Term 2 started with a 2 day course in the 2nd week of the holiday, working with Lane Clark.
It was full on! The basis was assessment using criteria:
Process criteria, Skill criteria Content criteria. Full on! What pleased me was her focus on rigor!!!
Also her full on belief of planning from the curriculum first, not back pedaling to it. I too hold this belief.

An eye opener was the way she explained integration. Perhaps my own interpretation was becoming a little thin! It was great to hear her reinforce that just doing other areas of the curriculum that seem to fit with it is not best practice. Integration only occurs when you use other areas of the curriculum because you must do to to get the learning across!
I like this idea!! But it does have implications to the way we currently plan our units. A theme and integration are two very separate things!

I was a little bit boggled by all the form and paper that Lane brought out.
She is an excellent teacher herself and does this stuff, not just talks about it!
Implications for us...... The best I can say is that it has highlighted the need for rigor. That's not bad.
Heightened the need to have processes across the school in areas eg
INQUIRY
WRITING
SPELLING

These will be processes that I believe in. We are well on the way of defining a plan for inquiry. Not perfect but based on evidence and our beliefs.
Writing is there already basically and will just need highlighting over the upcoming term and our work with Andrea Harding should allow this to really progress.
Spelling. well I think that our results speak for themselves and we need more consistency and TIME ON TASK to improve our spelling results with some children!!!

Opening of the Bus Shelter
The school has new bus shelter, many thanks to a $15000 grant from the Taranaki Community Trust. This along with fundraising from the Fundraising Committee must surely make the difference for this school project. It was great to see it up and running about week 2 of this term!

Weekend Workers
These guys keep on coming and we keep on reaping the benefit! It certainly helps us maintain the general appearance of the school at a very reasonable cost!

Toko School Sports Uniform
It's taken about a year to get all the children in the new black and yellow Toko School Sports Uniform! Not bad!

Basketball Season
The children have the two teams and they were chosen on an even basis! Many thanks to Mr J Weir for his coaching expertise with the Toko Coals! I'm working away with the Nuggets. This team is younger but very able!!!!

Kids for Kids Concerts
We took 16 children up for the practices and then Monday the 13th (Wrong) was a great night for the kids involved. Suzanne was in great form and the kids and audience had a ball!

School garden is looking awesome with some ready to pick cauliflowers.

Talents
This has kicked off for the term. We have a great selection of opportunities for the children this term. All groups are under 10 children so this must been a great opportunity to really get into the their chosen talent group! We have dance, art two science groups, movie making, music, Art gallery etc! Quite a neat selection. Nearly all children got their first choice! We've employed 5 other people to make this work!

Solar System
I've been enjoying working in year 5 to 8 modeling the rotation of the earth around the sun! Day and night, seasons, rotation axis!! All things surely children need to know as they grow!

Board Meeting held Wednesday the 20th of May.

Jones Cup Practices
Well the weather has been bad and we have postponed Jones Cup twice. Rightly so on both occasions I believe with rain and wind making the playing conditions rather marginal. Tomorrow is the last chance so no doubt damned if we do and damned if we don't! However, a huge thank you to the coaches involved as they have been coming in twice weekly and really making the difference for the children.

Jones Cup was an awesome day in 2009. Had to postpone it twice however, due to very poor weather. However, Monday the 25th of MAy dawned and although it was cool it did not rain. we all had a great day and the efforts of staff have to be acknowledged to make it such a success. Parents as coaches were awesome this year as testified on our newsletters!

Junior Play Day
Held Monday the 8th of June. It was great to see the preparations pay off as our children performed so well. Well done classroom teachers for preparing the children so well.

BP Technology Challenge
We are sending three teams to the BP Technology Challenge this year. They did very well last year and hope that their preparations are all ready on time! They sure look good. Hand cranked machines!!!
We actually got a third placing in this event! The bread cutter!!!

Annual Meeting 18th June
We engaged the community on this evening, discussing the development of the new curriculum! The evening went well and we sent out a synopsis of the outcomes of the evening to the community on Monday th22nd June!

Megan is off to Cambridge UK to help present a 'presentation' on integrating interactive whiteboards into the junior classroom! Awesome!

Parent Interviews
We finished the term with parent interviews. Three way, 20 minutes interviews in which the children and teachers shared learning with parents. I think they went particulrly well with 100% turn out yet again!

Board Meeting
Achievement data was shared with the BOT. In addition a draft Charter was tabled. The Fundraising Policy was revised and heading out for consultation.
That brought a busy productive term to a close!