Update 8

Kia ora whānau,

Following our recent Community survey, the perception is that we don’t do home learning at Stonefields School. To clarify, we value home learning that is tailored and targeted specifically to meet each child’s individual needs and next learning steps. We don’t do the whole class homework sheets like most of us experienced when we went to school. Research shows home learning like this, can do more harm than good, tends to become a battle and compete with family time and is of little value. However, research does show home learning that is individualised and specific to each learner's next steps can have a positive impact.

We like to focus home learning on reading mileage, recalling basic facts and timetables and practising high frequency sight words and spelling. We also value the other rich learning opportunities that learners engage in after school such learning to play a musical instrument, sport practice or pursuing a passion such as photography, singing, cooking or coding.

We encourage learners to pursue their specific next steps (highlighted in yellow) in Schooltalk. One of the goals of Schooltalk is to provide you and your child with information about their next steps and curate resources to support the continuation of learning at home, if that is what a family chooses to do.

Your child’s progress and achievement at school is a partnership and joint responsibility. It is our job to work with you to share how your child is progressing and whether there are specific areas that could be further reinforced at home. Feedback we received during lockdown suggested that the information in Schooltalk is sometimes difficult to find and that access to a few key resources would be useful. To help resolve this, we are working on identifying the most valuable, free resources that support reading mileage, spelling and basic facts learning. The “Taking Action Blog” created during lockdown is being changed into a home learning resource site which will help collate these resources.

In the meantime ...

If you have children in the junior school we encourage you to:

• Read to and with your child each night;
• Practice saying, writing and reading high frequency words
• Visit the local library and get a range of books out or visit a virtual library - EPIC
• Use a pack of cards to recall numbers, add numbers, double the number shown

If you have children in the senior school we encourage you to:

• Read every night - a novel, visit a virtual library - connected series, school journals, EPIC
• Practice timetables using Mohio or Basic Facts site
• Use Education Perfect to further maths, literacy and other curriculum area knowledge (Free until the end of the year)
• Schooltalk next steps, review learning set through Schooltalk (highlighted in yellow) and further learning that is focused on your child’s next steps.

Smart Watches and Cell Phones

We understand and appreciate that getting in contact with your child after school is important for some of our families.

Whilst your children are at school they are in our care. We take this responsibility seriously and if there is a concern we encourage learners and parents to raise their concerns following our procedure. Following lockdown we have had an increase in learners contacting parents via email or other communication devices and the school has not been made aware of the concern. This has resulted in unnecessary anxiety for all involved.

The school's expectations and procedure is as follows:

• If a child needs to bring a cellphone or Smart watch to school the hub teachers need to understand why it is required - e.g. walking home alone, medical reasons, using public transport to and from School.
• The device will be kept in a secure place during the school day and collected at the end of the day
• If learners are emailing parents it is for a learning reason e.g. sharing a piece of writing.

We want to reiterate that if you have any concerns please don’t wait, we want to hear from you and work with you to resolve any issues.

Mid Year Reporting

We thoroughly enjoyed learning from you at the Family Led Conversations. It was invaluable to hear your insights, what went well and what the challenges were. We also feel that relationships with parents have improved during and following lockdown. We want to keep this up. 30% of parents opted for virtual connects 70% face to face. We are thinking through how we could continue this each term to ensure that there is more regular ongoing communication about your child’s progress, achievement and general wellbeing.

In previous communications we shared that we would not be providing a written mid-year report due to lockdown. We are however providing parents with a verbal update on their child’s progress and achievement at the Learning Celebration on Thursday, 6th August.

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe holiday.

Ngā mihi,

Sarah and the Stonefields School Team

Distance Learning Survey Results

On return to school, learners and whānau were surveyed to give their opinions on a range of topics related to their Distance Learning experiences.

The end goal was to better understand what worked and didn’t work and what good Distance Learning design and strategy looked like.

Click here for more information and summary of the Community Survey responses.

Sport

We are really looking forward to returning to sport next Term. You will find information about upcoming opportunities for Term 3 on our Sports Website here.

We love drawing on the strengths and passions of our community. If you would like to be involved with Sports next term please complete the sports volunteer form here.

Health and Safety

A friendly reminder to please keep your dog/s on a leash at all times when on school property and we ask that you do not wait too close to the hub entrances, particularly the junior hubs. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.