At Amesbury School we want all students and their whānau to feel welcome, settled and known. When new students join our hub we ensure they have some buddies for the first few days, to help them settle in as they develop their own friendships. These buddies will show the new students around our school and support them during learning and break times until they settle in.
In Pōhutukawa Hub students will move fluidly throughout all the learning spaces each day with different learning workshops and sessions happening in different spaces.
In order to find out what is happening in Pōhutukawa Hub on a daily basis, please refer to our Pōhutukawa ngā kaupapa o te wā (What's On?). This is projected on the TV each morning so that students can see what to expect of their day. It clearly outlines what will happen, in which space, and with which teachers. Alternatively, our Pōhutukawa Weekly Wātaka (timetable) is accessible to anyone and provides more insight into the things we will be doing during the week.
For further information and learning resources, please refer to the Te Whānau o Pōhutukawa Hub Website. We will regularly update the website with content that we are working on and resources that students will find useful for their learning. This is where you will be able to find resources that can support learning at home.
We will also continue to use Google Classroom this year to support our students' learning. This is where we will post learning documents the students need for their learning. This can be accessed at home through the students Google Accounts.
Students will be given a Google account as they start at Amesbury. Students in Pōhutukawa Hub will also be given a Chromebook to use at school. This will be labelled with their name and stored in the same place each day.
At Amesbury School students will work with multiple teachers for different areas of their learning. All students have a whānau teacher, who has oversight and overall responsibility for them. As a student starts school they will be informed who their whānau teacher is. The whānau teacher is the first port of call for parents; if you would like to pass on information about your child, ask any questions or arrange a meeting with teachers, the whānau teacher is the best person to contact.
Pōhutukawa Teachers:
Gar Kee Wu - garkee@amesbury.school.nz
Rachel Hosnell - rachelhosnell@amesbury.school.nz
Brydon Gillam - brydon@amesbury.school.nz
Charlotte Montu - charlottemontu@amesbury.school.nz
Sarah King - sarahking@amesbury.school.nz
Rupert Webb - rupert@amesbury.school.nz
Maura Stewart - maura@amesbury.school.nz
Rupert is the team leader with oversight of Pōhutukawa Hub. If you have any issues or concerns, please feel free to contact Rupert directly.
This information will let you know of our Amesbury School approach to home learning and our recommendations for activities and tasks students can be completing at home to help with their learning.
We recognise that students all have different learning needs and styles. As such, we do not send generic homework home with students; we prefer a more personalised approach, ensuring that students are completing tasks that focus on their particular learning needs and cater to their ability. At school, we allocate specific blocks of time to students and recommend that they spend these blocks of time on activities that help their learning - we refer to these as ‘must-do tasks’. We then have suggested activities that students can choose from when they have completed their learning tasks - we refer to these as ‘can-do tasks’. All of these tasks are available to access at home through the students’ Google accounts.
We believe that all learning should be positive and purposeful. If your child is struggling with their home learning, or very reluctant to do it, please feel free to talk to your child’s whānau teacher for some ideas or suggestions. Below are the home learning recommendations for students at Amesbury School, along with some suggested activities, tasks and practice they can be doing:
We would expect our students to be completing approximately 40 minutes of learning related activities on at least 4 days of the week.
Maths: Basic facts - practise, practise, practise! Students should be learning addition and subtraction facts to 10, then to 20; doubles to 10 and then 20; then 2, 5 and 10 times tables, including division facts; then all other times tables, including division facts. Please refer to the Maths page on our Te Whānau o Pōhutukawa Hub Website for resources and helpful material.
We recommend the Prototec website as a good resource for focused learning of basic facts. We also recommend the use of e-ako maths - we will show your child how to login to this website at school.
All students have access to IXL (online maths and english programme) which is a helpful learning tool.
Literacy: We would like all students to be completing some personal reading at least 5 times each week (we suggest a bit of home reading time every evening). Most students will not bring home a daily reader, as much of our reading is completed through inquiry learning and guided reading sessions. At times, students may have novels to read as part of their learning programme that they will bring home with them. We recommend that students have a library book ‘on the go’ at all times.
Students may use home learning time to continue with their writing from school. Alternatively here are some ideas for writing at home:
Keeping a journal or diary
Writing reviews of tv shows, movies, food, books etc.
Writing letters or emails to whānau and friends
Writing recipes for food or instructions for construction etc.
Writing short stories
We recommend that students share writing they complete at home with whānau to aid them in developing their proofreading and editing skills. Reading their writing aloud to others is a great way to spot and remedy mistakes.
Inquiry and areas of personal passion: We strongly encourage students to use some home learning time to follow their own personal passions, such as sports (e.g. participating in local sports teams etc), music, languages, art, coding etc. Please refer to our Te Whānau o Pōhutukawa Hub Website for information and resources relating to our inquiry learning.
At times your child’s teachers may contact you to suggest particular activities or practice your child could complete as part of their home learning. If you have any further questions about home learning for your children, please feel free to contact their whānau teacher.
In Pōhutukawa Hub we use the library as a learning space on a daily basis. This means that students are constantly able to access the wide range of books that we have available. It is easy for students to issue books using the self-issue system on the library computer.
The library is also accessible before school from 8:30am onwards, and after school until 3:30pm.
If students need support to find particular books to issue them, we have a team of very helpful student librarians that can be found in the library at lunchtimes. Otherwise, our wonderful team of teachers are always keen to support students to find a challenging yet enjoyable book to read.
We encourage all students to have a book ‘on the go’ at all times, meaning they always have books they are reading at home and at school. They can issue multiple books at a time and can keep books in their tote tray to read at school, and take some home. Students can also re-issue books, if they are prompted to return them before they have finished reading them.
If any books are lost or damaged, please contact Kirat Singh, our library-based teacher (library@amesbury.school.nz). Our student-run system can mean that at times books can go missing in the system or be incorrectly returned. If you receive messages about missing books that you think you do not have at home, please contact Kirat (see above) or your child’s whānau teacher to resolve the situation.
