The process of organising our teams is a complex one, particularly looking at student numbers across all teams, including constant growth throughout the year in Koru as new five year olds start at school. The teams will stay largely the same, with several teachers working in different hubs next year. The numbers of students in our teams are not well balanced across the school, and in order to ensure all teams have appropriate numbers and room for growth through the year, particularly Koru Hub, we have split year levels across two hubs for two of the teams.
The organisation of teams for 2021 is as follows:
Koru Hub: Year 0-2 students. This team will begin with seven teachers: Amaria Picard, Esther Koh, Elena Taylor, Jemima Colquhoun, Cam Botha, Regina Singh, Angela Herman-Childs. The hub will be structured slightly differently this year. Although all teachers and students will work together as one hub, our five year old students who are new to school (students who started in Term 4 2020 and Term 1 2021) will form one shared ‘nurture’ group with two teachers. They will base in Kowhai (the learning suite with yellow carpet). As students become more confident and settled at school, they will move down into the main group, leaving room for new five year olds to join the small nurture group. The main group in Koru Hub will be comprised of older five years / year 1 students, and year 2 students. This group will have five teachers and will base across the Karaka suite (orange carpet) and Kakariki suite (green carpet). The main group and shared group will come together for some things, but for much of the day they will work separately, to allow our new five year old students to stay in one space and move between fewer teachers.
Harakeke Hub: Year 3-4 students, along with a small group of year 2 students. This team will have six teachers and will be based in Harakeke Hub. The teachers in the team will be: Sonali Singh, Lisa Bengtsson, Zelda Van Zyl, Eilis Ni Chaiside, Zoe Jiang, and Natalie Douglas.
Pōhutukawa Hub: Year 5-6 students, along with a small group of year 4 students. This team will be based in the hall, library and reception area, and will have five teachers: Kalesha Segatta, Michelle Prinsloo, Andy Little, Gar Kee Wu, and Onaitta Setefano.
If your child is a year 2 student who will be based in Harakeke Hub next year, or a year 4 student based in Pōhutukawa Hub, you will already have been contacted by their teachers to let you know.
We will be joined by two new teachers at the start of next year: Onaitta Setefano is already known to us, through her work as a student teacher this year in Pōhutukawa Hub. Onaitta will be joining Pōhutukawa as a beginning teacher next year, and we are so pleased to have her back with us. Grace Baker will also be joining us at the start of the year. Grace has been teaching in Auckland for two years, and will be moving to Wellington over the summer break. Grace will join us as a release teacher across the school. She will also work one day a week in Harakeke Hub, to release Lisa, who is a Kāhui Akō Across School Lead Teacher, and will be working two days per week in this capacity across different schools in the cluster.
We are very excited about next year, and all the possibilities it holds.
Warm regards,
The Amesbury Team
