East Taieri School Curriculum

The Inquiry Model is a model of learning that supports our school vision and key competencies. When following this model of learning, children are given opportunities to think for themselves, work collaboratively with others, develop their information literacy, learn about themselves as a learner, and to develop the values that are necessary to be successful in our school community.

The Inquiry Model that East Taieri School has introduced follows the basic structure of:

Our TREES acronym is symbolic and represents the importance of our school environment.

The Inquiry Process is taught school wide with one major focus unit reflecting the essence of the essential learning area to be taught per term. This major focus unit is supported by the integration of other curriculum areas. Junior classes aim to build up the base of skills necessary for the children to independently carry out their own Inquiries when they reach the senior school.

Each major focus unit is supported by an ICT Topic book providing teachers with relevant topic information and making connections with ICT that may be able to be used in the topic.

Southern Edge is embarking on an exciting journey of discovery. This journey will focus on thinking, inquiry and integration, and involves teachers, children and families.

Thinking is recognised as being critical to successful participation in today's society. This importance is highlighted in the Key Competencies that state:

Thinking is about using creative, critical and logical processes to make sense of and to question information, experiences and ideas. Thinking includes researching, organising and evaluating to seek understanding, to inform decisions, to shape actions and to construct knowledge.

This competency implies intellectual curiosity, an enquiring attitude and a desire to know and understand. Students who have well-developed thinking skills can think about their own learning, draw on intuitions and personal knowledge, ask questions, and reflect on assumptions and perceptions.

Consequently, Southern Edge seeks to promote excellence in teaching and learning by ensuring that our teachers and children are able to; think creatively, critically and logically as they undertake personal research, organise their findings and evaluate ideas to clarify their understandings and decision-making. We look forward to a challenging and productive adventure in learning.

Our journey has been represented in a movie that incorporates who we are, our vision, the Inquiry process, strengths and future direction. This was produced for the Ministry of Education. The movie will be uploaded to a site within TKI shortly. We hope to have the link as well as a copy for you to view here up as soon as possible.

Each class has WALT visibly displaying the current learning intentions in the main subject areas. WALT allows children to know what they are currently learning about and allows the teachers to focus on key areas to concentrate on in their programme.

Rubrics allow teachers to share the Learning Intentions with the children before the learning happens so they recognise the purpose of what they are doing and the expectations of the teacher. They also allow the children to see the criteria of the assessment so that they can meet their goals and achieve their best work.

When children carry out an Inquiry, they are given more choice about what they wish to focus their learning on. The inquiry process enables children to learn the skills necessary to access information. This makes their learning more focused and more proficient.

ICT continue to be a focus for East Taieri School. Teachers are given opportunities for Professional Development including attending workshops run by Mike Scaddon. Staff have also presented at other ICT workshops. The implementation of new and current teaching practices remains an important part of our programme.

» A warm, caring safe environment for staff and children, where individuals are valued and can experience success.

» Opportunities to celebrate success – eg assemblies, acknowledgement in newsletters, MVS awards, certificates.

» Programmes and opportunities that foster and nurture a positive and healthy self image for both staff and children, and promote respect and consideration for others.

» Full coverage of NZ curriculum with particular emphasis on numeracy and literacy.

Programmes of work designed to cater for individual needs both remedial and extension. These will include programmes of work within the classroom and also withdrawal as deemed

» Programmes of work designed to cater for individual needs both remedial and extension. These will include programmes of work within the classroom and also withdrawal as deemed appropriate.

» Programmes which reflect the essential skills for learning and facilitate inquiry, self directed learning and information creation.

» Integrated use of information and communication technology as an essential tool for learning.

» Efforts to identify children and families with needs and to work as a community to support them.

» Quality fitness, PE and sporting programmes. We are very aware of the need to cater for children's physical and health needs in addition to academic needs.

These goals will be achieved through positive partnership among children, caregivers, teachers and the wider community.

Curriculum

We believe that the needs of the individual child are paramount and that classroom programmes should challenge each learner to achieve his or her potential at a pace with which they feel comfortable.

In order to achieve this, East Taieri School endeavours to provide a balanced curriculum, providing for variety in both teaching and learning styles. We place emphasis on numeracy and literacy programmes.

We recognise our responsibility to implement any National Curriculum Guidelines but allow teachers and learners the scope to set their own specific goals and objectives.

» Education is a shared responsibility among the student, family, school community and society at large

» Our curriculum should be integrated where possible, and children should be given the opportunity to follow their own line of enquiry

East Taieri School is committed to providing programmes of enrichment and remedial assistance to cater for children's needs across the curriculum. Reading Recovery, remedial language, phonological awareness, oral language and ESOL programmes are also in operation.

Our Librarian closely supports staff and children in the area of information skills.

We provide the opportunity for swimming tuition through the use of Mosgiel and Mosgiel West Pool facilities under the guidance of qualified swimming instructors.

Senior children are given the opportunity to participate in Australasian testing programme offered over a number of curriculum areas.

Digital Story...

We were asked by the Ministry of Education to produce a digital story about our journey of learning so far on the ICT contract, the draft curriculum and now Extending High Standards Across School (EHSAS) - Garth Powell was given release time in which to make this story.

The story has now been uploaded to a site on TKI which can be found at the following link:

http://www.tki.org.nz/r/nzcurriculum/schl-curriculum-design/growing-east-taieri-school_e.php

The digital story has also been added onto the Ministry of Education's New Curriculum DVD that has been sent to every school in New Zealand.

Please have a look, you can view the movie at varying speeds depending on your internet connection.

If you have any comments of feedback please contact either the office or Garth Powell at school

office@east-taieri.school.nz

garth@east-taieri.school.nz

Reading Association Conference

Here is a copy of the PowerPoint Nic and Garth presented at the conference on Saturday the 29th of March. You can either view it is a PowerPoint online or you can save it to your computer and view it that way.

If you would like to find out more or to talk to Garth or Nic you can contact them by e-mail:

Garth Powell - garth@east-taieri.school.nz

Nic Brown - nic@east-taieri.school.nz

Download the PowerPoint to your computer

Click on this picture to download the PowerPoint to your desktop

(The file is approx 22mb in size - depending on your security settings you may have to click on an option saying 'accept active x control')