Teina
A warm welcome to all the students and their families that are joining us this year in the Teina Whānau. We are so lucky in the middle school to have such a passionate team of teachers and wonderful students to work with.
This year our teachers are implementing a structured literacy approach, which is a highly explicit and systematic way of teaching all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (e.g., decoding, spelling, handwriting and letter formation) and higher-level literacy skills (e.g., reading comprehension, written expression).
We look forward to working in partnership with our Teina families and ensuring our students have a wonderful year of learning ahead.
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The Teina Team
Antica Hill
Jade Gaskell
Jacki Harrison
Eve Kilvington
Stephanie Williams
Sarah Bunting
Hayley Brass
Rachel Lamason
Julia Bell
Zelda Neilsen
The Teina Whānau Teachers
Being in the Teina whānau is all about beginning to live and breathe our school values in everything that we do.
The Purapura teachers do such a fabulous job in setting our children up with a strong foundation and positive attitude towards school and learning.
In the Teina Whānau we build on this foundation empowering our students to take ownership over their learning, enabling them to recognise their success and identify their next learning steps.
We set high expectations for our students both in and outside the classroom and love to share the students' success with their families .
TERM 1
What's happening in term 1?
We have spent time this term getting to know each other and coming up with class norms and expectations. It is so great to see our new Year 4's stepping up as role models to our new Year 3 children.
We have enjoyed starting up our team sport every Thursday afternoon, where the children move around a rotation in their house teams each week and learn new sports and games.
We have been learning about what it means to be healthy on the inside and the outside, and how to build good friendships and look after ourselves in the community. In Teina, we like to integrate the curriculum where we can to help embed the learning. Our reading, writing and maths programmes are up and running and the children are well on their way to becoming more autonomous learners.
In weeks 9 and 10 we are looking forward to our swimming lessons at Northern Arena. The children will travel by bus each day over the week and take part in a lesson to help them learn to swim. What lucky kids!
Term 1 is shaping up to be an awesome term for our tamariki.
TERM 2
Term 2 is set to be a very exciting term for the Teina Whanau. We are going to be learning about the Living World and how to classify animals by their features as well as learning about different kinds of NZ habitats.
Our maths focus this term is measurement, where we will be learning how to tell the time, how to use a ruler, and measure with standard and non standard units. This learning will be alongside our usual number knowledge such as addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. We are lucky enough to have some incredible new Numicon maths resources to help supplement this learning.
This term our Year 4 students will be attending a 3 day camp at Camp Merc in Long Bay. This is an incredible opportunity for growth for our tamariki, where they are gently pushed outside their comfort zones to do kayaking, archery, climbing walls, lighting fires, and staying afloat. These camps will take place in week 3 and week 10 this term. Our Year 3’s will also be offered a camp which takes place in term 4 this year.
TERM 3
Term 3 is our term to investigate the culture in the team. We are starting with an international cultural day where students can dress in their traditional outfits and bring food to share that they eat at home as a tradition meal.
Each class will then study a culture within their room and experience the Arts related to that culture. Through Dance, Visual Art, Music and Drama they will have an experience and learn about other cultures.
The terms work will culminate in a performance showcase at Whangaparaoa college, where the students will get the chance to share all their learning.
TERM 4
Term 4 is an opportunity for the Teina Whanau to investigate roles and responsibilities through a technology focus.
The students will follow the design process to consider robots and how these have a role in our lives.
The mathematical links for measurement and shape will be used to explore these areas of Math during the design process and we can't wait to see what gets planned, designed and made this term.