Balmoral School Newsletter - 24 November 2023
Principal
Tēnā koutou i tēnei ahiahi
The refresh of the NZ Curriculum has had some positive outcomes. While the current rewrite will be more prescriptive in terms of content it does have two concepts which are very important. The two terms are critical mathematics and critical literacy. They are distinct concepts that involve the application of critical thinking skills in different domains.
Critical mathematics refers to the ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret mathematical concepts and processes. It involves questioning assumptions, understanding the underlying logic, and recognizing the social and cultural implications of mathematical ideas. In critical mathematics, individuals explore not only the "how" of solving problems but also the "why" and therefore the broader implications of mathematical knowledge.
On the other hand, critical literacy refers to the ability to analyze and interpret written, visual, and spoken texts. It involves questioning the content, understanding the author's perspective, and recognizing the power dynamics within various forms of communication. Critical literacy goes beyond basic reading and writing skills; it encourages individuals to be active, thoughtful consumers and producers of information, considering the social, political, and cultural contexts in which texts are created and interpreted.
Daily we are bombarded with messaging that many people are unable to process because they haven't learnt these critical literacies. Both are so very important for our young minds in a modern world where many things are re-presented or a re-presentation of real life. Being able to make sense of this is important.
Applying critical thinking to mathematical concepts, and critical literacy is essential for fostering a well-rounded, analytical mindset across different domains of knowledge.
While traditional schooling focussed on repetitive skills, often in worksheets (think of Henry Ford and the old mass production line), these critical concepts require our tamariki to not only have a curriculum to practice mastering repetitive skills but also to have a curriculum which enables a critical dimension. This is a more difficult curriculum to deliver in that teachers are required to be more skilful.
Our school is very well placed to deliver this complex curriculum having Philosophy for Children, Play, Inquiry Learning, eleven years working with Dr Murray Gadd in literacy, seven years with Professor Peter O'Conner in the Arts, and three years of professional development in Mathematics from Massey University underpinning what we do.
Ka pai te rā whakatā (Have a good weekend)
Nāku noa
Malcolm
The Library's 'Lizzie Award'
Important announcement! In honour of our librarian Liz Hamilton The ‘Lizzie’ Awards for the most popular books in the Balmoral School Library for 2023 have been decided. These are our most loved books this year – is one of your favourites here?
For our younger readers the most popular picture book was Macca’s Makeover, by Matt Cosgrove. Moving into the fiction our winner was Tom Gates – Spectacular School Trip, by Liz Pichon – a fantastic series of easy to read novels. Over in the non-fiction there were no surprises – Minecraft titles took out 8 of the top 10 issued titles. Apart from Minecraft, books about both men’s and women’s football were also hugely popular. And our most issued graphic novel, and in fact most popular book of the year all around, was Karen’s School Picture, by Katy Farina and Ann Martin. Congratulations to our Lizzie Award-winning books!
Important library dates coming up:
All borrowed books back to the Library by the end of week 9, which is the 8th December.
Summer borrowing for Years 3-7 will start on Monday 18th December. Years 1 and 2 can borrow too, just bring a caregiver along. (THis is only available for children returning to Balmoral in 2024).
Breaking Rat News with Our Environmental Scientists By Susie.P, Charlie.W, Zoey.P and Jasper.D
The Eco Warriors have set out tracking tunnels around the school and found out that there are rats in the bush behind the intermediate playground, also in the field bushes.
We had been getting complaints from one of the school's neighbours near the intermediate classrooms about rats coming into their property. They said the rats were coming from our school onto their property. For this reason, we set out tracking tunnels in the school gardens nearby. We set up four tunnels on two different occasions. We have found no evidence of rats there, but there are some (slimy) slugs in the area. Beware of totally dangerous slug slime.
The only rats in our school are in the bush near the field and behind the intermediate playground. We now have four rat traps in said bushes and have successfully caught four SUPER CHUNKY AS rats.
Some Year 7’s have been investigating too and put chew cards around the school to see where rats like to hang out. They got the same results as us. The only card that got munched was attached to a tree behind the intermediate playground.
If you see these tracking tunnels please don’t touch them as we will continue to monitor the situation!
Stay tuned as we provide more data and get involved in some citizen science!
If you want to help increase local biodiversity by getting rid of pests check out “Pest Free Mt Eden” and get a free trap for your backyard.
https://www.facebook.com/PestFreeMtEden/
https://urbanark.nz/get-involved/join-a-group/pest-free-mt-eden/
Images: 1. Eco-warriors making tracking tunnels. 2. Tracking tunnels being put in the bush behind the intermediate playground. 3 Look at those footprints - evidence of rats - lots of rats! 4. We set up more tracking tunnels. 5. We put them around the intermediate gardens. 6. We tucked some under the flax bushes 7. We put one on the stone wall -rats like to run along walls at night! 8. No rat footprints none! Some slimy slug trails and what looks like a snail having a much on the paper but no footprints. 9. We now have four rat traps in said bushes and have successfully caught four SUPER CHUNKY AS rats.
Rat Attack Gallery
Organisation for 2024
Like many organisations the end of year or Term 4 is always an incredibly busy term. From employing staff, reviewing the annual plan and establishing next year's annual plan, ensuring we have completed transition handover for children within our school and those leaving as well, ākonga reports and our leaver celebrations.
We are pleased that we have filled our vacant positions in 2024. We are looking forward to Jarrod Anderson, Hanna Pyles, Joey Chong, Evan Reynolds, and Abigayle Hunter joining our staff.
Professional development for our staff has been planned. Next year we will be continuing to support the consolidation of Mathematics, Philosophy for Children, Literacy, and New Zealand Histories through the Kahui Ako.
We have also committed to training all staff in restorative justice to support our behaviour management processes. We believe this is a natural progression from our previous developments in our school.
Auditorium Audio Visual Upgrade
This week the school completed the first stage of the replacement of the AV system. As many parents who have been to assemblies would be aware of our technical glitches that interrupted the children's presentation.
We look forward to having this new system at our end of year celebrations.
It's not too late to contribute to your community and pay your school donation
This year through locally raised funds we have been able to support children at school and upgrade some of our facilities. Without this valuable funding source, our school would have to reduce what we provide.
How would you feel if our tamariki swum in a cold pool, couldn't sit at nice tables outside, did not have lovely artworks on our buildings, had less access to STEP programmes, had no bands, or reduced or no SENCO. The list goes on.
Give to the not-for-profit organisation in your community and support our tamariki.
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Important
Last day of School for the year - CLOSES AT 12:30 PM on Wednesday 20th December.
Primary School News
Pānui from whānau Mahira
Last week we celebrated Diwali in Hub 10. We had stories and learnt about the festival. We read a poem. Some of the children shared with us how they celebrated Diwali both at home, at the temple, and at events around the city. We painted and drew Rangoli patterns inside and outside the Hub. The children started to notice the rotational symmetry in these beautiful patterns. On Friday each child was able to take home their own clay diya with a candle which they had worked on over the week. We hope you enjoyed this little light.
In our Inquiry the children have been looking closely at plants. They were interested in the structure of plants and how they ‘work’. This led us to close looking at the plants, connecting the children to the natural world and building their sense of wonder. We decided to look at the differences and similarities between plants and animals. Some of the wondering that arose: do plants move by themselves? Do plants communicate? How do plants absorb water? How does the water get into the seed? Do plants have brains?
The purchase of some little microscopes that could be attached to the iPads opened up a new magnified world to the children. When using them on plants we could clearly see the structure - the little lines, hairs, tracks and lines made by insects on the plants. Flowers took on additional colours under magnification. The children have also been learning about photography and focussing to get a clear image. We are hoping to do some artwork based on the magnified photographs and the paintings of Georgia O’Keefe.
Intermediate School News
This week our Athletics team headed off to the Central Zone competition. It was a wonderful day, and all our children represented Balmoral well. Thank you to Bhavana for all her organisation, and to our fantastic parent helpers.
Particular congratulations go to following children who will be representing us at the Interzone competiton, we wish them lots of luck:
Samara Rust - 2nd in Year 7 girls' 100m
Ella Hill - 3rd in Year 8 girls' 200m
Samara Rust, Amara Rowe, Isla Williams, Greta Pedaci - Year 7 girls' relay
Inquiry in Hub 2
The Sport theme continues in Hub 2, where their Inquiry has taken them through a whole series of questions about the role sport plays in society. This has led to some great pieces of artwork commemorating iconic sporting moments, invention of their own sports, writing information reports about sport, philosophy discussions about all manner of questions, lots of reading and some fabulous visual language work. It has also involved a trip to Eden Park, a talk from an educator at Sport Auckland, and most recently a visit from a psychotherapist teaching everyone skills such as bandaging ankles. As Malcolm talks about in his opening message to this newsletter, broadening the children's thoughts, in this case from 'just' sport to how we can think critically about the role sport plays in our lives, means a deeper understanding of how the world works.
Sports Leagues
Basketball 2024
We are excited to enter Balmoral School teams into the Central Schools Hoops League in 2024. This will be run on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s at Auckland Grammar Sports Centre in Term 1. We have been working behind the scenes in 2023 to find leagues for both our primary and intermediate students but for a number of reasons this has not been possible. This league is a great opportunity to support basketball at Balmoral.
We have entered a Balmoral School Year 5/6, Year 7 and Year 8 team. Sign up for the Term 1 league will be up on the school website before the end of the year and I will be sending further information out via email and the next school newsletter.
We will need parent managers and coaches for these teams so please contact me if you are interested in supporting our teams. I can liaise with you well before the season starts to ensure we get the leagues off to the best start. Email me on sport@balmoral.school.nz
Meredith Hughes
Sports League CoordinatorBalmoral School |Te kura o te Roto a Rangi
The School Tuckshop
Last Order for 2023: Friday 1st December (EOD) 2023.
First Order for 2024: Wednesday 14th February 2024.
The Village Square Trust
Our holiday programme dates are:
Wednesday 20th December - Half day from 12:30 pm
21st - 22nd December
8th January to 2nd February
(We will run an extra day at your school on Monday 5th February if there is enough demand.)
We have a number of options to choose from including:
- Clubhouse (onsite activities)
- Adventure Seekers (day trips)
- On The Move (day trips for older kids and smaller groups)
Summer Holiday Programme bookings are live and enrolments are now open and can be found here: Enrolmy | The Village Square - Programmes for Children
Community News
A great turnout this week. Apologies to those later in the evening who didn't get an A3 course 2 map - the A4 map flip made route choice that little bit more difficult. The weather forecast suggested some showers may come but they didn't and we had a lovely night. Thanks very much to Mervyn for his courses, he was set a challenge to create good ones with a substantial portion of the middle out of bounds. A new out of bounds appeared today just where we had a control but, fortunately, we could put the control sufficiently close that it should have been no problem to anyone. We hope no one was too disadvantaged by the police and ambulance in the middle of a leg in the Unitec campus.
One orienteer, who obviously was some way from home, using his phone, asked Google the best route to follow and it told him to first get off the motorway??? Our start and finish tonight were right above the Waterview tunnel and Google didn't know the the request come from on the surface rather than underground.
Next week we are out on the Ambury Regional Park (much more remote so no tunnels there). The event is again on a Wednesday (the 29th). It is a lovely place to have a picnic after you finish - the Park provides bbq's for your use. There is plenty of bird life to watch too. (However, those of us there when the controls were coming in tonight saw 2 hens out with their owner for their nightly walk.)
Tonights results are here