It seems amazing that we are already looking at organisation for next year - how time flies by! As a leadership team, we have begun the process of mapping out the structure for next year, looking at staffing and student numbers, student needs, and the organisation of the school.
We have organised our school hubs in a variety of different ways across the years, moving between operating as two hubs and as three hubs, and varying the year groups we had in each hub. For the past few years we have operated in a three hub structure, with year 0-2 in Koru, year 3-4 in Harakeke, and year 5-6 in Pōhutukawa, although we may have had a small number of students from different year levels in certain hubs, where necessary. We have been closely observing our year 3 and 4 hub in particular over the past few years, because we have found that the developmental needs of these students can vary significantly. This is not linked to any particular group of students or ways of working; it is more about the significant developmental changes that students go through during these years. We find that, generally, the difference between the needs and ways of working between year 3 students and 4 students is far greater than the difference between year 2 students and year 3 students, and between year 4 students and year 5 students.
As such, we have made the decision to change the structure of our hubs for next year. In 2024 we will be working in two hubs across the school:
- Koru Hub will have all of our year 0 - 3 students in it. It will operate in a very similar way to this year, with a 'nurture group' area in one learning suite for our new five year olds, which will have two teachers in it, and our older year 1s and our year 2 and 3 students based in 'main group' with a larger group of teachers. It will operate in the same way as this year, with small groups of students transitioning from the nurture group to main group each term when they are ready to, in order to leave space in the nurture group for new five year olds starting school. The hub will plan and function has one single hub, just as it does this year, but the nurture group will operate separately for some things.
This hub will be based in Koru Hub (just like this year) and also in Kikorangi learning space across the courtyard in the Harakeke building space.
- Pōhutukawa Hub will have all of our year 4-6 students. It will have a slightly similar structure to Koru Hub in that it will have a 'nurture group' with two whānau groups of year 4 students and two teachers. The other whānau groups will all have year 5 and 6 students in each of them. The year 4-6 students will operate as one whole hub, and cross group for a variety of learning, but there will also be times when the year 4 students work separately with their whānau teachers for some things, where we see the need.
This hub will operate in the new Pōhutukawa building, and will have six teachers in it.
We will update you with further information closer to the end of the year, when we have finer details confirmed. As usual, we will also run a transition week towards the end of Term 4, where students will spend the week in their new spaces with their teachers for next year, so they can become familiar with any changes.
Ngā mihi,
The Amesbury team
