Grandparents Day/ Music Concert

What a fantastic day, apart from the weather, Grandparents day was. We had around 300 grandparents attend and managed to sell 200 of the new cook books. These make fantastic presents for Christmas and we fully expect them to continue to sell well. Whitcoulls in Palmerston North has offered to sell them as has our own Haymans Book Shop in Marton. Hawke's Bay people can purchase these books at Diahann Boutique. A reminder that proceeds from the book are going towards providing a lift for injured boys to reach the top block.

The Music Concert was one of our best ever. The bands were amazing and I was extremely pleased to see a variety of performances. Certain boys really shone on the day and a number mentioned the quality of our bands. The rock band was great to watch and they even managed a few AC/DC songs! A real tribute to our guitarists.

Gisborne Show

Pam and I thouroughly enjoyed attending the Gisborne show, catching up with our families and old boys. A number of our old boys visited and kept me up to date with current happenings in their families. They always have facinating stories to tell about their time at Huntley.

We also enjoyed catching up with our friends from Wanganui Collegiate, Lindisfarne, Saint Paul's Collegiate and Hereworth. This year we took our whole family on the trip, it was the first time our boys had been to Gisborne. They thoroughly enjoyed all the rides and dining out. I am still recovering from a forced ride on the "Hurricane".

Teaching as inquiry

Development for 2010
Next year we will be choosing a school wide goal and using teaching as inquiry as the tool to achieve this goal. The reason we will be doing this is I believe that this process done well has the ability to move us forward professionally. As part of my experienced principals group I have chosen this as my project. My facilitator will be assessing our effectiveness in using this process. I believe we have come along way professionally over the last few years and that this is the next step on our learning journey.

What is teaching as inquiry?
Since any teaching strategy works differently in different contexts for different students, effective pedagogy requires that teachers inquire into the impact of their teaching on their students.
Inquiry into the teaching–learning relationship can be visualised as a cyclical process that goes on moment by moment (as teaching takes place), day by day, and over the longer term. In this process, the teacher asks:
· What is important (and therefore worth spending time on), given where my students are at? This focusing inquiry establishes a baseline and a direction. The teacher uses all available information to determine what their students have already learned and what they need to learn next.
· What strategies (evidence-based) are most likely to help my students learn this? In this teaching inquiry, the teacher uses evidence from research and from their own past practice and that of colleagues to plan teaching and learning opportunities aimed at achieving the outcomes prioritised in the focusing inquiry.
· What happened as a result of the teaching, and what are the implications for future teaching? In this learning inquiry, the teacher investigates the success of the teaching in terms of the prioritised outcomes, using a range of assessment approaches. They do this both while learning activities are in progress and also as longer-term sequences or units of work come to an end. They then analyse and interpret the information to consider what they should do next.