WHO WE ARE ...
OUR VISION
We
believe that each of us can…
Shine
among them like stars lighting up the sky
·
Each of us has been created beautifully, perfectly just the way we are
·
We are called to joyfully honour our creator by living life to the
fullest
·
This means really stretching ourselves to use our many gifts in
life-giving ways that will build the kingdom right here and right no
OUR
MOTTO
Each
For All « All For God
God has given us all that we need as a faithful
community
SIMPLY PUT ~
We are meant to …
« Share all
we have with each other
« Work
together to complete God’s unfinished work of art
« Thank God
for our many blessings
OUR MISSION
Educational
Enrichment
Partnership ~ Catholic
Values
EDUCATIONAL ENRICHMENT is
about providing learning opportunities that enable children to make optimal use
of their God given gifts to become connected global citizens.
This can’t happen in a
vacuum ~
It’s essential for the school, home & student to
work together in real PARTNERSHIP
to make our dreams come true.
We expect our actions to reflect the CATHOLIC VALUES we share as we promote our catholicity within our
School, Parish & Faith Community and strive to be the face of Jesus to one
another.
OUR CHARISM
We celebrate our JOSEPHITE CHARISM which calls us to live . . .
A Simple Life
with a no frills approach that can get things
done ‘on the smell of an oily rag’
An Ordinary Life
being an active part of the community we
serve
A Flexible Life
prepared to do whatever is most needed for
the good of our community
A Compassionate Life
practical & down to earth striving to be
both helpers & advocates
A Trusting Life
certain that God is there for us 24-7
GRADUATE PROFILE
The
grounded
in a JOY for life and a LOVE of God, Self and Others
that
values STEWARDSHIP, KNOWLEDGE and EXCELLENCE.
These values are expressed in attitudes of …
TIKA ~ CURIOSITY ~ COMPASSION ~ SELF-BELIEF ~ POSITIVITY ~ and a desire to SHINE
That can look like …
TIKA
INTEGRITY
HONESTY
RESPECT FOR ALL CREATION
RESPONSIBILITY
FAIRNESS
CURIOSITY
· QUESTIONING
· INGENUITY
· INNOVATION
COMPASSION
· KINDNESS
· PATIENCE
· ACCEPTANCE that INCLUDES
EVERYONE
· FORGIVENESS
· ENCOURAGING OTHERS
· HUMILITY
· CONSIDERATION
· SERVICE
· BI-CULTURALISM
· MULTI-CULTURALISM
SELF-BELIEF
· CONFIDENCE
· COURAGE
· RISK-TAKING
POSITIVITY
· RESILIENCE
· CHEERFULNESS
· FUN
· HOPE
· PRAYER
desire to SHINE
· DO YOUR BEST
· OPENNESS TO TEACHING
· RESPECT FOR HARD WORK
· TENACITY
· HAVING A GO
And requires skills in …
TIKA
· Self control
· Accepting consequences
CURIOSITY
· Thinking
· Inquiry
· Problem-solving
· Adapting
· Decision-making
COMPASSION
· Conflict resolution
· Communication
· Cooperation
· Teamwork
· Manners
· Being a friend
SELF-BELIEF
· Leadership
· Self expression through
the arts
· Meeting physical
Challenge
· Accepting coaching
POSITIVITY
· Self Management
· Perseverance
· Organisation
· Independence
· Focus
desire to SHINE
· Reading
· Writing
· Numeracy
· Basic life skills
· ICT
One of the things
I'm doing at St Joe's is to try and provide our community (school & parish)
with information on aspects of the revised NZ curriculum in bite-sized pieces.
Here are some Newsletter inserts that you may find useful.
THINKING CURRICULUM
TERM 2 2009 - Insert #1
Thinking is one of the key competencies in the
revised NZ Curriculum.
Thinking
in itself means very little. After all, thinking is something we all do (some
well and some perhaps not so well). When we talk about helping children develop
their ability to think, we mean all kinds and levels of thinking.
An important part of learning
is being able to think in many different ways and at different levels.
Creative thinking is the ability to
imagine or invent something new by combining, changing, or reapplying existing
ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just
simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.
Critical thinking is about carefully and
logically analyzing information to make a decision or solve a problem or
evaluate a situation or judge the validity of a statement. Some critical
thinking is earth-shattering but most of the time it makes up the hundreds of
moment by moment decisions we make each day.
Metacognitive thinking or
‘Thinking about thinking’ is all about being self-reflective. It’s not just thinking
and then knowing but it’s actually being more aware of our own thought
processes so we can begin to make choices about what kind of thinking suits any
given situation.
Overall great thinkers are curious and ask lots and lots of questions. They
reflect on their own learning, solve problems, make decisions, and create or
adapt things. Most importantly they know that different tasks require different
ways and levels of thinking.
Over the next few weeks the newsletter will focus on THINKING by looking at:
Ø Why thinking is so important for our children.
Ø Sharing information on different ways of
thinking courtesy of DeBono’s Thinking
Hats.
Ø Explaining the
TERM 2 2009 - Insert #2
[Why thinking is important for our children]
“The dog barks but the caravan moves on.”
It is pretty mindboggling
to consider how my grandparents would view the world of my grandchildren.
“Beyond your wildest dreams” comes readily to mind. When I Skype
my son in the States I feel a lot like Jane Jetson
(and if you know what I’m talking about, then you’re older than you look!) In
those few years, the pace of technological change has gotten faster and faster.
An innovation which would have taken decades to make it into production and
general use, now takes weeks. The educated person in grandad’s
day knew lots of facts but the sheer avalanche of facts which cyberspace has
opened up is more than any mind could hold.
The mission of a teacher has always been to
prepare children for their future. That was a whole lot easier when that future
was a bit more predictable. But today we are educating children for a
completely unknown future with jobs that don’t even exist, YET!
The Revised NZ Curriculum emphasizes the importance of ‘learning to learn’
which is centred on strong thinking skills rather than content acquisition.
This means there’s a shift away from simply
knowing more and more ‘stuff’. Because there’s too much ‘stuff’ to know and the
‘stuff’ itself keeps changing! Today’s learners need
to know how to find the ‘stuff’ they want to know AND how to process that
‘stuff’ so they are sure it’s true and ethically sound before they use it.
My grandparents saw the industrial age give way to the information age courtesy
of the microchip. The world changed before they even knew it. Now we are living
in the midst of another change to what some are calling the ‘global age’. This
change is shaping today and tomorrow in ways that are impossible to understand
let alone measure. While it’s absolutely logical for parents to measure the
quality of their children’s education by the way they were taught, it’s essential for us to move forward together. If we
stick to the historic educational ‘yardstick’ we will actually prepare our kids
for their parent’s past and NOT their own future. Steve Wilstein warns that, “It’s
dangerous to believe you will remain successful simply by doing the same things
that once brought success. That
will be true only if the world doesn’t change.”
No one can argue that the world has changed dramatically over the past 20 – 30
-50 years. We can lament what has ‘been lost’ and worry over what has ‘been
gained’ – but the caravan of change keeps moving forward (whether we like it or
not).
TERM 2
2009 - Insert #3
[Different ways of thinking courtesy of de Bono’s
Thinking Hats]
The
Thinking Hats have been around
for over 20 years as a framework for thinking. Each of the hats
represents a different way of thinking which opens up an easy way to stretch
our thinking around a topic or issue by imagining that
we’re wearing a range of different hats.
When we have a go at switching hats we purposefully explore a viewpoint we
wouldn’t naturally hold. We choose to role play or ‘AS If’ ourselves into lots of different viewpoints.
When everyone knows we’re ‘wearing a hat’, we can step
outside our comfort zone in a safe way. and
say things without risk. Natural pessimists can have a go at optimism -
Thinking Hats Can-
§
Create
an awareness that there’s more than one way of seeing any issue
§
Provide
an easy way to switch ‘thinking’ gears
§
Focus
thinking
§
Lead
to more creative thinking
§
Improve
communication
§
Improve
decision making
At St Joe’s we have added a seventh
hat to reflect our special character – the Purple or WWJD? Hat.
WHAT
ARE THINKING HATS?
WHITE HAT THINKING
~ Factual: Is all about information.
BLACK HAT THINKING
~ Negative: Is all about focussing on all the possible drawbacks of an
idea.
YELLOW HAT THINKING
~ Positive: Is all about focussing on all the
possible benefits of an idea.
RED HAT THINKING
~ Emotional: Is all about feelings & covers intuition, feelings,
hunches & emotions.
GREEN HAT THINKING
~ Creative: Is all about exploring new ideas
& possibilities
BLUE HAT THINKING
~ Thinking about thinking: Is all about weighing up what kind of thinking
best
suits the situation.
PURPLE HAT THINKING
~ Spiritual: Is all about measuring situations
against the yardstick of Jesus by asking, “What would Jesus do in this
situation?”
TERM 2
2009 - Insert #4
[SOLO taxonomy as one way
of measuring levels of thinking]
The SOLO taxonomy was also developed over 20 years ago by Biggs
and Collis and uses symbols to represent different levels of thinking.
The SOLO taxonomy stands for:
Structure of
Observed
Learning
Outcomes
It sounds a bit teacher-fied but everyone - Kids -
Parents - Grandparents - Teachers and YES even Principals can use SOLO to
measure the level of our thinking about anything!
PRESTRUCTURAL
The
point or concept has not been understood.
Kids are simply gathering bits of unconnected information, which have no
organisation and make no sense.
They literally “don’t get the point”.
(eg. doesn’t recognise that a tree is a
tree)
UNISTRUCTURAL:
One
relevant idea is explained. Kids can separate relevant from non-relevant ideas.
They may be able to make a couple of simple and obvious connections but their
significance isn’t grasped.
(eg. can see the
parts of a tree but doesn’t see that together the parts make a tree)
MULTISTRUCTURAL:
Several
relevant ideas have been gathered and even though several connections may be
made, kids just don't yet see the significance to the whole.
(eg. can see the
trees but not the forest)
RELATIONAL:
Complex
relationships related to the idea or concept are now
understand. Kids are actually connecting
the dots and 'get' the relationship of the various parts to the
whole.
(eg. trees AND
forest)
EXTENDED ABSTRACT:
Kids
are not only making connections but taking this connected understanding to a
brand new place so new connections AND new understandings are happening.
(eg. see the
tree AND the forest AND significance of the forest to the environment)
It
is important to understand that any of us can be operating at any or all of
these levels in the same day depending on what we are trying to do.
*For me I am definitely PRESTRUCTURAL if something goes wrong with my little
VW.
*I will have a UNISTRUCTURAL response (yes-no) if you ask me to go to the
movies.
*When my husband asks me to pick up a list of things from Mitre10, I will
probably be working at a MULTISTRUCTURAL
level where I know what I’m looking for (hopefully) even though I don’t
understand how the different items are used
together.
*When I do the grocery shopping I definitely know what
I want to do with the ingredients so I’m operating at the
RELATIONAL level.
*As I’ve been writing all the articles for the newsletter on the Thinking
Curriculum I have had to take what I know and try
to make it understandable in a whole lot of different ways so I’ve been doing
some EXTENDED ABSTRACT thinking.
This means that while we do want to be
thinking beyond ‘the dot’, the level of thinking we need really depends on what
we’re doing.