Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens - Rimutaka Kindergarten Association

Kōrero
I s su e
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Weekly Newsletter
Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens
18 February 2016
Formerly Wellington and Rimutaka Kindergarten Assn
Hello - Kia Ora - Talofa lava Kia Orana - Fakaalofa lahi atu Malo e lelei - Malo ni - Talofa Ni Sa Bula Vinaka - Ming la ba Hola - la Orana - Halo ola keta Mauri - Sabaidee - Namaste
In this issue:

K a p a Ha k a D a t e s

F or m s h o w i n g Q u a l i fi c a ti o n s

F r e e E - L e a r n i n g M a or i L a n g u a g e
App
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K e e p i n g y ou r K i n d e r g a r t e n s V i si ble

Property Planning
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O w n i n g y o u r o w n h o m e w or k s h o p
MAORI WORD OF THE WEEK
Te Kupu o te Wiki:
kāinga: house, home
Sample sentence:
Kei te kāinga au
I’m at home
Tuesday,
23 Hui-tanguru
6.15 - 7.45
Sustainability Cluster
Whitby Educare
Wednesday,
24 Hui-tanguru
3.30 - 5.00
HT/Primary (UPLC)
Pinehaven School
Saturday,
27 Hui-tanguru
9.30 - 1.00
Seminar for Provisionally
Certificated Teachers
Nuanua Kindergarten,
5A Warspite Ave, Porirua
Monday, 29 Hui-tanguru 3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Porirua City)
Assn Offices
Tuesday, 1 Poutū-terangi
3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Wgtn City North)
Khandallah Kgtn
Wednesday, 2 Poutū-terangi
3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Kapiti and Horowhenua)
Parsons Ave Kgtn
Thursday, 3 Poutū-terangi
3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Wgtn City, South and East)
Lyall Bay Kgtn
Monday, 7 Poutū-terangi
3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Upper and Lower Hutt)
Trentham Kgtn
Wednesday, 9 Poutū-terangi
3.00 pm
Head Teachers Meeting
(Wairarapa)
Carterton Kgtn
Thursday,
24 Poutū-te-rangi
9.30 - 3.00
All New Head Teachers
WMK Offices
HAPA HAKA DATES
Nau mai haere mai ki te kapa haka!
Kapa Haka 1
Will be on the 3rd Thursday monthly starting 17 March,
3.15 – 4.45pm at Totara Park Kindergarten, Upper Hutt.
Kapa Haka 2
Will be on 4th Thursday monthly starting 24 March, at 4.00 5.30pm at Greytown Kindergarten, Wairarapa.
Kapa Haka 3
Will be on 1st Tuesday monthly starting 1 March, at 4.00 5.30pm at the Porirua Office
TEACHER QUALIFICATIONS FORM
With staff changes that have been happening over recent
times, you may be needing to update your teacher
qualifications form that must be displayed in all
kindergartens.
Attached is a copy of our current form, this may be slightly
different to the ex Rimutaka form. It also contains a
paragraph on lodging complaints and accessing ECE Regs.
Please make sure you have your updated info on your
wall, using the attached form.
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KEEPING YOUR KINDERGARTEN VISIBLE
FREE E-LEARNING MAORI LANGUAGE APP
We need to use our Whānau Manaaki website and
facebook pages to keep kindergarten’s profile high, and to
make sure everyone knows about our wonderful and
important service.
The Ministry of Education has partnered with Hika Group to
support Māori language in early learning for:
Here’s what you can do:
 Make sure your kindergarten pages are up to date. If
your team has changed, take a new photo and send it
to Alysha. Also, use attractive photos of your
kindergarten or learning photos to put in the photo
gallery part of your kindergarten pages. We have
beautiful environments in our kindergartens and we
need to show them to families.

If your kindergarten is in the news, make sure we
know about it as we can put newspaper stories our
news pages on our website.

If you have an event - if your kindergarten turns 50, or
is gifted a new artwork – let us know and we can also
put that on the news pages of the website.

If you haven’t got a facebook page (and there are 39
kindergartens that don’t have one) contact Alysha
about setting one up.
Facebook is a great place to post positive stories about
kindergarten and remember you can cut and paste
stories from Korero that are of interest to parents
about the value of early childhood education and why
it makes a difference.
If you do post great things about your kindergarten on
facebook, think about whether they belong on the
website too.


PROPERTY PLANNING
As a next step in the development of Whānau Manaaki
property systems, we are in the process of developing an
assessment tool for all kindergarten properties. This will
help us to prioritise work equitably across our 85
kindergartens and develop a comprehensive plan to
address how we allocate our property dollars. We are
hopeful that this work will be completed by the beginning
of the 2016/17 financial year (1 July 2016). So for the
next few montrhs the following will apply:

We will process PA1s for computers, whiteware and
grants that need to be spent;

Processing of PA1s that are around property
development will be put on hold.


young children and their families, and
early childhood education (ECE) services and staff.
ICT (information communication technology – ngā rau
tangotango) is part of many children’s lives and can be a
vital way to advance education for our youngest learners
and their families.
We are offering your ECE service, staff and enrolled families’
FREE access to Hika Lite, an e-learning Māori language
application, for 15 months to help teachers and families use
Māori language in early learning environments and at
home.
There will be a 3 month starter period from February – April
2016 allowing everyone to register, login and get
themselves familiar with Hika Lite. From May 2016 the
Hika Lite 12 month licence will commence and expire May
2017. We will email expiry notices with a 1 month, 1 week
and 24 hour notice period.
If you have any queries or concerns please contact our
Customer Support Team.
While you are using Hika Lite, Hika Group will be seeking
your valued feedback to gather your thoughts and ideas on
how to customise an e-learning Māori language app to be
responsive to our youngest learners, their families and ECE
services.
We hope that you have many hours of fun using Hika Lite
and we look forward to receiving your feedback in due
course.
Kind Regards
Ngā mihi nui
The Hika Group & MOE ECE Team
www.hikagroup.com
To access see the link in your email.
OWNING YOUR OWN HOME WORKSHOP
Another reminder that this Whare Ora Trust workshop is on
next Wednesday, 24 February - see link to attached flyer.
We understand there are a number of kindergartens who
have plans in the pipeline and we’ll be working with you
on an individual basis. Thanks for your patience around
this - we’ll keep yo uposted on our developments.
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QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
PISA RESULTS
Early childhood education helps overcome the effects of poverty on maths results.
Children living in poverty in New Zealand are more than six times more likely to under achieve in maths than well-off children,
a new report from the OECD says.
The report, "Low-Performing Students - Why They Fall Behind and How To Help Them Succeed" found the disadvantage of
poverty was made even worse by a lack of early childhood education.
While poverty is the most significant factor in achieving in maths, the report says taking part in early childhood education for at
least a year is also significant. Children who miss out on ECE are three times as likely to fail at maths.
The report is based on the results of tests of 15-year-olds known as PISA (the Programme for International Student
Assessment).
New Zealand’s results were above average, but have fallen behind since the last assessment, and inequality had worsened.
The report said poor performers tended to do less homework, have less perseverance and motivation, and were more likely to
skip classes than higher achievers.
New Zealand had stronger than average links between socio-economic status and low achievement, but it did not have more
low-achievers than most other developed countries.
The report recommends that countries ensure schools were supportive but also demanding, and provide under-achievers with
remedial teaching as soon as possible. Ensuring children from diverse backgrounds are attending the same schools helps lift lift
achievement, the OECD's analysis shows.
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FROM CHURTON PARK KINDERGARTEN
This week we were privileged to have NZQA visit us with
teaching professionals from other countries looking at our
kindergarten to learn more about ECE education in New
Zealand.
The professionals were evaluators from their own country
and were looking at our assessment and evaluation in Early
Childhood education. They asked about the training
programme for teachers, implementing Te Whāriki into our
individual and group planning and more.
It was a successful visit and a good opportunity for us to
extend our sense of manaakitanga as well as articulate our
teaching practice and celebrate the great work we do.
Alan Rudge (Parsons Avenue) & Di Crosby (itinerant)
were married on Valentines Day, 14th February.
The Wedding was held in the garden at their home in Otaki
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