I was recently invited to speak at Write 26, a global conference led by Writers’ Toolbox. It was a real privilege to be asked to share Tawhiti School’s writing journey and speak to other educators on how to successfully implement this change across a school.

The conference included visits to three Australian schools, where I was able to see Writers’ Toolbox in action and hear about their implementation journeys. It was affirming to see the progress we have made at Tawhiti, while also prompting plenty of reflection about where we can keep strengthening our own practice. We saw firsthand how powerful this tool is for student success when introduced in the Primary School and then continued into the High Schools. We are hopeful that this will be the case in the future in Hawera.

The networking was also incredibly valuable, with schools represented from Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, the USA and the UK. It was also a nice surprise to connect with a few people who already knew of Tawhiti School through visits outside of the writing space.

At the gala dinner, I was surprised and humbled to receive an award on behalf of Tawhiti School and our incredible leaders and teachers. Writers’ Toolbox is now operating in over 700 schools, across ten countries and seven curriculum systems, so for Tawhiti to be one of seven schools recognised is something we can all be proud of.

Some snippets of things they said about our school:

• This school is a masterclass in what happens when vision meets dedication.
• This school has transformed their approach to literacy.
• They have lived by a single, powerful mandate: leave no one behind.
• With a definitive ‘writing map’ in place, they have ensured that the inspiration and excellence we see today will remain the school’s North Star for years to come.

Writers’ Toolbox is an amazing tool for student writing. One of the best things you can do at home is encourage your child to log in, continue their learning journey, and complete the daily challenge. Explore it with them — you may even learn a thing or two about sentence styles yourself.

One of our strategic goals is improving reading fluency. Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, at a conversational pace, and with appropriate expression. Fluency is important at all ages, especially our senior children. 

It is important to remember that fluency is not just reading fast. A child may be able to read quickly but still not read fluently. Fluency is when reading shifts from sounding out individual words to understanding the story as a whole. When a child reads fluently, they are no longer using all their brain power to decode each word, which frees up their mind to enjoy and understand what they are reading.

There are simple ways you can support fluency at home:

Model fluent reading: Let your child hear what fluent reading sounds like. Read aloud to them often, using expression, pausing at full stops, and changing your voice for different characters.

Read together: Try echo reading, where you read a sentence and your child repeats it back, or choral reading, where you read aloud together. This gives your child support with tricky words while keeping the flow of the story going.

Re-read familiar books: Encourage your child to read favourite books more than once. Each re-read builds confidence, speed and rhythm.

A helpful tip: if your child gets stuck on a word, give them about five seconds to try, then simply tell them the word and keep going. Keeping the flow and the feel of the story positive is one of the best ways to build both fluency and a love of reading.

As part of keeping our school safe we need to be able to respond safely and quickly to a range of emergency situations. We are going to be working alongside an independent company, Harrison Tew® Ltd, who specialises in
emergency management planning for schools, whose procedures have been successfully implemented in hundreds of schools throughout New Zealand.

As part of maintaining our emergency procedures in our school, specialised training is being conducted with our senior leadership and staff by Harrison Tew® Ltd. The students will also receive information on how to respond in an emergency directed at their respective age groups from either their teacher or Harrison Tew® Ltd.

After our training, we will be conducting a lockdown exercise (next Friday) under the guidance and support of Harrison Tew® Ltd. During the exercise you will receive a notification from the school, so it is important that your emergency contact details are up to date and correct. The notification will emphasise that this is an exercise/practice and will explain that all updated information will then be posted on the school website.

In a genuine incident, should you become aware of a lockdown or evacuation at the school, can I please ask that you do not attend the school or phone, as we will not be able to respond.  Your presence or contact may make it more difficult for us or the emergency services to manage a situation.

We thank you for your support.

We have had a fantastic run of sporting success recently and there is a lot to celebrate.

In Term 1, our students were Spragg Banner winners, our Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 Rippa teams were champions, and our Graeme West team went through undefeated before taking out the trophy.

We definitely have a competitive streak in our blood here at Tawhiti. But while it is always great to win, sport is about so much more. It is a powerful opportunity for our tamariki to learn and practise our school values. Sport gives students the chance to show sportsmanship, play hard but play by the rules, respect referees, win with humility, lose with dignity, and commit to their team by attending trainings and communicating with coaches when they cannot be there. Let's keep our kids active and learning while they are at it! 

A reminder that interschool sport is on this week at St Joseph’s School, as per the communication sent by Ash on HERO.

Pink Shirt Day

This Friday is Pink Shirt Day. This is a national day focused on standing against bullying and promoting kindness, inclusion and respect — values that are very important to us here at Tawhiti.

Students are encouraged to wear pink this Friday. No donation is needed; just spread the word and support the kaupapa.

Totara’s pizza lunch is also happening on this day, so please support them if you can. Orders will be taken from the hall in the morning. 

Winter Uniform

As the weather cools down, this is a timely reminder about winter uniform expectations. Children are very welcome to bring jackets and beanies to school, but the rest of their clothing should be full Tawhiti School uniform. This includes the correct Tawhiti pants and jerseys.

You can find the full uniform description on our school website if you need to check any details.

Fundraising and Camp Support

A huge thank you to everyone who supported our recent school disco. It was a great event and raised $1600.

While this is a fantastic result, when shared across classes it works out to around $150 per class towards camp costs. This is helpful, but we still need strong support from whānau if we want to meaningfully reduce the cost of camp.

Please, please, please support the cookie and croissant fundraiser, which is due back on Friday 22 May. We have one more halloween disco and one pizza lunch fundraiser per class still planned. These events make a real difference, but only if we all get behind them. Camp locations, dates and costs will be coming your way in the next few weeks.