|
COL CONNECTIONS
Kia Ora and Welcome to the second e-dition that aims to connect our CoL.
This quarterly publication is sent to all schools each term and is disseminated to Boards of Trustees, staff, parents, whānau, and student communities in order to communicate the work of the Morrinsville Kāhui Ako - Community of Learning. I hope that you find this report informative and interesting.
|
|
|
INTRODUCING VICKY MARSHALL
Vicky Marshall is no stranger in Morrinsville. Born in the community, her family moved away when she was young but, on their return, she grew up in Paeroa where she completed her schooling before going to Waikato University to begin her tertiary studies.
Vicky has a wealth of knowledge, particularly in the Intermediate School sector, having worked as a teacher and leader at Tauranga Intermediate, Gisborne Intermediate and Morrinsville Intermediate Schools. She was the previous Deputy Principal of Morrinsville Intermediate School and now works as a team leader at David Street School in the middle school.
Vicky successfully completed her Masters in Educational Leadership degree last year with First Class Honours. She is passionate about culturally responsive pedagogy and leadership. She is especially excited to be working as our Across-School Leader in our Kāhui Ako alongside leaders, teachers and students to make a difference for our community and is looking forward to meeting everyone in her new role. Vicky can be contacted via email: vickym@davidst.school.nz
|
|
|
HAERE MAI - WELCOME!
We are delighted to share news from around our MKA-CoL with you.
Big congratulations to Brent Harper who has been appointed as the new Principal of Whitikahu School. Brent was the previous Deputy Principal at Whitikahu and we are looking forward to working with him in this new capacity.
We want to also welcome back Bill James to Kiwitahi School, who is in a part-time capacity as one of the Acting Principals, together with Karen McAskie. It has been a pleasure to work with both Bill and Karen and I wish them well until the arrival of the new Principal of Kiwitahi School in Term 4.
Andrea Colebourn, Principal of St Joseph's Catholic School in Morrinsville, is currently on maternity leave with her beautiful new baby girl. In her absence, Julie Bennett and Simone Campbell will be sharing the Acting Principal role.
At Morrinsville College, John Inger is on leave and will return early in Term 3 so Scott Jenkins is currently Acting Principal.
I am also delighted to formally welcome two new ECEs, Learning Curves Early Childhood Education Centre and BestStart Morrinsville (formerly ABC Morrinsville) into our Kāhui Ako. This bring the total number of organisations in our MKA-CoL to 18.
|
|
MKA-COL STAFF LEARNING
The first whole MKA-CoL Staff Meeting was held this term at Morrinsville College on 27 June 2019.
Earlier this year, the leadership of the MKA-CoL aligned five staff meetings across all schools in the Kāhui Ako so that we could come together to discuss our work in the MKA-CoL and the priorities for achievement. We reviewed our updated Achievement Challenge document and discussed expectations around the high level plans, explained the role of the Across-School Leaders and advertised the last vacancy for this position.
Kirsty Gilroy, the Across-School Leader from the HIllcrest Kāhui Ako presented to the team and offered her perspective of how the role has unfolded for her so that teachers would have a better understanding of it. Vance Symon finished the session with an enjoyable pub quiz linked to our COL objectives and vision. Tabitha Leonard, our external consultant working across several of our school to deliver professional learning, donated 10 of her latest books for staff. Our next meeting will be held in Term 3 Week 5.
|
|
COMMUNICATION PARTNER
It has been a pleasure to work with Jen Church from Chard Consulting Ltd. who was appointed as our Communications and Engagement partner. Jen is supporting our Kāhui Ako with communication and engagement planning, and working with us to gain a better understanding of the context and needs for communication within our Kāhui Ako. Our aim is to function effectively as we implement a new phase of this initiative. Flying up from Wellington twice thus far, Jen has held meetings with several members of the MKA-CoL, including the Principals and Leadership and our Across-School and Within-School Leaders to determine our needs and gaps. She has already suggested some very effective and practical ways to move forward, produced some helpful resources for us to consider, and is currently working on developing an Engagement Framework for us that will shape and guide the work that we are involved in. You can find out more about the work Jen does here.
|
|
PARTNERING WITH SPONSORS
Morrinsville Community House generously sponsored $3000 towards the Nathan Wallis Parent Evening and has proven to be a valuable partner with the MKA-CoL. With the money we were able to purchase 88 tickets that were distributed to families across our MKA-CoL schools and Morrinsville School so we are very grateful for this. Please support Morrinsville Community House and if you would like to know more about their services, you can visit their website here.
Nathan Wallis also very kindly donated 30 tickets to our MKA-CoL which was distributed to all our MKA-Schools and Early Childhood Centres. Thank you to him. You can see more information on Nathan Wallis here.
Sandie Haddock, who is the Scholastic Territory Manager for the Waikato and Bay of Plenty area, has been a terrific sponsor of the MKA-CoL. Her role includes visiting schools and Early Childhood Centres, supporting them with their book club, book fairs and supplying premium education products. Most of all Sandie wants to promote the love of reading! We want to thank Sandie and Scholastic for generously sponsoring three book packs for each education sector - Early Childhood, Primary/Intermediate and Secondary - valued between $120-140 for each pack. The prizes were drawn by Nathan Wallis and three lucky teachers were made very happy. Sandie also donated 8 book spot prizes ranging between $15-$30 per book for our parents who attended the evening session with Nathan Wallis. Thank you very much for your generosity and support. Contact Sandie via email at shaddock@scholastic.co.nz
|
|
|
NATHAN WALLIS
On 1 July Nathan Wallace, a Neuroscience Educator, delivered professional learning to our MKA-CoL staff reflecting the latest neuroscience discoveries and their practical implications for everyday practice.
|
|
|
Nathan Wallis, Neuroscience educator and child development expert, came to Morrinsville to talk to both teachers and parents at the invitation of the MKA-CoL. He is an outstanding presenter, full of humour and inspiration, and can talk on the stages of neuro-sequential brain development that occur through childhood and adolescence in an informative yet easily accessible way. He provided a witty narrative on how our day-to-day interactions with children and young people plays a critical role in defining later outcomes for our children and their future.
We were delighted that Nathan agreed to hold a Parent Evening for the community and it was a sold out event to 350 people. The whānau and families that attended raved about what an engaging speaker Nathan was and how easy it was to understand the strategies he suggested to respond and engage with children across all ages. If you missed Nathan, you can watch him here talk about brain development in babies. |
|
|
MATAMATA COL DAY
It was a pleasure to be invited by Alan Munro, Principal of Matamata College and COL Leader of Matamata Kāhui Ako, to attend a professional learning day with their team. Four of our team attended including Rochelle Johns (Morrinsville College), Carol Thomas (Orini School), Vicky Marshall (David Street School) and myself attended a Pōwhiri at the Tangata Marae on Douglas Road and heard the Education Plan of the Ruakawa Education Trust. We then attended professional learning sessions held at Matamata College on topics that included "Learning through Play" and "Cultural responsiveness and change through literacy" amongst others. We have been invited to engage with other learning opportunities with Matamata Kāhui Ako next term and we will be sending more teachers to these opportunities.
|
|
|
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
There are some terrific opportunities for our MKA-CoL staff to engage in professional learning with University of Auckland - Centre for Educational Leadership through the Open to Learning [OTL] workshops and The MindLab for teacher training in digital and collaborative learning.
For any information regarding these courses, details have been sent to all Principals. Please consider enrolling for these courses as costs are minimal and most are free.
|
|
|
|
IN CONCLUSION
Term 2 has been exhilarating in pace and accomplishment - I am thrilled that our momentum is picking up. We spent a significant amount of time developing our relational trust since our inception, and with good reason and excellent outcomes. I know that we can comfortably connect with staff and leaders from across our schools as we have never been able to do so in the past, and this is probably the most significant change so far. Our teachers and staff at all our schools and ECEs are excited by the possibilities of furthering their networks and our next step is to ensure purposeful and engaging collaboration to develop and empower our learning. The potential to accomplish wonderful things is there to take.
If you have any queries, thoughts, or ideas on how we can forge strong partnerships to empower learning for all, please get in touch. Best wishes for a happy and restful Term 2 School holidays.
Best Regards, Ngā Mihi
Thilo Govender | MKA-CoL Leader
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
