an external camp - Forest Lakes in year 5-6, Mt Holdsworth tramp in year 7 and Abel Tasman in year 8. These camps are great fun and very challenging for the children. We have a strong and well researched planning template and things go very smoothly as we try to stick to the tried and true formulas for success.

Matt Skilton has made a movie of the week. Check out the fun on this movie at Matt Skilton's blog.  You may have to wait a while as it is a big file. While you are there have a look at Matt's blog about his role in the school. 

Anzac Day

Eastbourne provided a wonderful setting for the Anzac Day commemorations on April 25th. Many of our children were part of the ceremony through the scouts, cubs and the keas. With the RSA looking at enhancing the memorial, through an initiative from our BoT, there was a new addition to proceedings through the discovery of 28 names from the rugby club of soldiers that died serving their country. Gussie McDonald represented Muritai School in reading out 10 of the names of the fallen. Matt Girven (Wellesley), Michael Gray (San Antonio) and Alex Kane (rugby club) were the other Eastbourne children involved.28 juniors from the rugby club wore their playing kit as a mark of respect. Jack Crawford (Y8) and Millie Griffiths (Y2) laid flowers on behalf of the school. This really enhanced the occasion and it was lovely to see the youth of Eastbourne handed this honour.