Week 10 NEWSLETTER

from the principal

Our Vision: Together we Nurture, Explore and Create for a Better Future

Lovely article about the school, our friend Noa and the way we celebrated World Down Syndrome Day recently with our mismatched socks (I’ve attached it below). The kids and staff really got behind the day…and a little action like grabbing some different socks, it has a big impact. Megan’s homeclass put together this awesome video that was shared at Celebration Time…bit of a tearjerker if you know and love Noa like we do here!

It was a great reminder of what we want to develop here at DPS…Great Humans. Just like society, DPS has a massive range of people inside it…different cultures, different life experiences, different backgrounds, different wealth levels, different needs, different values, different expectations…and just like we want society to be, at DPS we teach our kids to actively accept and celebrate the differences around us. You may be different to me, but I can still celebrate how awesome you are, be kind to you and help you out if you need. I might be different from you but I appreciate it when you congratulate me, when you say something kind or when you see me struggling and offer to give me a hand.

Thanks for being you Noa, you make this place a little brighter each day…and thanks to our DPS Kids for being kind, caring, Great Humans.

Learning Conversations - Next Week

Just a reminder for next week…have you booked your child’s Learning Conversation yet? Super easy in HERO…just open the app (or the website) and click on the ‘School Bookings’ option. You’ll see you child’s teacher/s, and the times available…then just tap/click the time that suits your whānau…easy as!

Annual Implementation Plan

The school’s annual implementation plan has been submitted to the Ministry, and I’m sharing it with you here.

We have two major goals (over two years)...firstly working on implementing the new refreshed NZ Curriculum (Te Mātaiaho), and secondly developing a Culture of Creativity. Each of these two goals has some sub-goals to work on this year. You can see them below…but there are actions around teacher understanding of the new Maths curriculum, the Aotearoa/NZ Histories curriculum, sharing our children’s learning more often and working on our digital skills. These actions are further broken into minimums and maximums…what will we ensure happens this year, and what would be great if we can also get through. Each of these has a Leader attached, and also states who will be doing the mahi…eg. Megan and our Facilitator Gillian will lead the Maths mahi, with Rimu/Kōwhai completing the minimum, and Rātā/Kahikatea the maximum.

These goals don’t mean we stop other things…rather they just mean we are focused on these new bits of learning, new things that we want to bring into our school culture.

We also have some targets inside the Reading curriculum area. As above, this doesn’t mean we aren’t also working hard on progress/achievement in the other curriculum areas, it just means we have a particular set of children that we are measuring the impact of our teaching on inside Reading (we also track and dive deep into the data for writing and maths each term, next week the Leaders are released for a day of data analysis and planning, then the following day each teaching team is released for half a day to look at their data, progress and set goals for the following term).

Movin’ March Parade

Loved watching the Creativity in action last Thursday for our Movin’ March Parade! A real range on show…fancy feet, fancy socks, fancy wheels/bikes/scooters, fancy wheelchair and everything in between! Very wholesome little event with the school clapping and cheering on the paraders…with the school being extra noisy for Mrs Blue as she showed off her fancy socks in her own parade at the end. Tino pai to mahi DPS.

A nice follow on from what I wrote about Noa at the top of the newsletter, the biggest cheer of the day probably went to Lily…decorating her wheelchair, and dragging her beloved ‘Wally’ the tent behind her.

Futsal Tournament!

We had a heap of children off to the Futsal Tournament yesterday…a great way to brush up those football skills as the new season comes around! Tessa, one of our awesome parent helpers, shared these stats about the Year 4 team…they won 4 games, drew 1 and lost 1. Scored 39 goals, only 13 scored against them…amazing effort guys!

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