Room 9’s Blog has made the finals of the Interface Magazine Best Class Blog awards!! Clemency Wright is a stunning teacher and has a wonderful classroom. Her blog began as a tentative toe dipped in the water and has grown over the past couple of years into a central part of her classroom and classroom programme. In the usual way with people who do fabulous things she simply sees it as normal, nothing special, and rather mundane. It is none of these things! It is a wonderful example of the way Web2.0 technologies can break down the barriers between home and school, make the classroom programme ‘transparent’ and bring families into the school in so many different ways. Please take a look at the website and vote for her class blog. (you do have to be a NZ teacher, or employed in a school to vote though) She thoroughly deserves the accolades!

Room 9 really SHINES!!!!!

An interesting note too – 3 of the 10 finalists in the Awards are classrooms and teachers from Dunedin. Two are from our ICT PD Cluster. How good are we!

We have re-worked the Values we used to focus on and now call them CHALLENGES.  This reflects the fact that they are a challenge to do well, to achieve, and to keep achieving.

We focus on a different Challenge every 5 weeks and they are also reported in reports:

Original and Independent Thinker:
* Will generally look beyond the obvious
* Responds in a way that appropriately challenges their own and others thinking
* Create new ideas and thoughts and can justify their opinion

Accepting risks and taking challenges:
* Manages physical risks and takes appropriate actions
* Is willing to try something new
* Be able to recognise what is personally challenging and persevere to achieve
* Knows their limits but pushes beyond them towards personal excellence

Perseverance and Dedication:
* Is able to persevere on a task through to completion.
* Is able to keep on task when an activity is challenging.
* Takes pride in the presentation and quality of their work.

Cooperation and Team work:
* Works actively with confidence in group situations
* Co-operates with others and respects varying opinions
* Accepts different roles within a group

Respecting and appreciating ourselves and Others:
* Encourages and supports the efforts of others.
* Is able to win and lose graciously.
* Listens and speaks with courtesy.
* Displays empathy towards others.

Original and Independent Thinker:
* Will generally look beyond the obvious
* Responds in a way that appropriately challenges their own and others thinking
* Create new ideas and thoughts and can justify their opinion

Curiosity and Wonderment:
* Asks questions and actively seeks the answers
* Shows awe and gets excited about new things and learning
* Eager to share discoveries and amazing things

Accepting risks and taking challenges:
* Managing physical risks and takes appropriate actions
* Is willing to try something new
* Be able to recognise what is personally challenging and persevere to achieve
* Knows their limits but pushes beyond them towards personal excellence**

Accuracy and excellence
* Identifies, set and monitor appropriate personal goals.
* Gives their personal best in all areas of the curriculum.
* Achieves a high standard when presenting work.
* Extends their own areas of strength.

Contributing to the Life of the School:
* Takes on (seeks?) responsibility and leadership within the school willingly
* Takes the ‘challenges’ and puts them into practice
* Looks after the school and its property, people and systems
* Is a good ambassador for our school

So each bold heading is the Challenge and the list below are the things we are looking for to exemplify each one.

Our children recently participated in the Otago Regional Science Fair:

Otago Regional Science Fair 2009- Scholarship Winners
Of the 7 projects entered from Outram School 5 have won scholarships.

Department of Computer Science, University of Otago Award
Max Newall/Daniel Gruppelaar- Computer Health

Children’s & Young People’s Research Cluster, University of Otago Award
David Darby/Cameron McLennan- Does Time Fly

School of Dentistry, University of Otago Award
Aleisha Adam / Nicola Lord Acid Attack

Otago Regional Council Award
Joseph Meehan / James McLennan Taieri River Water

Highly commended
Ayden McArthur Toilet time

Congratulations to all the groups who participated!!

School interviews have been this week and we had a fantastic turnout. We had 197 children with interviews booked out of 120 at our school. If we take away the parents who contacted us to arrange a time other than this week then we have almost a complete turnout of families! The feedback on the electronic booking system has been positive as well.  It is great to catch up with everyone and to be able to share all the wonderful learning that has been going on so far this year.
A big thank you as well to all those families who support their children and their learning so well. We can only do our bit at school and learning is so much better for the children when they know families support them and are keen for them to succeed as well.

We are always looking to make things better in our school. We are looking for feedback from families about the Portfiles that you looked at as part of the parent interviews and the whole process you have been engaged in. Please take the time to complete the 4 questions below. Responses back to school by the end of next week please or feel free to email me at gregc@outram.school.nz

1. Do you feel confident you know how well your child is achieving?

2. What would you like to know and understand more about?

3. What would help with this?

4. What could there be less of?

We aim at Outram School to have children who leave our school knowing themselves well as learners and knowing how to be successful in the school system and beyond. We also do all we can to encourage them to become pleasant, polite, well-mannered young adults. Good manners and courtesy will always take them a LONG way.

Please do take the opportunity to provide feedback on the Portfiles!!

Room 7 has been learning all about poetry this term.  The children have been reading poems and then the movies of them are on their class wiki.  Have a look HERE.

They have done a really great job!  If you click on the discussion tab you can leave the children a comment.

If you go HERE you can hear the children reading for us to listen to as well.

Well done Room 7!

Hugh has been working on his Science Badge activities over the holidays.  Hugh has taken up a strong technology based challenge around the topic of Toys. Hugh has built a fantastic lighthouse with a flashing light.  Hugh was able to give an excellent explanation about how a circuit works.  Hugh also built a toy boat that runs on a rubber band.  This creation led to Hugh having an understanding of Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion – every action has an equal an opposite reaction!!!

He is able to explain how it all works and they are on display in the foyer along with the book he has produced explaining the work and especially the THINKING he has done to make it all work.
Jacob W knows all about meteorology.  He built a wind vane and used it to record wind direction.  Jacob can now identify cloud types and use that knowledge to help him predict the weather.  He is also able to describe wind using the Beaufort Wind Strength scale.

Great work Hugh and Jacob, your brains must have been on fire!!

Mrs Hunter has been discussing with a group of chidlren today the Science Badges that they can earn by doing series of tasks related to different areas of science.

On the same day Nicholas McA emailed in a photo of the first task he has done -  “I designed and created a bridge that can hold over 1kg of butter”

As you can see he is thinking like a scientist already as he has included a ruler to show the scale and that he has followed the instructions to the letter.

A big WELL DONE Nicholas!!

Amber, Macy, Mitchell, Trey and Tessa all got Principals Awards today for getting 5 weeks of 5 out of 5 for their spelling. Well done Team!

On Tuesday we had a great day with Tony Ryan the australian educator.  I have worked with Tony a number of times in the past and have a huge amount of respect for his ability to gently challenge and push along people in their thinking about learning and teaching.  He is the develoer of the Thinkers Keys that we use  in many parts of our programmes.

There was been a lot of discussion on the day (and since) about the things we can incorporate and include in programmes as a direct outcome of the day.  A number of things happened on Wednesday – a real testament to the quality of the day I believe.

We looked at the Key Competencies from the new Curriculum, thinking programmes and ideas, and how we can be even more effective in promoting learning in our classsrooms.

Teachers Only Days are powerful learning opportunities and the day with Tony Ryan was a great success for us.

Have a look at this video if you would like more ideas about helping your child to learn to swim – especially beginners. It gives the progression we follow:

One difference though is that we teach children to breathe every third stroke so they are breating on both sides.