More Photos of Rosebank School

Our Day at Rosebank School

Today we had a fantastic visit to Rosebank School! Rosebank is a public, decile one (lowest SES) school. Heather Bell, principal of the school, warmly welcomed us to the school and introduced us to the history of her time at Rosebank and gave us a little more information about how New Zealand's Ministry of Education runs. We learned that each school has what is called a Board. This Board sounded a lot like our Local School Councils. The Board has five elected parents, one elected staff member, and the principal. There are six administrative guidelines for every Board in New Zealand. These include curriculum, self review/strategic planning, personnel, finance/property, health/safety, and compliance. The principal writes monthly reports to the Ministry of Education against these headings. New Zealand schools are self governing and run themselves according to a locally developed Charter. The Charter describes the school's plans and how they will shape new directions.

In terms of the history of the Ministry of Education, we learned that there was a shift in viewpoints that happened around 1989. Before that shift, schools in New Zealand were not self-governing. The impetus for this change was a shift in thinking that allowing schools to govern themselves would improve education. Schools in New Zealand are evaluated by an audit office called the Educational Review Office (REO). Heather Bell, principal of Rosebank, served as an inspector of schools prior to the creation of this office and then moved on to the Ministry when it was formed in 1989. This office worked to develop a methodology to review schools and Heather reported that it was an exciting time in New Zealand public education. There are no "turnaround schools" in New Zealand. When a school is struggling the Ministry of Education will work with the board and provide interventions and support. If those interventions and support are not working the board will be "sacked" and a commissioner will come in to work with the school. Heather Bell's term as principal began under the advice of one such commissioner at Rosebank School. In terms of professional development, Heather states that "we are in the business of growing - because that's what learning is all about."

While at Rosebank, we visited Maori and Samoan bilingual classrooms and observed a Reading Recovery lesson in action. Our visit was enjoyable and the students and staff were warm and welcoming. They had lots of questions about Chicago and asked us about the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, and Oprah! We learned about the Six Thinking Hats strategy and saw reading aloud, guided reading, and centers. We also saw a classroom using a smart board! In the Samoan bilingual classroom, we received a traditional Samoan gift of a beaded necklace and a wooden arm band as thanks for our visit! Please enjoy the pictures of our lovely visit to this fantastic school!

A Day on Waiheke Island - Part I

Words cannot describe the beautiful day we had today on Waiheke Island. Please enjoy these pictures!

A Day on Waiheke Island - Part II

St. Joseph's School

Today we spent an amazing day at St. Joseph's school. St. Joseph's is a catholic elementary school located in South Auckland. The school has approximately 300 students, which is a medium sized school for Auckland. St. Joseph's is a decile two school. We learned from principal Liz Horgan that decile two is considered a low-income ranking and that decile rankings for school are determined based on the latest census information. This is different from Chicago Public Schools, as we determine the SES status our schools using free and reduced lunch applications. Mrs. Horgan explained to us that a long time ago the Catholic school system was integrated with the state system allowing Catholic schools to receive federal funding. The specific type of federal funding allocated for low decile schools is called Targeted Funding for Educational Achievement (TFEA). Ninety percent of the students that comprise St. Joseph's population are from the Pacific Islands and Maori and Pacific Island students are over-represented in terms of low decile status.

Now, with all the facts laid out we can go on to describe our great experience at this fantastic school! We were greeted by the school's principal and participated in a welcome meeting and once again had morning tea! This morning tea was special, as we were able to chat with teachers from the school before we were to visit their classrooms. During the classroom visits, we spent out time in year one, two, three, and four classrooms - our kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade. The teaching looked familiar - center work, reading strategy instruction, small group guided reading with instructional level text, computer work, and read aloud! The students were friendly and were excited for visitors from the states. They asked us questions and were curious about life in the United States. At one point, Jennifer lost her notebook! The assistant principal was nice enough to look for her notebook and while on her brief search the students referred to Jen as "the girl with the golden hair." Very cute. Pilar spent time reading books about the ocean with a year one student while Jen read a big book with a girl from the same class.

We observed a fantastic strategy to use with bilingual students called Plus, Plus. This strategy encourages students to develop their oral language as they are prompted to elaborate on descriptive statements. We took some video of this strategy in action to share with our colleagues at Mozart School in Chicago!

The day concluded with a wrap-up meeting in the Principal's office where we debriefed on our observations. We found a lot of similarities between our instructional practices, but discussed how the climate of standardized testing has affected the stress level of teachers in the United States. New Zealand has just adopted National Standards and fear a standardized assessment is to follow. We all wondered how this would impact the calm and student-centered learning environment that has been so clearly established in New Zealand classrooms. This is a story we will be following even after we go home to Chicago.

A few pictures...

Take a walk on the wild side...

Hello Friends, Family, and Colleagues!

Sorry it has taken us a couple days to update our blog! We have been really busy exploring the city and rural parts of Auckland. Let's go back to Saturday! Saturday morning began bright and early in the morning and with a little bit of nerves. Jen was going to embark on driving in Auckland to get to our Rainforest Express Tour located deep in the heart of the Waitakere Ranges. There is no public transportation to this location and if you didn't already know, New Zealanders drive on the opposite side of the road in the opposite side of the car! Bravely, we walked to the Budget car rental location nearest us to pick up our beautiful, white Toyota Corolla. We had the man operating the desk at Budget look over our Google map directions and made the smart decision to rent a GPS for use during the journey. As we get into the car (already a little nervous, but putting on brave, confident faces) we set up our GPS, entered the address, and off we went! To make a long story short, we drove through three round-abouts, speed down the motorway, took a winding rural road, and drove down a long gravel driveway and successfully arrived at our destination! Phew! One driving experience down, one more to go!

The Rainforest Express Tour was awesome. The journey began at Jacobson's Depot and took us on a small train through the rainforest. Our guides, Ian and Fenton, were gracious hosts and explained to us the inner workings of Auckland's water and tunnel systems, dam, and pointed out some wetas and glowworms during our journey! We had to remember to keep all limbs in the train system and not to touch any of the plants, as some were poisonous. We also hiked up the side of a dam, took pictures of breath-taking views, and stopped for lunch in a shelter set up in the forest. What a great experience. Then, it was back in the car for our journey home! We got a little lost on our way there as the GPS kept telling us, "turn right and then turn right." This confused us and we can laugh about it now, but it was a little tense during the journey. When we finally got back to the Budget and took some celebratory pictures with the car the man at the counter asked Jen if she would drive across the street to fill the car up with petrol. She then replied, "You want me to drive across the street..." It just so happened though, that when he checked the fuel levels of the car it showed it was full, so not more driving was needed! Yay!

After a short rest at our hotel room we headed to the train for Mt. Smart Stadium and a New Zealand Warriors rugby game! The train ride was easy to navigate and reminded us of the Red Line train to Cubs/Sox parks in Chicago. Lots of Warriors fans were on the train with us who helped us locate the stadium when we exited the train. Neither of us no much about Rugby, but we learned a lot by watching and talking with our friendly seat mates. Here is what we learned: when a man is down you keep on playing, pass it under, punching is allowed only when the referee doesn't see it (our seat mates let us know that one), rugby league is different from rugby, and Melbourne Storm players (the opposing team that night) are overpaid. We had lots of fun and are excited to share this sport with our students!

On to today, which happens to be Sunday. We woke up very, very early to catch a chartered bus to the Waitomo Caves. The journey was long - it took three hours to get there. On the way to the caves, our driver, Collin, talked about the history of New Zealand and the views our of our bus window. We took lots of fantastic pictures of New Zealand's beautiful landscape! When we arrived we walked into a cave and learned about stalactites and stalagmites. We walked the cave with a large group. When we got to an open part of the cave, our guide talked about the great acoustics and asked if anyone would volunteer to sing. Jen did and sang an Italian aria in the cave! Our journey through the caves ended with a boat ride through the glowworm grotto. The glowworms were small and bright blue. We learned that they glow during the larvae stage in order to attract their food. They stay at this stage for nine months and then they turn into the pupa, where they stay for two weeks. When they emerge from the pupa they only live for 48 hours! The students will really enjoy learning about the life cycle of the glowworms and we got great pamphlets and books to help our students acquire this knowledge!

We got back on the bus back to Auckland and stopped an had a brief lunch at Little Apple Cafe. The cafe was beautiful and was surrounded by amazing scenery. We ate a great lunch and topped it off with some Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, a New Zealand favorite!

What a full, two-day adventure!