Welcome back!

Kia ora and welcome to our new families and our returning families in 2011!

We have had a wonderful start to 2011. The teachers had an inspiring day with International consultant and writer Tony Ryan. Tony is renown for developing the "Thinkers Keys" in the 1980's and was an early advocate of explicitly teaching the skills of thinking to children. Tony inspired the staff with his practical teaching strategies, he challenged us all with his questions about why we teach and the important role that we have in the life of a child and he gave us plenty of great strategies about how to manage the challenging role of teaching 20-30 children for 6-7 hours a day, planning, assessing, building relationships with the child, their family, contributing to the greater life of the school, meeting Government expectations, meeting community expectations and still having a balanced life.

This day was followed by a fantastic morning where over 50 staff and BOT members spent time getting to know each other, re acquainting ourselves with our Vision, values and beliefs and clarifying our goals for 2011.

We have an amazing year planned! The learning opportunities for the children at Windsor are too many to mention here but with our Key Competency focus of Managing Self and our PRIDE Value focus of Excellence we expect to see some fantastic results.

Our PRIDE Challenges will be up and running shortly but have a look at the link to see some of the inspiring children from 2010. Such is the interest in the PRIDE Challenges nationally that they have become part of the NZ Curriculum Online series.

Our Theme of "Making it!" in 2011 we see the children immersed in Science and Technology for the year. We are going to have a lot of fun learning about ways of "Making it"

Huge changes have been going on over the holidays, new courts, painting, re fit of older building and the creation of breakout learning areas called CHILL Studios (CHILL- Children who Independently Lead their Learning). The projects are ongoing- as you can see by the digger above!

I look forward to seeing our families at the Meet the Teacher Picnic next Tuesday!

Regards

Neill