Student Hosts

Wonderful feedback from our visitors today – they were extremely impressed with your classes and the children – once again how the children could explain themselves was highlighted. Well done. 

College Street Normal Visit

As a cluster we had visit from the Principal and Deputy Principal from College Street Normal School in Palmerston North. They shared with us their schools journey and how they use Costas Habits of Mind and David Hyerles Thinking Maps to enhance teaching and learning.

The success they had experienced with the Thinking Maps reinforced our intention to embed the Hott Maps into our teaching programs.  

Inquiry Scaffold System

At a brainstorming meeting teachers pooled ideas for templates to be included in a drop down menu to be developed for student use.  It is envisaged that children undertaking pure inquiries will be able to access the menu for templates and examples to assist them.  Stages will include definitions such as, "What is an essential/subsidiary question?"  Templates and examples of graphic organizers will be accessible for children to copy.  Information literacy's will feature in the scaffold e.g. What are key words?  Templates for interviews, faxes etc. will be made available.

Children will be able to access and copy a web log to help track their discovering and processing stages.  The assessment matrices will be available for student self assessment.

It is intended that students' knowledge and understanding of the inquiry process will deepen with the  support the scaffold system will provide.