Welcome back to school! As per normal February turns into the hottest month in NZ (as I write Heathrow airport is closed due to the heaviest snow in 18 years). In Stratford the weather is hot and hotter and that means sensible hot weather behaviour and precautions. Yesterday we had a great start to the year with our tabloid sports event featuring our year 9s and year 13 peer supporters. It doubles as the first House points of the year and the MIGHTY MCALLISTER was the victor.
The staff are currently settling on the goals and targets for the year - broadly these will be under three headings - Te Maunga Tuu is the professional development initiative that I have written about previously in my blog; The New Zealand Curriculum is a major focus for us as well - we will continue re-examining our vision and values as a school with the key competencies during the year, and thirdly we will continue our work on differentiating the curriculum. This includes working through strategies to assist our gifted and talented students and sowing the seeds for merit and excellence endorsements in NCEA.
Building wise we are making plans for the refit of T Block this term. This includes refitting a new graphics room and working through the final details of the plans. During the holidays we also had a new roof placed on Te Amorangi so that Whaea Tina can be nice and dry with her students this year.
It's shaping up to be a great year. My thanks to the PTA, the staff, parents and students for getting themselves organised with teaching and learning beginning in the first week. I know how busy it is with getting uniform, textbooks, stationary and schoolbags all organised.
Finally some of my students produced an excellent video that I'd like to share with the school community and wider weblog audience. Even if you're not a devotee of the sport I'm sure you'll be impressed with the filming!
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