Phones at school and an hour of reading, writing and maths a day

Phones away for the day

This regulation has been brought in this term, and it requires all schools to ensure that all student phones are either kept at home, or if they must come to school, are kept switched off and away for the duration of the school day, including lunch times and breaks. 

Amesbury School already had an expectation that students would keep their phones in their school bags throughout the day, if they needed to bring a phone to school. As such, there is little change to our school guidelines as a result of this regulation. Our school guidelines also state that this same rule applies to the use of smart watches when used as a personal communication device - they are not to be used to access the internet or contact others during the school day. 

Here is our school  Internet and Cyber Safety Procedure, which includes our expectations around use of phones at school. Given that the new regulation fits in with our current guidelines, we did not need to consult about this, because it has not caused any changes for us. 

One thing to be clarifed is that this expectation also includes the time between 8:30-9am and at 3pm as ākonga are leaving school grounds to go home. Once ākonga come into school, the expectations around phones switched off and away apply until they leave school to go home. 

There are exceptions to this rule. If a child needs to use their phone for any reason, they need to ask a kaiako, who will then support and guide them. A child may need to use their phone for a health reason, or at the end of the day to contact a parent or caregiver about arrangements for after school. In such cases, use of a phone will be permitted, as long as an adult is supervising.

It is also important for whānau to know that if ākonga bring their phone or smart device to school, they do this at their risk. School cannot take responsibility for any lost, damaged or stolen devices. 

An hour of reading, writing and maths a day

This regulation states that from the beginning of Term 1 2024, ākonga will spend an average of one hour a day engaged in reading, writing and maths. This has come into effect so that kaiako (teachers) deliberately and purposefully dedicate time to teaching these core skills. Teaching techniques like investigations, collaborative learning, and games will continue to be used so students stay engaged with their learning. 

As with the phone regulations, this causes very little change for our school, because this was already in effect in our learning programmes. You can access our weekly timetable for Koru and Pōhutukawa on the learning websites, which can be found on the home page of our school website (the little book icon in the top right hand corner), and see how learning happens across a week in hubs. 

Here are some key things to understand about this regulation:

• The time spent on reading, writing and maths does not necessarily need to be spent in one single block labelled 'writing' or 'reading'. This time can be integrated right across the curriculum. This means, for example, time spent writing your pepeha (personal introduction in Māori) can be seen as writing practise. In order to provide rich and meaningful learning, it is important that we aim to integrate learning as much as possible for ākonga. Our world is rich and integral, and our learning programmes should be, too. 
• The hour a day regulation applies across a week, rather that as a rigid rule for each single individual day. This allows for rich learning programmes that include trips, days spent on other programmes or out of the classroom. The regulation is also flexible enough to allow for week-long camps and other important learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
• Reading, writing and maths happen in lots of different ways. There are blocks of time in our timetable that are called pānui (reading), tuhituhi (writing) or pāngarau (maths), and they are easy to identify as core learning time. It is important to understand that this is not the only time in the day when ākonga are engaged in reading, writing or maths. 

During my time in hubs over the past few weeks, here are some different ways I have seen reading, writing, and maths in action:

• Quiet reading time after lunch, as ākonga come back into class and the roll is taken
• Buddy reading across hub groups
• Writing your pepeha (your personal introduction) in te reo Māori
• Practising your times tables in iTime (independent learning)
• Writing your personal qualities on leaves to add to your Tree-riffic trees
• Working out even groups in a game
• Writing a 'shout out' comment for a friend in whānau time 
• Matching kupu (words) to pictures in a te reo Māori bingo game
• Learning how to play dominoes (properly) with a group in 'Must Do, Can Do' time
• Creating a chalk route for a friend and using directional language (left, right, three steps forward, clockwise, anticlockwise etc) to talk them through the route while they have their eyes closed (and, it turns out, sharing the chalk pieces equally!)
• Researching about native animals in Aotearoa New Zealand 
• Working out how much your pizza order cost last week
• Checking to see if any of the giant chess pieces are missing (once you find a friend who knows how many pieces are in a chess set!)

Reading, writing and maths are all around us in our rich and integral lives, and our learning programmes should mirror this. This is our aim in our learning design at Amesbury School.