A beautiful blessing of Marist Catholic School, Herne Bay's school prayer garden was officially opened at the end of Term 3. A true community effort of some of our dads doing the carpentry and whānau doing planting, with all our students and staff painting a person, which decorated the sacred space. 

This is now a place for reflection, meditation, prayer and quiet where our community can come and be closer to God.

St Dominic's Primary Blockhouse Bay held an Art Expo / cultural food extravaganza earlier this term. 

Art was displayed in the school hall, featuring a piece by every child as well as all the teachers. The theme of the art was LIGHT based on our school theme for the year: Be Christ's Light.
Performances by the Indian dance group, Pacific dance group and the Kapa Haka group alongside individual students sharing their talents like dancing, singing and musical instruments. Cultural food was available to purchase with chop suey, curry, dumplings and more on offer!

It was an amazing event that celebrated the diversity of our school, raising funds and bringing joy to all.

On Saturday 4th November Marist School, Mt Albert was invited to be part of the inaugural Irish Club Community Open Day. The Lord turned on the sunshine and many members of our Marist whānau and extended community gathered to share kai, dance, song and friendship.

Our Kapa Haka & Pacifika children proudly performed in front of a packed, passionate, enthusiastic gathering. We are all very proud of the hard mahi that was put in by our tamariki & their teachers.

It has been a pleasure to be appointed the role of Academic Dean for Year 12 at Marist College this year. To have a role that is designed to provide support through the challenges of learning is an asset to the students, school and community. To be able to connect, work with and see students succeed has been the highlight of 2023.
Ellie Going, Within School Leader, Year 12 Academic Dean, Marist College

This year my focus as WSL was to take on the role of academic dean for Year 11. Because the role is new to Marist, I spent the beginning of the year working out how I could best help the students with their transition into NCEA. I predicted that a major part of the job would be tracking their results. However, as the year went on, I took on other tasks such as helping with study skills, guiding them through navigating the paperwork of NCEA and giving advice
on subject choices. It has been a rewarding and varied experience.
Danielle Dakanay, Within School Leader, Year 11 Academic Dean, Marist College

My role this year has taught me a lot about the systems within our school community, not just the daily classroom routine. There’s been invaluable learning and seeing more of the bigger picture.
Sophia Schon, Within School Leader, Administration and School Systems, Marist College


Leadership Programme at Saint Paul’s College

The leaders at Saint Paul’s College have been growing more and more over the past few years. They have been given additional responsibilities and authority to help lead the College. It has seen substantial enhancement in the connection between the student leaders and their college. This has benefited the leaders as they have grown to increased maturity with greater respect and responsibility. Additionally, the College has done well out of these young men assisting regularly in all areas when asked and not asked, seeing a need and helping.

Brett McMurdoch, Dean Years 11, 12 & 13

Professional Learning Group: Inclusive Learning Communities

“Kei tēnā, kei tēnā, kei tēnā ano. Tōnā ake ahua, Tōnā ake mauri, Tōnā ake mana. Each and everyone has their own uniqueness, life essence and presence.”

 

As today’s classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, teachers are encountering students, including neurodivergent students, with unique learning profiles and needs. Meeting the learning needs of these students is a daily challenge. This PLG sought to address this issue by providing the space and opportunity for teachers to critically reflect on, share and build their kete of pedagogical knowledge and skills to better meet the wide variety of learning needs presented by their students.

 

Underpinning this PLG is the belief that an inclusive teaching and learning mindset and approach is essential for ALL students to achieve learning growth, and flourish in mainstream classrooms.

 

Key concepts unpacked in this PLG included: inclusion/equity and diversity/universal design for learning (UDL)/neurodiversity/neurodivergent vs neurotypical learners/ UDL Thinking Cycle, UDL in assessments, student voice etc. Over the eight PLG sessions, group members became increasingly confident to apply strategies learnt and critically reflect on how inclusive their practice was developing in the classroom. 

  

Overall, the PLG was seen as highly useful for professional practice by the members (average usefulness rating on 4.8 out of 5). Teachers reported an 80% increase on average in their understanding and knowledge of the UDL framework because of participating in this PLG.

Comments from the group included:

“I was able to put learnings into place straight away - multiple ways for students to access resources, captions on videos. I believe this has made a positive impact on my learners, increasing ability to participate in class activities....”

“I have applied some strategies - breaking down homework tasks into smaller chunks and clearly outlining the A M E skills for a Unit. Students have provided positive feedback. Students who aim for an A have a clearer idea on how they can achieve it.”

“I apply an inclusive lens to the programmes of work I create and also to my leadership. This means things like: thinking about the individual students I am working with and allowing them choice in what they learn, how they learn and what assessment looks like.”

“Sharing info with colleagues. Understanding that a lot of the students who do Art subjects are neurodiverse.”

A future challenge for the group is working with their colleagues to influence the culture of their departments so that the learning needs and aspirations of diverse learners are explicitly addressed in the refreshed L1 curriculum planning and and teaching, to ensure that ALL our L1 students, particularly our diverse learners, can thrive and flourish at St Mary’s College.

Kia Mana!

Lorraine Evening

WSL 2023

Head of Learning Support/Teacher of Physics

A special invitation is extended to our kāhui ako staff and school families who would be interested in embarking on our second service trip back to Samoa in 2025.