Kia ora te whanau o Te Kotuku

PST conferences
The process of self-reflection is important in itself and knowing what you what to achieve for the year starts with a goal and is then backed up by strategies that help support achieving those targets. When done well planning supports the required level of focus on forthcoming commitments (deadlines). Dreams become goals, goals become agreed priorities and then energy flows where attention needs to go. If you made a promise to yourself then honour it (pono). In this way, you build trust in your future self through your daily actions. Information on how to book a conference with Tutor Teachers was emailed to parents yesterday. Conference bookings are now open, please go to www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and enter the school code: 5ebtk

Progress Reports
Your child’s Progress Report has been loaded and is now available on the Parent Portal. Should you need help with your login or password, please contact [email protected].

Meeting Deadlines
Deadlines are exactly that, the time is up, at the finish line you cannot improve your time. If the final whistle goes in a game of netball, touch, and league or at the 100-metre finish, we cannot ask for an extension we just have to accept the outcome and move on.

Deadlines teach us the reality of the life we will face outside of school. The best time to learn that fact of life is from the get-go. Having to unlearn habits is much harder than establishing the right ones in the first place.

We understand that there will be genuine 111 emergencies that may change that must-do expectation, but failure to be organised is not a legitimate reason. If you have had six weeks to do an assessment and have failed to submit work at each of the two-week checkpoints and then are, sick for two days, asking for an extension will receive and should receive a negative response.

The reality is that this is a lack of planning; when an extension is given this means you will now be working on two assessments, the one you are behind on and the one that should now be your current priority. This creates undue stress and anxiety.

Precedent or history with students in this situation has told us that what really happens is that both the first one and then the second either never get submitted or they are never to a level of personal excellence. It also puts teachers under pressure that they are managing assessments that should already be marked, verified and entered into the system.

I strongly believe that by reinforcing the importance of deadlines, we will see better outcomes, largely because the work habits and organisation that underpins this requires working with a sense of pace and urgency, about what’s important now. Pace and urgency of the challenge in front of us is not the same as panic because we have left things too late. It’s learning to plan and prioritise what’s important now.

Assessment Calendar
One of the school-wide goals for 2021 is to increase the percentage of work submitted by students on or before the due date. Part of this process is for parents to receive early notification from staff where your son or daughter may not have submitted work for formative feedback.

In addition, all of the due dates for assessments in Years 11-13 for the week ahead will be published in the weekly Principals Panui.  The purpose of this is so that as whanau you have the opportunity to check with your tamariki that they meet their deadlines. The first of these due dates is next week.

Assessment Calendar – Term 1, Week 7
due Monday 15 March
11 Health: AS 90971 (until the end of the week)
11 Mathematics Internal (MAI): AS 91026
11 Mathematics (MAT): AS 91032
11 Media Studies: AS 90989
12 Chemistry: AS 91167
12 Economics: AS 91225
12 Mathematics Internal (MAI): AS 91259
12 Mathematics (MAT): AS 91259
13 Economics: AS 91401
13 Statistics: AS 91582

due Tuesday 16 March
13 Chemistry: AS 91393
13 Physics: AS 91525

due Wednesday 17 March
12 Mathematics Combined (MAC): AS 91034

Nga mihi nui
Gary Moore