Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today Jacob is the star of my post! In the photo below he is pictured with two of our TA team who decided that since it was Friday they would raid the staff room for chocolate chippie muffins for him as a treat because he has worked so well this week.

Jacob, along with other groups of students, has been part of a study by the University of Auckland this year where members of our staff are learning how to do high quality "narrative assessment". Narrative assessment is a different approach to assessment which focuses on documenting the learning journey of students and classes where we minute the achievements of learners as they occur rather than building up to large end of unit tests or examinations. It is a very naturalistic type of assessment and works well when we want to document milestones of achievement. With the addition of smart phones and other technology we are also able to film and photograph moments of mastery - its like Facebook for learning!

This approach is not new. If we think of the typical kiwi childhood, we all had our milestone learning documented in our Plunket books. We acknowledged readily that different children walk, eat, crawl and roll over at different times. This is what makes each learning journey unique, and makes each person unique. I would like to acknowledge the incredible work put into this project by Mrs Dooley our SENCO, Mr Ryan Gower our Head of Math, Sue Booth, Esther Dupu, Tanya McLaren and Tina Souness our TAs, AE coordinator and Student mentors.

Have a great weekend.

May God bless you.

Ngā mihi Nui
Paul Olsen