Welcome to 2006! Please check back to the "events archives" above going back to 2003.

Monday the 13th of February 2006
Well the school term has begun. A big welcome to Mrs Charlaine Spencer and her family to Toko School. Toko School is back to being a five teacher school and it feels great.

A big welcome to the new families from Douglas School that have started at Toko this year. I hope the start has been an easy one.
We have parent interviews planned for week 4.
I am off to the Learning at School conference in Rotorua next week. I am presenting! Scary really!

At school we are swimming , and have a 'survivor unit under way. We are beginning to be involved in a literacy development which will form a significant part of the professional development in 2006. Behind the scenes there has been a lot of work gone into the redevelopment of the procedures and policies of Toko School. Also behind the scenes we are starting to use a new school management system, School Master. It is a big ask for teachers but in the end I hope it is a valuable tool to assist learning and reporting on learning.
We have a few changes to school levels this year as well so some teachers are in new areas. All good for you I believe!

Please visit the calendar page which gives a broad overview of the year.

Family Fun day
A very well supported family fun day was held on MOnday the 20th... We had planned to have a beach ed day but we were cancelled at the last moment. A scramble to get the pools organised! Thanks to all parents that managed to be at the pools during the day. Kids were great and a fun day was had.

Learning at School ICTPD Conference
I've been away in Rotorua from Tuesday the 21st to Friday the 24th at the Learning at School Conference. I attended the conference with the facilitation team of the Bard Wired ICTPD Cluster.
This is our third year of the ICTPD contract. I presented at this conference. Had a full room with 30 people and 30 computers all humming with some flash!! Showed kids examples, school web site examples and then proceeded to 'teach' the attendees how to make things move. Well it went well and I actually enjoyed it once the nerves settled. Just taking yourself out on the edge a little further! Many thanks to Rachel J for her help.
The conference had a gentleman by the name of Mark Prensky as a keynote speaker. He is an acclaimed speaker and games creator. He believes and argues gaming is helping children with 21st century skills! Read his blog here. I really enjoyed his keynote with plenty to think about. Just one game that shows that there is learning in games! Here!
Other people I thought did a great job were:

Julia Atkins Julia speaks on a variety of topics but is well known for her understanding of and contribution to developing school assessment for learning!

Principal of Birkdale Intermediate. They have really thought though the problem based learning model and gone on to develop their own resource base to support the process. Very large amounts of money have been invested.... but the result is exceptional resources for their children for the development of problem based learning... children answering rich 'fertile' questions with the resources to actually do it!

Podcasting at Pt England School
This was a something I really want to see developed at Toko. Not hard to do and totally inline with our belief that oral language is the literacy that is the most important and needs to be taught to our children and not just hope that it will happen! They make a podcast based on the children reading on NZ novels. This again is a close link to our work with the "Book Project and I believe a close link to our ongoing Speech Board emphasis.

Mark Tredwell
What an amazing resource this resource is. Teachers need to visit this place on a regular basis!!! It has just about everything a teacher would need access to!!! I've heard Mark a few times now and it always valuable, but I'm not referring to knowledge net!
Teaching children for their tomorrow!!Again a big emphasis and realization that oral language and visual language are the literacies of the future.... yes we still need to be able to read!!! Mark would have us believe that we have made no progress since 1964. The US government spent a trillion dollars to figure out that the current system just cannot get any better. So it is the system and the infrastructure that needs to change. It is not tweakable!!!
What is the big picture.... where are we heading?
What difference will it make that I spent 4 days away form Toko School.
The inquiry learning process and problem based learning is still very high on the agenda, where ever you hear keynote speakers speaking about children's learning. The regurgitation facts is no learning. What we want is children thinking about issues and topics that are part of their everyday life, and extending them to think about issues and events further from their own reality. The technology we are developing today and available in classrooms adds to the learning environment immensely. Previously we could only use an encyclopedia and a year book so the opportunity to go beyond the facts and figures did not really present itself. Previously the teacher just told.....Copying vast quantities of information and just reworking it was an acceptable format and took loads of time too! The thinking and presentation was just repetition of old facts and figures.

We expect so much more now! Now it is the culling down of the information available that is important. Evaluating various sources to see which might be accurate! And what seems to be important is that the new information have a purpose, a real purpose. Otherwise what is the point! This is where the 'fertile question' or 'problem based learning' and the inquiry process is more powerful. It is not a right or wrong answer but an assessment based on what children believe now, based on what they have found out! Process is so important because it is the process that is transferable.
So that's what I did in the holiday! Back at toko School we should see:
Open ended questions developed by teachers and students
Children thinking about issues and topics and making suggestions.
Children speaking and listening more than they use to. Loads of speaking and loads of listening and mountains of cooperative learning.......... all skills of the 21st century learner... This is taken direct from the website . It is a graphic illustration of the differences between yesterday classroom and today's!



So we should see this!
Children involved in realistic meaningful contexts.
Children using current technologies
And very importantly we should see at the development of a technological infrastructure to support new learning and support the access and use of learning technologies!
Children making more decisions about their own learning......................

BUT imagine the impact all this is to have on our assessment. To quote Julia Atkins "do we measure what we value or value what we can measure." A tricky little quote that helps me think on what to assess with our children!
Assessing children's learning is essential I know. But what is really important is to assess something well, not everything badly, because too much assessment really means poorly done assessment of little value. The last thing I want our Toko School teachers to do is to assess coverage. Pointless. So few well chosen units to assess along with core educational subjects e.g. reading, writing, mathematics, spelling and speaking! Then assess the children's development in their ability to inquire independently!!!!!!!! IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE ALOT OF WORK!

Cool link for science!

6th of February
Turnbull Cup
Well Toko School won the Turnbull Cup and the Centennial Cup on Monday night at the TSB Pool in Stratford! The double has not been achieved before! The children involved in the evening were: Regan, Martin, Julian, Tyla, Elysse, Marie, David, and Emily. The team that actually won he cups were: Martin, Julian Marie and Tyla..... Well this is an excellent result for the children and of course for the school. The two parents most closely involved were Claire and Jenny and to them a big thank you. Back at school Kelly also was involved so thanks Kel! Looking on the cup it was great to see Toko back in 1941.. now there's is a bit of history!
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Additionally our new school banner was unveiled tonight.. What a great way to start!

EDI APPLICATIONS..
Enough sitting an thinking! This is to be the year of the EDI Applications!
Initial draft applications being developed.......
1.The development of a robust and meaningful shared understanding and delivery of inquiry learning/problem based model in technologically rich classrooms.

2 The support and development of a talent program.

3The support and development of the oral language program that truly delivers confidence and capability in oral communication to all.

Monday the 20th of March
Well Finally after a fair bit of tooing and froing, calling , rearranging and juggling we have our talent program up and running! It started today
There are about 10 different activities organised and three relievers being paid for that get the numbers down to about 10 per group! More Info The key difference to previous ventures of this nature is the funding that is going into allow the employment of relievers to bolster the program. Additionally it is the concept of taking the children a lot further staying with a program rather than revolving around a lot of different activities! I hope it is a valuable experience for all.
Leslie Dowding was at school between 3 and 5 today also with staff and we were started work on our reading literacy iniative. A two year contract for teachers to hone their reading delivery skills!

Wednesday the 23rd
BOT meeting tonight... We passed the revised policies and procedures which were worked on over the holidays, discussed
at the last meeting and available this month for discussion. This is a very positive move. A tidying up of exisiting procedures and a clarification of exisiting policy to support NAGS 1 2 3 4 5 6! Basically the NAG itself is the policy. But we have a few policies to suppoort this. The rest are schoool procedures. Organsied and run by Pronciapl ans staff. Just the way it should be!

PD Friday the 24th
Lately we have been getting into our PD for 2006. Lesley Dowding attended a staff meeting where the literacy initiative was outlined. Terry Stowers has been at school every Thursday over the last 5 weeks. we have been able to release teachers to work with him, the focus being the development of entry level School Master skills.

Today the two Toko basketball teams took the court for the first time in 2006. Many thanks to Cathy and John for coaching these two teams and I hope they have a great season.

On Friday I attended a Health and Safety day. Learned more about the schools responsibilities in this area... so can anticipate some development to take place...I have taken over greater responsibility for this area and therefore I want it right...even if it costs!
Also updated the banner for one of the templates used for this site.

Tuesday morning
Attended a half day course in Stratford with fellow Principals.. Lots of useful talk about PD and school improvement. If nothing else, and there is plenty more, the ICTPD cluster has got Principals of schools talking and listening and sharing ideas and information! It was a valuable morning with many insights into the working s and development and efforts of the ICTPD cluster schools. Guess the full minutes are up on bard wired
Friday the 21st of March..
Good win by the Toko Gold BBall team today! well done!The old laptop was in the shop with virus problems so I'll put the link to a new improved product which is fee and recommend of course for your own sanity that you have a good virus protection set up! It is the one on the top of the list. GO for it.

Book Week and ZeBong
Last week of school and Book Week is going well. Great lot of books set up in the Library and many parents coming in. Good motivation amongst the kids. Megan is doing a great job orga nising it all! LAst Friday we had ZeBOng the story teller at school and he again was very good, telling a variety of shorter stories which was a great tie into Book Week!