Spring Fair

PTA Meetings every Thursday at 7pm. Would love to see you all there.
Only three weeks till Fair Day 4th September! 10am - 2pm.

Cross Country

What a blast. Our students did our school proud again!
On Monday we travelled to the Tua Marina Track to compete in our 6th Wairai Cluster Cross Country. Congratulations to all the students and thanks to those parents and caregivers who came along to support our students. I know the 2km distance was a challenge for some of us.

What a Bast - Rimu Camp - Christchurch

Well what a blast, and I don;t mean wintery one either, considering how cold I forgot Christchurch can be. We had an entertaining trip down with our van losing 3rd and 5th gear on the way and a replacement driven to Kekerengu for us.
We went went to the Antarctic Centre, Orana Park, AMI Statium (thanks Cills), The Museum, Rutherford's Den, The Art Museum, Clip and Climb, Alpine Ice Arena, QEII and got to see just how busy Christchurch can be. The students were great and were fantastic representatives of Spring Creek and all our wonderful families. Check out the children's blogs for their reflections and our celebration of learning assembly next Thursday at 2pm for more information.

ON TRACK: Spring Creek School principal Andrew McFarlane says the school's excellent ERO report is 'fantastic'. He is pictured with Anaru Walker, 10, front, and other students in the school's Rimu room.

One of Marlborough's smaller schools has been given a big tick of approval in a recent Government Education Review Office (ERO) report.

Spring Creek School was visited several months ago by national reviewers, and has been praised in the report's findings.

Students were supported by staff and other students in the playground, were actively involved in games, and demonstrated high levels of engagement in class programmes, it said.

Principal Andrew McFarlane was also praised for effective and professional leadership, and the board of trustees was commended for its "focused and enthusiastic" approach.

Partnership with parents was strong and students reached, or exceeded national numeracy and literacy standards.

Students were also above the national achievement rate for Maori, it said.

Mr McFarlane, who has been the school's principal for seven years, said it was often hard to gauge where the school was at, but "you think you're taking things down the right track".

The ERO report recognised the hard work the staff, parents and community had put into the school, Mr McFarlane said.

Small class sizes (the largest is 18 students) worked in the school's favour and were a huge factor in learning. "Anyone who says that class numbers don't matter is dreaming."

The school's Cornerstone Values – honesty, kindness, consideration, compassion, obedience, responsibility, respect and duty – were enforced within the school and contributed to the good environment, he said.

"That's our job, to teach the kids to read and write, but also to make them good people as well."

Numeracy and literacy levels were the school's key focus, and Mr McFarlane was pleased this had been recognised.

Spring Creek School is a decile four with 45 students.

The full report is available at ero.govt.nz.

Understanding By Design

Over the last week I attended the Classroom Strategies that Matter conference held at the Cawfield Racecourse in Melbourne. I have to thank REAP Marlborough, The Marlbough Principal's Association and the New Zealand Principal's federation for their assistance in making this professional development happen. I went to listen to a guru in curriculum design, Mr Jay McTighe who over the course of his career has designed a tool for teachers and leaders of learning to form and manage curriculum across the schooling spectrum.

The first two days were focused primarily at teachers designing lessons for understanding and not just coverage. If we look at the New Zealand Curriculum it lends itself beautifully towards this design framework via the key competencies. Educators are trying to reinforce deep understanding through the thought process and eventually deeper application of the understanding in other learning contexts.

Sound great I know but where all educators are aiming for with any group of students in this modern society is to be able to take the skills and thinking frameworks they have acquired in their learning and apply them to new contexts.

Over the final two days we explored the process of taking the classroom lesson and unit planning design to larger applications, you call this Schooling By Design. Being from the American system and relaying the idea to an Australian concept was interesting to see from a Kiwi educators perspective. Even with the advent of National Standards, we are very fortunate that our curriculum will rely on teachers making OTJ's (observable teacher judgements)married along with assessment data such as one off tests that our schools are listening before labeling students as at, above or below that standard.. Be very wary Ministry of Education, the processes that we are trying to avoid in the form of league tables are very much alive in our Trans Tasman neighbourhood via the myschools website that the Australian Federal Government launched on schools and the standardised national test or NAPLAN I believe is the acronym.

Let's learn from the lessons of other nations and educational systems and realise that what we have here in New Zealand should be protected and nurtured. I say trial the national standards, see how they work and then launch into full implementation. It's like a major car company has a new idea, lets build the car in a few short months, not test it for safety or whether it might be economical on fuel, launch it to the public amidst much fanfare with the result being many people buy one, then finding a couple of months into using it, the motor explodes and the customer is left high and dry with no way to get round. We are an evidence based educational system, so why not trial the standards and see what works and what we need to improve. A year is a long time in a students life but not when it is something as higher stakes as this.

I will leave you to make your mind up about that one.