Newsletter Week Four Term 2 2016

Our Living and Learning Focus continues as

CARE ATAWHAI KUMANU

Our School Values are

Tina Justice, Pono Truth, Aroha Compassion, Manaakitanga Hospitality and Tapu Respect for the Environment

Lived out in our Motto

Courtesy Care Co-operation Courage

The Learning Model for our school is: “To Know To Do To Use”

Learning to Learn at St Joseph’s #L2L

Learning, of course, has many facets outside of Reading, Writing and Mathematics!

Learning is vital to living as it affects everything we do. Learning to look after a pet is a huge learning experience, as we know, requiring thoughtfulness, patience, reliability, knowledge, faithfulness, resilience, kindness.

Ciara, from Kakapo Team, wrote about the rabbits she received for her birthday and has taken on the responsibility to care for.

On Wednesday my bunny rabbits, Snowy and Cooper came to school to visit the Kakapo team. I got the bunnies for my 8th birthday and they were 5 weeks old. They are now 7.5 weeks old. All the kids were excited to see them and we all sat round in a circle and watched the rabbits jump around. Everyone was able to have a pat and a hold if they wanted to. I felt very happy to share my bunnies with the other kids in my class. I hope my bunnies had a good time but I’m pretty sure they were quite tired after. I love my Snowy and Cooper.

Books Bonanza!

by Janine O.

School Reporter, Kakariki Team

We had a massive book fair for four days. A special thanks to Mrs Thomson, some kind parents and this year’s librarians for setting up and running this event.

Everyone was crowding around the wonderful new books that Scholastic provided for us this year. Parents trailed along with their keen children to purchase a book that was good for their reading skills or that they simply wanted to read. Something brand new!
There was a huge selection of books. Some were humorous and crazy while others were mysterious and adventurous. Everyone loved this fantastic event in school but some weren’t lucky enough to buy one – so they just enjoyed browsing through most of the interesting books. This was another very successful fundraiser for the school.

St Joseph’s School Board of Trustees met on Thursday 26. It was the last meeting of this board. The new Board of Trustees will take office from 10 June and their first meeting will be on the 23 June.

A very big thank you to our BOT for the years and hours of dedicated service, most of which goes unseen, but which is valued by our teachers and parents:

Jenny Aldous, Valerie Broomfield, Shane Coleman, Gary Gordon, Simon Marshall, Philomena O’Connell-Cooper, Phil Pietersen, Father Phil Sullivan, Paul Schnuriger, Monsignor David Tonks, Roshini Wijesinha, Ingrid Young,

A big thank you to Valentina Abba, the BOT Secretary, for the work she does in this role.

BOT ELECTIONS

It is wonderful to that so many people are standing for election. Thank you to those people for stepping up and considering this role of service in our school.

Voting papers are out now.

Make sure you exercise your right to vote.

There is a “Meet The Candidate’s Evening” on Monday 30^th at 7 p.m. in the Staffroom.

Teaching and Learning for the 21^st Century

Here is some additional information for all who are interested in the way education is developing and changing. I have again inserted some reading into our newsletter.

The extract below is taken from Core Education May Newsletter.

Ten Trend categories

TECHNOLOGY:

Equitable access
Including BYOD, home access, leases, libraries, public spaces, OER and the digital divide.

“In recent years, as technology has become more affordable and accessible, it has permeated across society creating change in the way we work, learn and communicate with each other. Technology provides real opportunity to transform education, to make a difference for all our learners, in ways that have not been possible before. However, technology in itself will not make this difference, rather it needs partnered with good pedagogy, well designed teaching and learning environments, and equitable access. In doing this, barriers to learning are removed and all learners are enabled to access information, to create and collaborate in a way that works for them.

The 2014 “Future-focused learning in connected communities” report emphasised the need for learners to have equitable access to digital technologies, regardless of location, background, abilities or socio-economic status: “We expect all learners to have an equitable opportunity to achieve education success. We expect education to equip them to: live harmoniously in an increasingly diverse society contribute to solving today’s complex social, economic and environmental problems pursue activities that promote their health and well-being”.

Data driven organisations

The smart use of Big data and analytics, E-portfolios and evidence driven transformation.

We hear a lot about Big Data and Analytics these days. Data driven organisations use analysed data to predict future behaviour of society as a whole, groups of people, and individuals. They use it to intervene in ways that decrease the likelihood of the ‘worst’ happening and accelerate the likelihood of the ‘best’ happening.

“Big Data is considered a key part of social reform. Eventually, it will predict those most likely to suffer social ills as children, those educationally deprived, and those in households where violence is most likely to emerge. Early interventions can be staged – even before the problems emerge.” NZ Herald 2014

“When it comes to reaching your fitness goals, steps are just the beginning. Fitbit tracks every part of your day—including activity, exercise, food, weight and sleep—to help you find your fit, stay motivated, and see how small steps make a big impact.” Fitbit 2016

What is Big Data and analytics?

Big Data is described as the huge sets of electronic data that is available for analysing. Industry analyst Doug Laney articulated the now-mainstream definition of big data as the three Vs.

Volume – high volumes of data come relatively cheaply, for example when collected on smartphones and smartphone apps or through social media and need new ways of storing.
Variety – the data comes in a variety of formats – from structured, numeric data in traditional databases to unstructured text documents, email, video, photo, audio, stock ticker data and financial transactions, and it is comes from multiple sources, which makes it difficult to link, match, cleanse and transform data across systems. The quality and quantity can vary over time.
Velocity: data arrives at an unprecedented speed and must be dealt with in a timely manner.

Whereas, Analytics, according to Wikipedia, is “the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data.”

New technologies make it all possible as they provide massive storage for any kind of data, enormous processing power and the ability to handle virtually limitless concurrent tasks or jobs. Hadoop which is an open-source software framework, is an example of this technology.

In New Zealand we can see this trend in data driven organisations. The government has set up the New Zealand Data Futures Forum to guide thinking about the use of data in response to questions such as “Who has what data about me/us and what will they be doing with it?” “What data do I/we have access to that can help us?”. NZ Data Future Forum’s vision is to set an “agenda to significantly advance New Zealand’s ability to unlock the latent value of our data assets and position us as a world leader in the trusted and inclusive use of shared data to deliver a prosperous society.” The forum identified that “Harnessing the benefits of data sharing and use requires a trusted, transparent, and balanced environment – one where privacy is paramount and trust maintained.” They recommended four principles to help New Zealanders navigate the data future.
Value: New Zealand should use data to drive economic and social value and create a competitive advantage.
Inclusion: All parts of New Zealand society should have the opportunity to benefit from data use.
Trust: Data management in New Zealand should build trust and confidence in our institutions.
Control: Individuals should have greater control over the use of their personal data.”

School Farewell Assembly for Mrs Kathryn France

Starting with the Kapa Haka Group, Kathryn was welcomed into the hall, enthroned on the “special chair” by Mrs Pratt and Miss Luxford and suitably attired in the “sparkly cloak” and “sparkly crown” .

Some of our Year 6 students led the Assembly, which included items from Kaka Haka, School Choir, Magic Tricks, presentation of cards from each class, some words from 4 of the children she had taught during her time at St Joseph’s, some words from Mrs Schofield, one of our parents, presentation of flowers and a gift. The Assembly ended with a special prayer, God Be With You, for Mrs France, sung by the school. And finally, of course, we had to end with a rip-roaring Hip Hip Hooray!