Driving to school, the steam plumes rising from the fields acting as a focus point and so it seems natural that our school vision, values and mission statement build on and incorporate this theme.
POWER - Pride, Opportunity, Whānau, Excellence and Respect have formed the backbone of our school values systems for more than ten years.
It wasn’t until we looked briefly at removing these terms and simplifying them that we realised that they were deeply embedded in our community and culture and needed to stay. What in fact needed to be tweaked was the school vision and mission statements.
After consultation with members of our school community, the following mission statement emerged:
Wairakei Primary School Educate Students with POWER to be Confident Learners
Combining our links to the steam field and its energy allowed us to develop
Rising to Success
as our school vision for the future.
The next question's were what would POWER look like? Where could you see POWER in action? Would our students be able to explain what POWER means to them? Could we see POWER anywhere?
Classes have been ‘unpacking’ the Mission and Vision. The juniors have thought about and written about how they can show POWER in different settings, and the middle and senior students have taken the metaphor further and developed their own unique POWERships. These range from rocket ships, to container ships to a whare.
The roof of our whare is the weakest part - this is what we need to work on the most. The base of the house is what we know about most - our strongest areas.
Rising to Success means working hard all the time - it is trying to do better than you ever have.
We have heard from our whānau that this learning is being shared at home. This highlights the value the students are placing upon it.
Love it, my little girl came home talking about it…so it already has value for her. Great mahi.
Rising to success rejuvenates and supports our POWER values as we strive to provide quality education for all those in our Wairakei Primary School community.
Sitting alongside the new Mission is a school wide Matrix developed with staff at our Teacher Only Days. This is a living, breathing document that students and teachers use as part of the Behaviour For Learning Toolkit. Teachers brainstormed what each letter of POWER looked like inside the classroom, outside the classroom and at gatherings and developed lesson plans that sit alongside each one. It is just as important to teach our young people values and what POWER looks like in different settings.
Where to from here
To introduce the Tokarewa Programme to classrooms.
Tokarewa means Magma - it is the beginning of our learning journey and the beginning of ‘our’ Wairakei metaphor for Rising to Success for our students. All students will have their own Tokarewa booklets that teachers can use to reward students for showing POWER in different settings. The booklets have water drop stickers that students earn, and at different intervals they will receive prizes. This initiative encourages students to engage in positive behaviour across school settings. It links closely with the school wide matrix with the goal that over time students will use the language of the matrix and encourage their peers to do the same while earning "cool" rewards.
Education has no beginning and no end. It ebbs and flows and is ever-changing. As an educator, it is my responsibility to instill a love of learning and an ability to adapt to an ever-changing world.
My teaching journey started at 40 when I retrained as a teacher after a career in journalism and many years as a stay-at-home mother. When we guide our students to be lifelong learners, we send them towards their next journey well-prepared for whatever life brings.
My journey in education has taken me down many different paths including teaching in an Area school, urban English and Welsh schools, small semi-rural schools and in a purpose built Innovative Learning Environment.
Teaching at Wairakei Primary School allows me to use so many of the skills I gained in these different settings - as well as acquiring so many more. I consider myself a life-long learner and continuously strive to build on my knowledge of teaching and education in order to create the best possible outcomes for students.
In my spare time I enjoy playing netball, reading, getting out and about with my two children and making the most of what this area has to offer.
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