Waitakere College News

Newsletter Issue #5

How we reach our academic goals

As a college, our community of teachers reviews how we performed last year in comparison to previous years, the national academic averages of all schools, and against similar schools in our community. As you have seen, our results are very positive, with our Level 1, 2, and 3 results above the national averages and equity (the old Decile) averages.
We reflect on how we achieved this with our teachers, students and whānau connections and, the reality is that it is about us being consistent, clear and creating certainty in our school routines and structures for good learning to occur.

Part of this certainty in structure for our students is the learning structure of our lessons. Every student should expect to see this structure in each of their lessons;

Warm greeting and welcome at the door or upon entering the class.
Instruction to address any inappropriate uniform issues, such as phones or other paraphernalia.
Engage in a "Do Now" activity, which serves as a recall task from the previous day or as a warm-up for the lesson.
Introduction of the Learning Objective/Learning Intention, outlining the new skills or information to be acquired during the lesson.
Mahi; A series of tasks designed to reinforce the learning objectives.
Success Criteria; Clearly defined steps outlining how to achieve the learning objectives/intentions.

We aspire to deliver this structure to our lessons and our rangatahi should expect to work with these learning routines in each lesson.
This allows us to continue to be Better Than Before (BTB).

Ngā mihi
Mark P Shanahan