Welcome families, whanau and friends, This year our staff have worked hard on redeveloping our approach to teaching the New Zealand Curriculum. We have done this so that we all have a consistent approach to our teaching and the outcomes we would like to have for our students. This enables us to work as a collective team and to have manaakitanga (care) for all the learners in our school.

We believe that learning is a partnership where we all participate and where values and the skills students need are the priority. This term we have developed the first draft of our Glenbrook Inquiry Model of learning. Over the next year we will feedback on how our students are learning and thinking, what strategies were successful and what skills were dominant. The key areas of learning we have identified as a staff within our Glenbrook Model of Inquiry are IGNITE – WONDER – EXPLORE – DISCOVER- SHARE- ACT. We envision this being a model where the voices of our students, family, community and each other, contribute towards the end direction of our learning. There will be a theme umbrella where classes and teams will use their passions to find areas of learning that spark interest. This will not necessarily mean that juniors will be working with junior classes, but rather teams will work together where their passions cross.

Next term our theme will be Change. Next week I will share what teams will be focused on as you may have ideas, resources, ideas or experiences within the topics of our themes you can contribute. We will have a key value that everyone will be working towards. Next term that value is “Being Valued”. This was a value families in our community identified as being important from our community consultation. This is an exciting time at Glenbrook School as we focus on learning as a team where values, skills and shared communication are central to our approach to learning.

Thank you everyone who contributed towards to our parent consultation. During the school break, the board and I will be reviewing the Glenbrook School charter taking into consideration the feedback from teachers, parents and students during our consultation. It is another busy week, so thank you to all our parents helping us this week with sports, choir and PTA movie night.

Your Principal, Lysandra Stuart