“If we are growing,

we’re always going to be

out of our comfort zone.”

John C. Maxwell

Our Term’s Living and Learning Focus is

CHANGE WHAKAUMU

Our School Values

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

lived out in our Motto

Courtesy Care Co-operation Courage

Learning to Learn at St Joseph’s  #L2L

Key Competencies*

Capabilities for living and lifelong learning

The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies: • thinking • using language, symbols, and texts • managing self • relating to others • participating and contributing.

 

St Joseph’s Catholic School Takapuna Learning Model

TO KNOW       What Do I Know?                    What Do I Need to Know?

 

TO DO                         What Do I Need To Do?          How Do I Do This?

 

TO USE            How will I Use What I Am Learning?  What Other Ways Can I Use It?

 

WELCOME TO OUR LATEST NEW ENTRANTS AND TO THEIR FAMILIES

Miguel, Hamish, Cassandra, Anna, Dylan, Francine

Key Competencies*

How do schools teach key competencies?

Thinking

Is about developing the sort of thinking skills that children need in the world today, using creative and critical ways of thinking to make sense of information, experiences and ideas.

Your school will give your child support to practice different types of thinking, like:

• meta-cognition – this is thinking about thinking itself. An example can be your child being encouraged to reflect on what they are doing, how that helps their learning, and what they can do differently to improve their learning
• mathematical and logical thinking
• knowing how to find out some of the ways we think that are not helpful (such as assuming something is true just because you’ve seen a few examples)
• cause and effect thinking – sometimes this involves exploring how different actions cause changes that can be predicted or understanding what actions in the past caused a change to happen
• mindfulness (being more aware of how our habits and feelings are influencing how we think and act)
• understanding how some patterns of thinking can lead to problems (e.g. the difficulty people have in making decisions about risk or how stereotypes stop us from understanding a situation)
• self-knowledge of our own strengths and passions

Research into thinking

• There is a lot of research going on in the area of thinking. We are learning more about how we think, why we think as we do, and how people become more capable thinkers.
• Guy Claxton, who is a well-known UK education researcher, talks about how, just as we build up our body muscles by exercising them, children need to work on making their “learning muscles” stronger by practising and stretching their thinking.
• American researcher Marc Prensky has made a list of what children need to learn and practice to become effective thinkers for today and tomorrows’ world.

 (from parents.education.govt.nz/primary-school)

OUT & ABOUT

This week Kakapo Team spent a day at the museum discovering more about dinosaurs.

Team Kereru had a wonderful at the Early Settlers Village in Howick and all looked very authentic in their period costumes.

 

 

The Building Programme

Inside the building is looking almost ready to be occupied. Work continues on the lift installation. Most of the painting is finished and the hall kitchen and foyer are starting to look more habitable. It is looking likely that the first team to move in will be Kereru and at least their furniture should be able to be moved in in the week beginning 29 July. As soon as I have definite dates we will let you know. We will be needing a helping hand!

 

Ka kite ano!  God bless!   

Phil