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In case you missed it, the Government has recently confirmed its final NCEA change package. Schools have been advised that the changes are intended to: strengthen our national qualification; address over-assessment and fragmented learning; promote culturally responsive teaching and learning; and improve accessibility, the support available to teachers, and the information available to students and whānau.

A copy of the Ministry of Education’s announcement is available here: Ministry website.

There are changes to the subjects that the Ministry proposes to support at NCEA Level 1. This is consistent with the policy objective – for NCEA Level 1 to become a broader, foundational qualification that allows students to keep their pathway options open, while Levels 2 and 3 promote greater specialisation.

The Ministry has asked me to encourage you all to give feedback. Public engagement on the subject list for NCEA Level 1 has commenced for a period of two months (closing on 20 April 2020).

More information is available on the Ministry’s website along with the provisional subject list for NCEA Level 1: https://consultation.education.govt.nz/ncea/ras-provisional-subject-list. The Cabinet paper and Ministry advice have also been made public (see under the February tab). You can find the list in the engagement questionnaire, or for your ease of reference it is also accessible from this link to the Cabinet paper (go to pages 19 and 20).

Waiheke High looking forward

Waiheke High School wants to be the best school it can for our island community. The ‘Striving for Success’ project provided an insight into how the community views the school, and our next step is to work with all stakeholders to establish just what the ‘best school’ looks like for us. We’ll be working with students, parents, school staff and the wider community to develop this vision, so it will take some time.

There are 2 areas that we are focussing on now.

Building the school vision and direction

A recurrent theme identified early on in the project was the need for the school to have a stronger identity, and a clearer sense of who we are and what we stand for. The development of a strong identity and a clear vision for the school is paramount to moving forwards.

To help achieve this goal the WHS Board of Trustees is seeking proposals from skilled, experienced people to assist it with this visioning process.

Reviewing our communications

Another of the messages that came through from the project was that we’re not always good at communicating. We want to fix that as quickly as we can. So we’re looking for someone to review our communications and tell us how we can improve them.

We’re looking for a communications professional(s) who understands online, local and traditional media. Ideally they will understand the way the island grapevine works and will be familiar with schools and the communication challenges they face.

These will be a short term project contracts.

Contact us

More information about this work is available here Visioning RFP . You can also contact Robyn Woodall (Board Chair) at robyn.woodall@infratel.co.nz, Jude Young (Principal) at youngj@waihekehigh.school.nz or Grant Duffy (Parent Trustee) at grantduffy@hotmail.com.

If you are interested in either piece of work send us an expression of interest including a covering letter outlining why you are interested in the work and what you would bring to it along with a brief CV by email to harringtonb@waihekehigh.school.nz by 20 September. The Board of Trustees will then invite a short list of candidates to prepare a short proposal for the project.

Congratulations to Gil Selem who came 5th overall in the North Island final for the New Zealand Brain Bee Challenge (NZBBC). The NZBBC is a competition for high school students in Year 11 to learn about the brain and its functions, the latest discoveries in neuroscience research and to find out about the various career opportunities that brain research has to offer.

Tara Lewis-Beolens, Jerry Griffin and Gil Selem competed in Round 1 of the competition. Gil was invited to go on to Round 2, along with 150 students from around the North Island who achieved the highest scores in Round 1. She spent the day at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, listening to speakers who included Professor Richard Faull, PhD students researching Huntington’s Disease and a scientist who performs cochlear implants on animals and is researching aspects of the auditory pathway.

Gil scored 5th overall in the individual competition and her team won the ‘best composite team’ prize.  Gil was also fortunate to receive one of 10 ‘golden tickets’ in a draw and will have the opportunity to spend a day at the Centre for Brain Research. Any current Year 10 students interested in participating in the 2020 Brain Bee Challenge will have an opportunity to sign up for the competition this year.

Katherine Cole, HOD Science

Olive Andrews is a research scientist and is the Marine Programme Manager for Conservation International. When she is not “guiding marine research and tourism expeditions from the tropics to the poles”, Olive resides on Waiheke Island.

Olive came into school to speak to the Year 11 and Year 12 classes as a part of their Academic/Careers and Mentoring course. Students were captivated as she shared her experiences of leading scientific research up in the Pacific Islands, her conservation projects and career journey. Olive’s impersonation of  Mr Curly’s (humpback whale) mating song was a crowd favourite!

More recently Olive spoke to the Year 7 Social Studies classes about her experiences down in Antartica. They were fascinated by all the different categories of ice, the penguins stealing each others nesting rocks, the ability of the Antarctic winds to blow people vertically across the ice plains. Of course the students loved all her cute photos of seals and Lolita the Whale who has a love heart on her dorsal fin.  After Olives talk, it appears half of our Year 7’s are now considering pursuing Marine Biology and want Olive’s job!

We are lucky on Waiheke to have so many passionate experts in our community. Our students benefit from engaging with our wider community adding depth to our localised curriculum. Exposing students to real world experiences is so valuable and inspires them to see where their education can take them!

Kia Ora Olive.

Julie Campbell, Science Teacher

Click on this link to watch a video about Olive’s research in Niue

https://www.conservation.org/blog/meet-a-scientist-the-whale-whisperer

http://kermadec.aucklandmuseum.com/expedition-team/olive-andrews/

The Waiheke High School Board of Trustees is actively seeking Maori Representation on the Board.

There are two processes and positions in place currently:

1. The Māori Community Representative will be selected by Piritahi Marae. This process will be completed by the end of August.

2. The School Whānau Representative will be appointed by the whānau.

If you are interested in the School Whanau representative position please could you speak to Pita Mahaki who will inform you about the process and its requirements. Pita can be contacted on mahakip@waihekehigh.school.nz

A whānau hui will be held in D7 classroom at Waiheke High School at 5pm on Wednesday 21st August. 

At this hui, the nominees standing will present their aspirations for Māori education and someone will be co-opted as the Whanau Representative to the Waiheke Board of Trustees.

Yours faithfully,
Robyn Woodall
Chairperson
Waiheke High School Board of Trustees

Re : Striving for Success project

A community survey by the Waiheke High School board of trustees has highlighted the need for strong leadership, improved communication and a clear understanding of what the school stands for.

Independent analysis of over 600 responses showed that people see the school as a safe, inclusive, caring environment where everyone is valued and made to feel welcome. Teachers who go the extra mile are valued. Parents like the use of technology in the classroom and the schools focus on career paths as well as academic results. The school was seen as strong in the core subjects, with art, drama, physical education, sea-sports, hospitality and viticulture also mentioned.

But board chair Robyn Woodall says that there were some strong messages about areas for improvement too: “People are telling us it’s not clear what kind of school we want to be, what we stand for, what our story is. That’s something we’ve got to work out, as a community. There were questions over school pride, managing student behaviour and uniform standards. We need to understand issues like these and decide where we stand.”

Board member Grant Duffy says another priority is to improve communication. “People are busy. They want to be able to get the information they need, quickly and easily, in a way that suits them. We need to be smart, use technology and be flexible enough to tailor the way we talk to people to get the message through. It’s something we’ve got to invest in.”

Robyn adds, “We need to change the way we get our story out in to the community. People want to see our leaders, – our principal, senior teachers and board members’ – out and about, face to face, talking passionately about our direction and our goals and listening to feedback. That’s the Waiheke way, we work on word of mouth.”

Grant says the school is well placed to take this feedback, consider its direction and get the community on side. “It’s going to be the number one priority for the new board – What type of school do we want to be and how can we get the community behind us?”

The Board of Trustees sincerely thanks you for your input and with Board elections on now, we look forward to getting on with making Waiheke High School the school of choice for our community.

Report is here:

2019 Final Waiheke High Striving for Success Report May 2019

I am writing to let you know that the latest vote of the PPTA Union’s membership has directed Strike Action and this time it will be a joint strike of both secondary and primary teachers, on Wednesday, 29th May 2019.

The nature of the strike is a stopping of work under the Secondary Teachers Collective Agreement. The strike will commence at 12.01am on Wednesday, 29th May and the strike will end at 11.59pm on Wednesday, 29th May.

However, a settlement is still trying to be concluded and we will not know until three days before, if the strike will occur.

I am letting you know that Waiheke High School will be open on the 29th May but not for instruction and we will be operating on a skeleton staff during the strike period.

We will update you again closer to the day.

Ngā mihi nui
Jude Young
Principal

Congratulations to all students and staff at Waiheke High School. Statistics released by the Ministry of Education show that Waiheke High School has out-performed and exceeded both National and Decile Band Achievement in NCEA at Levels 1 to 3 – FIVE years in a row. Scroll to bottom of page for the numbers.

Once again the Waiheke Local Board have supported our students with $1000.00 towards the registration of 15 Year 10/11 students to complete their Bronze Hillary Award through the Duke of Edinburgh programme.

More information about this programme can be found here: https://dofehillary.org.nz/