Week 3 of term 2 2013

Afternoon all,

It has been a very exciting of weeks with lots happening. Our inquiry has started with the kids allowed to work in any class with however they like. Some very cool enquiries are being carried out, such as How did the Meta... (huge shark) change into the great white of today, what makes the sea salty, how much pollution is in the fish of Carolyn Bay. etc...
Some are finding it more frustrating than others with the Self Organised Learning Environment they are having. Some really cool trips that are being planned  by the kids in class time like fishing, videoing, visiting ECAN. I really encourage the parents to ask what is happening at school and discuss what they have learnt and what they want to learn.

Our class has been running hard to practice for the cross country. We have been doing fitness all year (which they all love) but now we have just picked up the fitness for the race. It is really pleasing to see that some go for really good runs at the weekends and after school.

I had a chat to the class the other day about running and other things. I discussed with them that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we need to embrace our strengths and improve our weaknesses. This was in relation to the cross country with those who are good runners and enjoy the cross country should be trying to win. They should be aiming for first. Those who find cross country a challenge should be they try their absolute best, run their hardest and achieve their potential.

I celebrate winners and I also celebrate those who 'bust their guts' doing their best. It would be fantastic to see as many parents as possible their on the day to cheer everybody on.

Next week we have Debbie Eddington (ECAN) in class to talk about the Science fair in term 3. She will be inferring to the kids which ways their Science fairs should go if they want to keep relevant with the ideas  of the ECAN and the judges. If the kids listen well they their Science Fair projects should be easier to choose and give them a better chance of success.

Good luck to the Young leaders who are going to Dunedin on Monday. It should be a great day. A nice early start.

As the class has been working so well they can have the Friday 31st of May and then Monday 3rd June off. Enjoy the long weekend!

Well done to Grace Waller and Lily Rae who reported back to the board what the Year 7's have been up to at Mountainview High School. They did an excellent job in front of them. it was clear, informative  and really interesting. Mr Z taped them and made the presentation into a video. have a look.

Grace and Lily (sorry the clip would not copy here)


In the class we have been trialling BYOD. It has been really good to have the kids work with technology to enhance their learning. To get a better understanding of what BYOD is and why we feel it is valuable have a look at the video below.

Hope you have a good Queens Birthday break.


Cheers
Hamish

PS. I'm looking forward to this weeks homework reports.

Week one Term 2

Hi there,

Well the first week has ended with the students off to Technology. It has been a good start to the term with only a few grumbles due to everybody settling into the school routine again.

This week we have started our inquiry with a Tune In week. This has been a lot of talking, discussing, viewing and thinking. We have watched a few TED videos on peoples opinions of the sea and its state and what can and should be done to fix it. It is quite scary seeing what we have done to the sea and what some say we do to fix or not fix it.

Have a look below at a couple of the videos. What do you think?

Wow! Very interesting. What do you think of his final thoughts?

Real photos which do give you some things to think about.

 

The conversations have been really thoughtful and I am a little bit embarrassed to be one of the few non reusable grocery bag uses in the class. Well done to you!!

Next week we will be staring the inquiry part of the process. This will be a lot more students leading their own learning. It is going to be an open class process based loosely on SOLE. See last blogs video. It is going to mean we as teachers are onto it, with tracking of groups their questions and what process they are up to. They will be presenting their findings during week 10 this term.

WE ARE PUTTING ON A YEAR 7/8 MUSICAL IN TERM 3 (dates TBC). This is a huge but a fantastic opportunity. EVERYBODY will involved with some aspect of the production. Huge amounts of work but it is a great thing. To that end you will be getting notes home seeking help. Don't be shy in coming forward.

Well that's all this week.
Looking forward to the rest of the term

Hamish

Wow time does really fly.

Hi there all.

Wow there were some amazing cupcakes made!! Everybody did really well and Mrs Bruce chose Ethan and his hamburger as first, Rhys and his pirate cake as second and everybody else got 3rd. Well done all. A big Hmmmmm to Jack and Rhys who tried to eat and finish my 'homemade from many ingredients cupcake. I was an ice-cream cupcake, with huge amounts of butter icing for ice cream.I'm not sure if they ate it all but they gave it a good go. A big thanks to the parents as this task was quite in depth with accurate skills needed with maths, reading, ICT and lots of creativity.

We have been really busy at school. At the moment we are finishing off our Murals form the myth 'The Minotaur'. Everybody has worked well with some outstanding results.  There is a range of techniques and styles shown.

Readers Theatre has been an interesting learning process with the students choosing their myths and then having to re write them into a Readers Theatre. A wide range of myths have been chosen which will make for an interesting presentation session during the last week.

Summer tournament went well with the numbers continuing to drop. I must give 'big ups!' to our students as they behaved very well during the day and performed to a high standard. Even if there was cheating during the lunchtime game!!

The last three weeks have been great but really mucky due to the Easter break, but the students have needed it as a 12 week term is really long and they can get scratchy (as those who used to have 3 term school years would remember).

Book week came to and end today with the Book character dress up being really well supported. The class looked great and you can see this on the students blog

http://room14atglenitischool.blogspot.co.nz/

The book quiz was really well supported with many questions and lots of answers. Some were strange and some were really correct. Well done to Ben, Cole, Tom and Blake who came first with 21 out of 30 correct. Check the questions out here and see how you would do.

An exciting Friday night is ahead of us with Gleniti teams playing their first games of hockey. These are grading games to sort into grades. So you can't read a lot into the results. After the holidays is when the competition really starts. I can't wait!

We have a plan for next term which will see us mentoring the children through their own inquiry regarding the sea. I say mentoring due to the fact we will be using a variation of the  SOLE model as per the TED speaker in the last Blog. It should be interesting to see the results and how they work. We hope the students will make this inquiry part of their Science Fair to reduce the stress and see them really develop full and understood science investigations.

A rough idea of Term 2 is

Week 1-
Tune In to Sea
TGHS visit

Week 2
Gleniti Sea Week

Week 3
Visiting Artist
Visiting Artist

Week 4
Young leaders in Dunedin
Debbie Eddington discussing ECAN requirements for Science fair
Teacher Only Day

Week 5
Queens Birthday
Life Ed

Week 6
Life Ed
South Canterbury Cross Country

Week 8
Waimataitai Sports exchange

Week 10
Inquiry presentation to parents.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Some exciting news next week...

Cheers
Hamish

It has been a while.

Hi there all as the title says it has been a while since I typed on the blog.

The year 7's have started the Forensic science course at Mountain View High school. It is really exciting as they have to work their own CSI crime scene and come up with all the facts and details. Mrs L (previously Mrs D) and  half of my class are doing it this time. With Mrs Hinton and the other half of my class completing the course in term 3.

Sailing has been and gone. It was great to see the students out ands about on the bay trying their hand at something new. Sadly I missed  my second day due to a flu but they still had a great time. There were some great efforts with the ones who actually tried to sail rather than pumping the rudder having more fun in the afternoon. I can assure you that we had all the safety gear and the wetsuits did the job. I jumped in to check them out so the children felt safe. (On purpose of course, there was a rumour I may have fallen in.)

Jack, William, Ethan have competed in the South Canterbury triathlon with them all doing well. Especially Jack who was (eventually and rightly so)given first after being miles in front and got sent on another lap by a marshall. Our class has also sent teams to the Police Training Fitness Competition and the Opihi Mountain Biking competition. These saw results very positive with a first again at the Mountain Biking and a 4th at the Police Course. It is fantastic that these people enjoy competing and enjoy winning graciously and sometimes not winning with style.

Swimming Sports are coming up on APRIL 3rd (the first Wednesday after the Easter Break) .  As we are at C Bay and it is our first run here the teachers in charge of the day have decided that the swimmers will only be in widths or lengths. This is due to two pools, money and time. After the day an evaluation will occur and we will see how to improve it. I realise the pool is quite deep. The races will be from deep to shallow and so I encourage if at all possible everyone does the length (25m) races. Memories not Dreams!

We continue to sing at our Team meetings with these songs going to be  moved to the assembly to be sung with the school. I am really impressed with the quality as I know there are many different levels and abilities of singers.  But any singing is good singing.

The Gleniti fair was held last Saturday and it was a really great 3 hours. It ran really smoothly thanks to the adults and the students all pitching and working towards one common goal. Our Candy Floss and Knock em Down really went well with it being busy and sold out by the end.

A BIG THANK YOU IF YOU IF YOU HELPED IN ANY WAY!!!!

We had a meeting and today and looking forward to next term I found this talk by a man with a very interesting idea of how education should/could be. The first few minutes really ring true regarding the Victorian Age. Have a look and see what you think. I think it is exciting to look at this, get fired up about making education better for the students.

I thank you all for your help and support so far during the year. I am really enjoying the class they are all individuals and all have heaps to bring to the table.

Cheers

Hamish

Leaders of 2012 video

Have a look at this. It is our leaders for the year. Mr Z went round and produced it. Well done all!

Leaders of Gleniti School

Cheers

Hamish

Hi there all it is Week 3 already.

Today we had the boys down at Ashbury Park playing cricket. The first  game went well and they beat Highfield quite easily. This meant we had a game against Bluestone in the afternoon. The boys went in confident. But what happened was train wreck! We were bowled out in the 5over of 20with the score at 10. As you can understand the game was done and dusted very quickly. So at 4.00pm we were back at school for a long intense practice. It seemed to go well but we won't really know for sure until we play Beaconsfield on Wednesday morning.

We are currently in the staff meeting learning and developing our skills with the new tablets that have been purchased. Very exciting times that will see new skills and a world of possibilities being opened. The students are going to love these, (and no doubt will be teaching us a few things as we go along.) They are Acer tablets and they are running Windows 8.... back to the meeting.

Homework comments

Hi there all.
Could you post your comments here (with you name). Cheers.

Week Two information and comments here please.

Hey there everyone,

Thanks to those who have left comments about this weeks homework, interesting points.

This week we have the boys training for the cricket games with the girls team to be selected on Friday. The boys are doing alright with lots of natural talent being shown as a willingness to listen and learn.

We have begun testing the students. This testing cover reading, spelling, maths and science. We look at the tests as a guide to each of their abilities. It is a snapshot at that moment and although it is a good guide I relaise that things happen that can affect their concentration, thoughts and answers.

Notices will be coming out soon about the PCT day, sailing and cricket. Lots of things happening.

i have talked t the students about communication and how that is so vital to them achieving their best. We all need to talk, ask, comment earlier rather than later so everyone achieves. If anyone comes home with no idea of what should be happening please contact me so I can help them.

Everyone has been working on their Personal Stuff presentations and I am really amazed about the range of presentation ideas. It is great to see them think outside the square!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Cheers
Hamish

First Day 2013- Please comment here for homework

Hi there,
The first day has come and gone. (So far so good!)

Today was a bit of a chat, establishing routines, setting expectations, setting homework and talking about the term, etc.
What I have attached is a timetable for the Year 7/8 team. So you can always keep up to date with what is going on.

Any questions or comments please feel free to pop in. e-mail or ring me.

Cheers
Hamish

Buddy Class Information

Hi there,
Last year I made contact with a few schools and through that process we have a buddy class at Bonaley School in Edinburgh. We will be sending videos, letters etc. back and forth during the year. This is a great chance to see how students of the same age are similiar and different, in another country. How schools are same/different, sports, music, teachers etc.

One of our first efforts was a video made by Laura and Taylah introducing Gleniti. Have a look at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ca9CsFE22U

Cheers

Hamish

2013 Ready Set....

Hi there all,

First blog for 2013.

I hope everyone had a great and safe  holiday. I had a cool time with my family not doing much, but having a great time.

Miss Lucy Dodgeson is the new teacher in Room 13. She is very musical and plays that wonderful sport of hockey.

Term 1 is planned both curriculum and extra curriculum wise. It looks very exciting and fully packed. More details will follow.

I hope to catch up with you all around school and at the first meeting.

Cheers
Hamish

PS: The blog photo will be changed after a replacement is taken early on.

On the downward slide...

Hi there all,

This time of year is CRAZY! We all know it is coming, we can see it, we have planned for it, but it is still CRAZY! Recently a line from one of the best rock groups ever came to mind that seems to sum up the second half of the term "Running to stand still".

The prize giving on Tuesday .... no Wednesday was a great chance to celebrate and show off skills. Each team did really well. It was great to see all of the Year 7/8 team on stage dancing to Greased Lighting. They did really well due to the time frame and the space to dance in.

Huge congratulations to the Year 8 prize winners. They were all fully deserved. This year we introduced an award for the House Leaders due to their growing responsibilities. They have had a lot more to do and organise this year. Each house was lead by competent students.

KEA WINS!! KEA ROCKS!!!!! GREAT JOB LOUIS AND ALANNAH!!! (No bias is shown)

Well done to the chosen 2013 House Leaders. It again will be a very busy year and they will be called on many times to 'step up', organise and lead through example. They have had seen how it can be done and it is up to them to do the same and even better.

The class has been completing their kites. There is again so much hot glue, sticks, tissue.....etc... all over the room (but it's great). Some of them have produced really good, well designed kites. One even was too strong for the string used. Bridey, Hamish, Tashana and Jordy did a very cool straw, tissue kite made up of 9 pyramids. A bit of wind will see it fly brilliantly.

Only a couple of events left to complete.
On Monday 17th December the Year 7/8's are heading to TBHS for a reward morning. This should be a nice morning. With the gym, grounds and pool being available to us. In the afternoon we are back at school, where Room 14 will be having a class treat where electronics, games and chilling out will be the order of the day.

In the evening the Year 8's will be attending their PTA Dinner. This starts at  6.30 (they need to be there by 6.15) and it will be completed by 8.30. This is a semi formal affair so everybody needs to be tidy with no scruffy jeans or shirts. There will be three speakers inspiring their young minds.

It will be nice ( I couldn't think of a better word) to again see the students out of the classroom setting.

That's all for now.

Cheers
Hamish

So far...

As the term rapidly comes to an end I thought I'd recap on where we are up to.

 This week we have prizegining practice on Wednesday at the SBS centre. Where we will rehearse our performance of Grease Lightning and how to walk across the stage, recieve prizes etc... In the afternoon the class will be taking all the work of the walls and putting it into envelopes to take home. The students know that ALL the work goes home and if they want to dispose of it... it is done from home.

Wednesday night is the Prize giving. This should be a concise and entertaining event. My condratulations to the ones who recieve prizes and to the ones who did their best throughout the year. The house leaderswill be presented their badges for 2013 which is great to see their and their parents faces. (Just to remind you NO student knows who is getting what prize or house leader responsibility, this is not rehearsed.)

Thursday thery students can come at 10.00am if they/you wish. School will be as normal so they can come anytime they want (before 10.00am). 6 Boys have offered to help the sound man to clean/break down the gear on Thursday morning at 8.30. A great gesture.

Friday is the last day of Technology. They will have some very cool things to bring home.
The class is as settled as can be with Year 8's itching to move on as well as being nervous, Year 7's being nervous about being Year 8's and also wondering what will happen when their friends leave. They are all good kids!

The reward morning is next Monday (17th December ) at TBHS. They have kindly let us use their pool, grouns and gym. It is a reward for those who have worked hard this year and have nade good choices. I see the morning being quite relaxed, but of course their will be guidelines due to we are using another schools resources. They need their togs, drink, lunch and morning tea.

On Monday evening will be the Year 8 dinner. A cool event run by the PTA. A good night should ensue.

Cheers

Hamish

To the year 8's....

 

VERY TRUE!

What do you think ? Is it true?

Hamish

NEWS!

Hi there all. A new Room 14 Website is up and running. Have a look and make comments. Homework for Week 4 is already up and running.

WEBSITE

Cheers
Hamish

Dinner Guests

Hi there,
Homework last week was to select historical dinner guests. Some very interesting ones were chosen. Here is a selection of the people that were chosen.

Who would you have at a dinner party?
What would ask them?

Week 1 Term 4 2012... 10 weeks to go.

Well this week has been interesting. I have been out and about in other classes observing and talking to students. Of course time out of the class has meant I was not in class, thus the start of the term has not had the 'flow' I would have liked. Wednesday saw Colin back (after his back operation) with Rebecca Best on Thursday and Colin again on Friday. Messy, yes but we have to work around things sometimes.

A few things for the term...
Firstly many of the students will be attending High School exams ( 1st November- Roncalli, 9th November TBHS, TGHS). Please remember to tell me if and when you are away.

Secondly here is a run down of what we know is happening for the term:

Week 2

Week 3
29th November Roncalli @ Gleniti to talk to students & teachers
31st October School Photos
1st November Roncalli exams


Week 4
7th November Walkathon- PTA afternoon
9th November Mountainview, TBHS, TGHS exams morning

Week 5 
12th-13th November Marg Wright @ Gleniti
14th November School Gala- afternoon (PLEASE HELP WE NEED STOCKS and A BIG ROPE)
15th November Skate/Scooter competition afternoon
15th November Lip Sync competition - evening

Week 6  
20th November Gleniti Athletic Sports
22nd November visiting artist

Week 7

Week 8  
4th December South Canterbury Athletics
7th Records books home

Week 9  
12th December Prizegiving @ 6.30
14th December Reports go home

Week 10
17th December Year 7/8 Reward day
17th December Year 8 Dinner

As you can see a busy term at the moment even before the class has school work.
The topics we are looking at are:                    Picture Books
                                                                     Characterisation
                                                                     Kites
                                                                     Athletics

It is a very exciting term with house leaders being chosen, awards given out and the Year 8's growing up and moving on.

Have a look at this. It doesn't seem that long that I was working in DOS at High School.

See you round school.
Cheers
Hamish

Term 4 @ Gleniti

Welcome back all have a look at this cut from a movie. It is a great movie with very relevant messages.

Relates to this weeks homework. I said I would invite William Wallace, Adolf Hitler, Buddah, William Shakespeare and Hannibal to dinner. As I mentioned the names their were a few blank faces. Hope this helps.

Have a look.

Cheers
Hamish

The term has endeth...

Term three is done and dusted.

It has been a very busy term with it being a little disjointed due to camp and all the activities. Just a quick reminder of what we have done...

Science Enrichment
Camp
SPCA talk with Norm Hewitt
Winter Tournament
Life Skills Topic
Puberty Topic
Report writing Topic
Gleniti Olympic Day
Olympic Inquiry Topic
Maths
Visiting Artist- Rhythm Drummers
Assembly Presentations

This list is only the at school things. Many of the students have had instruments to learn , sport(s) to play and all sorts of other 'things'.

So a big "NICE JOB!!" to the class.

Monday was a great day at school everything went well and the students were all very quiet and focussed.

We have ended the term with Keri Brown finishing her sessions with the class. This week she discussed "Keeping Safe" and then using at real life examples to get the students thinking closely about what options they would have and how would they do it. Peer Pressure was discussed and how to be assertive and not aggressive and finally the cyber world and all those hazards were covered. Again rel life examples were used and the students could see how things develop and how situations can get out of hand very quickly. I feel it has been benificial and please ask your child about the programme if you want to know what they got out of it.

Mrs Best spent her last Wednesday Release day with the class as Mr Smith has had his operation and will be 'back on deck' from the first Wednesday.

I have played a bit with the Blog look. Not sure about it but we will see how it goes.

On Wednesday Mrs Annett, Mrs Hinton and myself had a planning morning for next term. It looks exciting and busy (when is a term not busy??). We will be making Kites, looking at Picture Books in depth, having photos, a gala day, a walkathon, a LIP SYNC, etc...At the start of next term I will Blog and send out a term run down so we can all keep up with the play.

You will start getting letters from the High Schools relating to exams, visits, interviews, meetings, etc..  We get most of that information but please keep us informed if your child is going to be away from school.

The last term is especially special for the Year 8's so I really ask that you (as I will) remind them that they want to leave Gleniti with 'memories and not dreams'.

Hope you all have a restful and safe hoilday. 

Cheers
Hamish