When I consider the wider issues of education, I am constantly appreciative of the quality of students we have a Takapuna Grammar School. I have had the luxury of receiving so many emails and contacts from parents and pupils of Takapuna Grammar School during the holiday break acknowledging the positive impact the programmes of Takapuna Grammar School have had on them. This is a real endorsement, I think, of our emphasis on ensuring our systems are nimble and malleable in addressing the individual needs of our students. A critical aspect of this is the communication between the school, its students and its parents. It is a critical, triangular dependency in terms of delivering effective programmes to our students. I encourage parents to contact the school often and would like to think that our parents appreciate this and take the opportunity at every occasion.

Connected to this thought, you will notice an invitation in the coming newsletter from me to parents offering the time to discuss the qualifications of NCEA and International Baccalaureate. Naturally, we will continue to present the Year 9 Information Evening and Qualification Evenings but I would like to add this an additional opportunity for parents to meet with me to discuss these matters more personally and directly. Essentially I have set aside some morning tea times in four locations being Takapuna, Devonport, the City and Takapuna Grammar School. I am trying to make it easy for parents to slip out of work and attend these discussions, which should last between 30 minutes to an hour. I know that these decisions are important ones for parents and the more the school can unravel and simplify the understandings of assessment the better the decisions for students will ultimately be. If you have any thoughts or further suggestions to make about this topic, please email me directly at s.lamb@takapuna.school.nz.  More specific details of the morning teas are contained in the coming newsletter, due for circulation in the week beginning the 13th of February.

This year, I would like impress upon the community the school’s increasingly unreasonable stance on the issue of attendance. The patterns are overt when we look at student’s results. Those students who attend school all the time achieve highly. Those students who are often absent, legitimate or not, perform poorly. I encourage parents to seriously consider this impact when choosing to take sons and daughters away from school during the term. Thistopic is more extensively reviewed in the coming newsletter.

Welcome back. I think, given the tremendous successes of 2011, Takapuna Grammar School is well placed to have an exceptional year in 2012. I’ll be back writing to this Blog in two weeks time.

Regards

Simon Lamb
Principal
Takapuna Grammar School

As a school, we revel in these moments and enjoy the profits, in the form of student achievement, following a significant investment during the course of the year. It is very apparent this year, more than most, that so many parents have given of their time and energy. We look forward to this dynamic continuing as we can only deliver the range of curricular and co-curricular programmes we do, with this level of support. I acknowledge, particularly, those parents who leave the school following the departure of their youngest offspring. It is with this support that Takapuna Grammar School continues to grow and develop at the tremendous rate that is does.

The community’s endorsement of the school is important to the school itself. We have really tried to engage with the community and have attempted to make it easier for the community to communicate and connect with the school. We will continue this direction next year and are opening up further avenues for the community to remain tightly connected to the school, despite what your children may want or say!

One of the changes you will notice in the new year is a new website design which, aesthetically, will not look a great deal different from what exists already but in terms of its operation and navigation, users should notice a distinct improvement. We are also looking to improve the sign out the front of the school and hope to see the successful installation of a digital sign where the existing one is at present. This sign, believe it or not, would be the most effective communication strategy we have in terms of the response rates we receive, particularly if a spelling mistake inadvertently appears.

With other developments for 2012, as noted in the coming newsletter, we have a range of developments which will further assist the delivery of teaching and learning programmes at Takapuna Grammar School. We live in very exciting and dynamic times, locally and internationally. We continue to develop Takapuna Grammar School and, though the process, appreciate the tremendous support we receive.

Have a good holiday and I’ll be back with a new “From the Principal’s Desk” at the beginning of the new year.

Regards

Simon

Simon Lamb
Principal
Takapuna Grammar School

Seniors are at a crucial time of the year with the receipt of results from the school’s practice examinations colloquially known as “mocks” to the students, being received this week. They launch directly from this information to a very brief four week block of school, with the holiday period in the middle and then on to the final NCEA and scholarship examinations.

We have been overtly promoting with our students the importance of gaining “Merit” and “Excellence” grades across the achievement standards, both internal and external. These grade allocations are vital to enabling students to gain access to the very limited number of positions available at the universities in New Zealand. There was once a time where an “Achieved” grade was good enough. This is no longer the case.

This dynamic brings about many discussions with my fellow principal colleagues, one we have noticed become prevalent in our industry within the last few years. It seems rather paradoxical when, two generations ago, very few pupils at secondary schools attended universities. Now the recent limitation in places available to students is at odds to the growing numbers of students who now want to attend university. This is ironic relative to their grandparent’s generations who didn’t “need” to attend a university at all. The demand for intellectual labour has certainly grown.

In looking at a more established nation, the United Kingdom, the dynamics of university attendance has changed. Ken Robinson, a well known speaker on the subject of teaching creativity notes that in the 1950s and 60s about one in 20 young people in the UK went to university and these came predominately from the Grammar Schools. In the current expansion of education, the UK target for entry to the higher education is one in three. This is due to rise to one in two. Suddenly, at least half of young people are capable of university level education. What happened in the last 30 years to account for this remarkable change in intellectual capacity? Is it the fluoride in the water, organic farming or fast food? The fact is that large numbers of young people have always been capable of higher academic study.

There are many reasons for gaining academic qualifications. Taking academic courses should be inherently interesting and rewarding, and the best are. But there is another reason. We assume that qualifications will put us in a better position to find work. Academic qualifications are a form of currency. They have an exchange rate in the market place, for jobs of for more education. But, like all currencies, their value is related to market conditions and can go up or down. We are living now in a period of spiralling academic inflation and it has profound significance for the whole enterprise of education and training. Employers want people who can think intuitively, who are imaginative and innovative, who can communication well, work in teams and are flexible, adaptable and self-confident.

It is in this ocean of spiralling academic inflation that we launch our students afloat. It is in this environment that we really encourage our students to achieve at the very highest level in order to dramatically increase the opportunity to gain entry in to the courses they wish to study. I would encourage you to talk to your sons and daughters about the dynamics they enter. It can make for very stimulating discussions and can offer the motivation required to prepare well for the coming external assessments. Benjamin Franklin also offered some good advice to the learning process:

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn”

If you think the school can assist you further in this venture, please contact us directly or at principal@takapuna.school.nz.

All the best.

Regards

Simon Lamb
Principal
Takapuna Grammar School

ERO visit
We have just come out of a regular ERO review of the school and are in anticipation of an outstanding report. The school has received really strong positive feedback. One of the greatest features, acknowledged by the ERO team, is the quality of our students. We know this and are pleased the ERO team were able to also appreciate the quality of our young people. Thankfully, this enables every day to be a positive and dynamic experience.

I have a complete belief that we are employed to serve the students interests of our school. It is with this in mind that I trust parents find the school responsive and effective in addressing the needs of your sons and daughters. We are receiving great feedback about this aspect of the school, one I intend to further promote and celebrate. Do contact the school at any time if you have any questions. The email, principal@takapuna.school.nz is monitored daily and requests are directed to those staff who have the greatest expertise to respond effectively.

Qualifications
It is in this context that we have ventured in to the introduction of the International Baccalaureate qualification. We will always be strong advocates for NCEA and will continue to be so. But, I also like students having choice, options from which they build future decisions. There are a number of primary and intermediate schools who are delivering the programmes of the International Baccalaureate . I would like to see those students being able to consider a state school option and continue their studies gaining further International Baccalaureate  qualifications. I am very sorry to defer the NCEA/International Baccalaureate  Information evening recently. A bereavement in the extended family forced a rescheduling of this event, now moved to the 28th of September 2011, starting at 7:00pm. All parents and students are welcome to attend.

Examination preparation
Many parents are starting to worry about the coming examinations and what they mean for the future of their children. This concern is often held in the context of further issues related to the catastrophic state of the bedroom and how this whole picture is in inverse correlation to the proximity of important things like examinations. Be reassured that procrastination to this extent is, unfortunately, typical of teenage behaviour.

Whichever situation exists in your household, pragmatic discussions about having an uninterrupted place to study and having a calendar on the wall in which to plan study times can go a long way to initiating the correct behaviours.  The teenage brain, like many other ages, works best in the morning and late afternoon and evening. These are good times to study. The brain has capacity to concentrate for about an hour at a time, on a well-defined goal for that hour. Breaking up the enormity of study for a subject with your son or daughter can go a long way to effective use of study time. So preparing quotes for  Macbeth or learning how to solve simultaneous equations may be a more effective focus for an hour’s study than “English” or “Mathematics” respectively.

Good luck in your ventures. In having these discussions with your children do remember that they may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.   

Simon