Week 2 NEWSLETTER

from the principal

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

I love old idioms and sayings…The sum is greater than its parts… and this week, this one has shown itself to be true with two different stories.

Story number one: This week the government announced some amazing results in Reading across the country, a transformational change. You can read the press release here, or an NZ Herald article here.

In Term 3, 43% of students were classed as exceeding expectations – more than double the Term 1 rate. “This is an incredible improvement in reading scores in less than half a year and reflects the brilliant work teachers are doing,” Stanford said.

The press conference, the headlines, the social media soundbites…they all spoke about ‘reading’ success…a significant increase due to the rollout of Structured Literacy. I’m not here to rain on the parade…but, the claims are a bit misleading. We have been on the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) structured literacy journey for over 4 years now in the juniors, and no doubt it has had a very positive impact…and the results mentioned by the government are as a result of countless hard working teachers and staff across the motu…but…the results are from the new Phonics Check tests. These tests only look at a child's ability to decode (sound out) words, and are in no way a reflection on their ability to read. Having great phonics knowledge (decoding ability) is an absolute must for literacy development…but it is a PART of the whole. Being awesome at Phonics doesn’t make you an awesome reader.

Another issue with the announcement is the tiny sample size…in Term 1 only 11% of schools were using the tests, and in Term 3 it had increased, but only to 25% of schools. So the vast majority of schools…75% of them…are not using these tests. Inside the data…the number of tests submitted to the Ministry is also tiny…in Term 1 for the 20 week Phonics Check, 1,371 tests were submitted, and in Term 3 it was 4,090. This is out of nearly 69,000 children in that age band…so just a fraction of schools are doing the tests, and only a small amount of children. AND…inside that…only 516 children did the 20 Week test in Term 1, and the 40 Week test in Term 3 (the same children, so measuring their growth). 516 children out of 69,000 children…not a great sample size.

DPS is one of the schools using the tests, and we have done so right from the start of the year. Below is a screenshot of our results from a termly Ministry phonics report…you can see that while at 20 Weeks we are just behind the national average, our 40 week results are well in advance. Great stuff (and it is well worth celebrating), but this doesn’t mean that all these children are excellent readers. It means they have great control of a very important part of reading, and it does show that our structured literacy mahi is working…but remember…The sum is greater than its parts.

This post from the Aotearoa Educators Collective is a good critique of the results, and the spin being put on them. To sum up the post…and my ramblings…The sum is greater than its parts. Reading is more than just phonics.

Story number two: On Tuesday we had two teams entered in the ePro8 Challenge…The EPro8 Challenge is the inter-school science and engineering competition. Last term we held an internal competition to select teams to enter the interschool event…so on Tuesday the ‘ePros’ and the ‘Connector Boys’ went to MIS and competed against a variety of schools. The challenges are pretty intense…involving building, measuring, connecting, electronics…as well as communication, problem solving and team work.

At DPS we teach our four Core Beliefs…Learner Agency, Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Creativity. These were all on full display in the challenge. We are also a Maker and Play-based learning school…daily our children get to be hands-on and minds-on…building, making and creating…and these skills were on display at the challenge. We are also a school that values academia…and spends quality time on science, has excellent maths programmes and strong literacy (including oral language) outcomes. These academic skills were on show during the challenge. We also have a team of teachers who teach digital skills, coding, robotics, electronics to the children each fortnight…all of these aspects were on display as well.

Any of the things mentioned above…in isolation they are great, fantastic even…but when they are brought together, and children are given the opportunity to tackle a problem and APPLY their skillset…great things can happen. The sum is greater than its parts…and this was on display at the challenge…it was like watching our vision words brought to life. The children worked together seamlessly…the challenges were super tough…and came away with great results. The Connector Boys missed out on a placing…but they reliably inform me that it was a part that was placed 1cm out of alignment that cost them some vital points that would have seen them come 2nd! But the ePro’s…they came 3rd and are off to the regional finals! Well done to you all…you really show that The sum is greater than its parts.

Phone and Internet Outage

On Monday and Tuesday next week our network/internet hardware is being upgraded around the school…it’s all a bit technical for me, but new switches, new access points and other such gizmo’s. This will cause a disruption…our school phones work via the internet, so across Monday and Tuesday there will be significant times where they do not work.

Our school cellphone will be fine though - 021 128 3607

Most whānau are using HERO well for absences…this will be important at the start of next week. Calling school might not be an option (unless you call our cell), but giving the absence reason via the HERO app will work fine.

Lockdown Drill

We held a lockdown drill on Monday…no doubt your children came home talking about it! While we hope an incident never occurs that would mean we have to do this for real, we practice so that if it does happen, we are prepared. Overall our systems worked well, and we were able to have instant/constant communication across the whole class even though we were all hidden away from each other. Small tweaks will be done, but another drill won’t be held until next year.

Dates for your Calendars

Friday 17th October: Grandparents Day. 11am - 12.30pm at school
Thursday 23rd October: Potential teacher strike, school closed
Monday 27th October: Labour Day, school closed
Tuesday 9th December: Final Celebration Time at Wairarapa College
Thursday 11th December: Last day of school, 12.30pm finish

what's happening at Douglas Park School

learning - Miss Gray's Homeclass

Room 14 have been working on lots of different learning this term. Here’s a few snippets from different learning areas.

What’s the chance?…. We are learning about Probability for Maths. One of our tasks asked us to think about what we would have for breakfast. We used a continuum to show what the chances were of us having certain foods.

We have been working hard in our BSLA/Phonics groups. We are getting really good at writing words and sentences quickly. There’s also lots of learning around prefixes and suffixes.

In Play Learning we have been writing invitations to our Grandparents for Grandparents Day and we have also been making and creating around stories and storytelling.

subway lunch available every friday - order online or at the school office

change of details

If you have recently moved house, had a change of phone number, or any other contact details of your child/children have changed, could you please let us know at the school office by calling in to see us, phoning us on (06) 370-0189, or sending an email to office@douglaspark.school.nz