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Newsletter Issue 16

Literacy and Numeracy in the Junior School- What's our Accelerator?

 

Our 'Wishbone' or goal for our Year 9 and 10 students is to ensure that they are prepared and ready to sit and achieve the Common Assessment Activities (CAA) in Years 10, 11, or 12 which are, in reality, the prerequisite for passing any level of NCEA.
These CAA are in both Literacy and Numeracy and offer 10 NCEA Level 1 credits (so 20 in total) in each area.
We have to accelerate the Literacy and Numeracy learning levels of our students over these two years to ensure they are at the appropriate level to sit these CAA.

Our 'Backbone' or structure and systems to raise Literacy skills in particular is supported by the Writers Tool Box (WTB).
Writers Tool Box is a self-managing Literacy programme that teachers of Social Sciences, Science and English use in the junior school which gives feedforward and feedback to students on their written work.

  • WTB allows teachers to differentiate their teaching of Literacy and Writing for each individual student.
  • WTB guides students on how to write different sentence styles and encourages students to try different sentence starters etc
  • WTB informs students on paragraph structure types, the audience reading the paragraphs and building up to essay writing.

    Every Year 9 and 10 student has access to WTB. 


  • They have a personal avatar character to use in WTB and can and should be using WTB at school and at home daily to improve their Literacy skills.
  • It has a gamification mode that students can engage with to enhance and accelerate their writing and then comprehension skills.


Encourage your Year 9 or 10 children to show you what they are doing in WTB. By engaging with WTB daily and taking advantage of the gamification options, our students can enhance their writing and overall Literacy skills, striving for their work to be “Better Than Before” (BTB).

Ngā mihi

Mark P Shanahan

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Upcoming Events

 
  • Sat 14th June 10am - 2pm - Student Market Day - All Whānau & Friends welcome! Cash only event.
  • Tues 17th June - Early Finish 1.35 pm - All Year Levels
  • Tues 17th June - Junior Subject Report Parent Teacher Interviews
  • Fri 20th June - Matariki - No School
  • Fri 27th June - Last Day of Term 2
  • Mon 14th July - First Day of Term 3
  • Thurs 17th July - Open Evening 6pm - 8pm
  •  Wed 27th Aug at 4 pm Out of Zone Applications Close
  • Click here for all important dates