Bell Timings

8.15 am – School grounds open for students

8.50 am – Start of the school day

10.30am – 10.50am – Morning Tea

12.30pm – 1.30pm – Lunch Time

3.00 pm – End of School Day

• Resources and Online Activities Year 1 and 2
• Resources and Online Activities Year 3 and 4
• Resources and Online Activities Year 5 and 6

• Year One
• Year Two
• Year Three
• Year Four
• Year Five 
• Year Six  

1. Asthma Action Plan
2. Action Plan for Anaphylaxis
3. Administer Medication Form
4. Modern School of Music application form
5. Travelwise High Visibility Vest order form
6. Police Vetting Consent and Consent Form
7. Fair Play Agreement Form

Our reporting processes are designed to provide timely and quality information about your child’s learning.

At the beginning of term 1, your child will bring home a Student Information for Teachers sheet where you are able to fill in details of your child’s needs and interests. This assists class teachers in understanding your child’s learning needs and your aspirations for them in the coming year.

3 Way Conferences are held twice yearly at all class levels so that all children can share their learning outcomes with parents.  You will be advised of the details of these through our weekly newsletter in the weeks prior.

Written reports are issued at the end Term 2 and the end of Term 4.

All staff are available at other times to discuss your child’s learning.  The best way to make contact with your child’s teacher is via email.  See the staff page for email addresses.

Please click on the link to book a School Interview.

• Each conference takes 15mins –  Your child will talk about their learning
• There will be an opportunity during this time for a discussion without your child present if requested by their teacher or yourself
• A timetable is available online – You are able to book conference times online: Click here

• Families with more than one child attending the school should make their bookings for times for all children leaving at least one appointment time between each child’s conference.
• It is recognised that if our children are to be successful in the future they must be given the skills to learn how to learn. We want them to understand that learning is something they do, it is not something done to them. Strategies like Three-Way Conferencing increasingly lead students towards becoming self-directed, independent learners.
• Where 3WC is held, students become responsible for leading the discussion and providing evidence of progress and achievement. Their task is to provide a range of work to illustrate the progress they have made. Three-way conferences ensure that the focus remains on the students and the critical role they have in determining their own next steps for learning.
• If students are to develop as independent learners they must reflect on their own progress and look at what they can learn from what they have accomplished. This is becoming an integral part of their classroom programme. The 3WC is an opportunity for those supporting the learner to assist in developing their skills of reflection.
• Metacognition is our ability to know what we know and what we don’t know. It is our ability to plan a strategy for producing what information is needed, to be conscious of our own steps and strategies during the act of problem-solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our own thinking. Thinking about thinking begets more thinking. (Costa, 1991)
• Reflection is the key to metacognition – the process of learning to learn. Reflection encourages students to think about their own thinking. It develops their ability to know how to think, and not simply what to think. Reflection is being able to stand back, to think about what has been done well, to identify difficulties, and to focus on areas for improvement… Where students are able to reflect on their current strengths and weaknesses, they are in a strong position to set their own future goals.
• Where students set goals, individuals were shown to have made impressive gains in terms of academic achievement…. (Atman 1988)
• When students know assessment criteria prior to commencing work, there is a much greater likelihood that the learning goals will be achieved. Students can assess their own work against stated standards. Clear performance standards give students a goal towards which they should strive. They know what is required to achieve.

  These understandings give students skills for life in learning how to learn. We are empowering them to become self-directed, independent, lifelong learners, able to cope with whatever challenges they may face in the future.

  Your Role as a Parent

  1. Be an active participant in your child’s learning
  2. Focus on learning about processes (skills) not content (facts)
  3. Ask questions about their learning and next steps for future learning

  Questions you could ask your child to help discuss their learning:

  • What have you been learning?
  • Tell me what you think you are doing well?
  • What helped with this learning?
  • What did you find difficult?
  • What do you need help with?
  • What are your next learning steps?

Road Safety

As part of our Road Safety Campaign and to keep our students safe we have added some links to useful sites published by Auckland Transport.  We hope you find some of this information helpful.

• Benefits of Walking
• 40km Speed Limit 
• How to Park Safely 
• Travelwise
• Walking School Bus
• New Zealand Transport Agency – Safety for Children

Parking Safely

• How to Park Safely
• Where not to Park

Roots of Empathy is an evidence-based classroom programme that has shown a significant effect in reducing levels of aggression and bullying among school children while raising social-emotional competence and increasing empathy. This programme is being run in our three Year Four classes (8-year-old students). The instructors are Judy Mulder and Sarah Ward. Our philosophy is that if we teach the programme at this level, we are setting the students up to be effective role models in our senior school.

• Meet the Baby
• Crying
• Caring and Planning for a baby
• Emotions
• Sleep
• Safety
• Communicating
• Who Am I?
• Farewell and Good Wishes
• Celebration

 

Each theme consists of a pre-visit, a family visit and a post-visit. There are 27 lessons in total. During the family visit our tiny teacher (our baby) and their Mum visit the classroom as honorary class members. The family visit 10 times between February and December, for 45 minutes, every 3-4 weeks. The students share in the milestones of the baby’s development. Through this face-to-face engagement, they become more understanding of the needs of others. This culminates with a celebration for the last visit in which the family is presented with a photo album. The lesson is centred around the green blanket. Through toys, music and observation the children celebrate the milestones of the baby.

 

The goals of the programme are :

• To foster the development of Empathy (to put yourself in someone else’s shoes)
• To develop emotional literacy
• To reduce the levels of bullying, aggression and violence
• To foster pro-social behaviours
• To increase knowledge of human development, learning and infant safety
• To prepare students for responsible citizenship and responsive parenting.

 

• To view, the Roots of Empathy website for more information click here.
• Please click here to view the roll of honour.

 

Pinehill Roots of Empathy families, students and teachers celebrated their year with Auckland RoE babies this week. We were privileged to have the founder of the programme, Mary Gordon from Canada join us. Jacinda Ardern, Labour MP and children’s advocate also spoke about the importance of what the students have been learning. Thanks to all the families who have participated in the programme and the babies who have taught us so much. The RoE charitable trust is continuing to search for funding to allow the programme to grow in NZ.

If you are interested in being a Roots of Empathy family please contact:
[email protected] or [email protected]

How does it work?

Benefits of the Walking School Bus  

Walking School Bus Road Safety and Hazard Identification Guidelines

Travelwise

TravelWise is an ongoing project with a set of practical actions that aim to improve road safety and promote sustainable school travel journeys. It is a partnership between Auckland Transport and the school. Our school is committed to safe, active and sustainable travel to and from school.

The benefits include:

• Reduced traffic congestion at the school gates, this improves safety for all children.
• Reduction of polluting car emissions in the environment.
• Helping children learn road safety skills and become familiar with their community.
• Improved engineering infrastructure to promote walking / cycling within the school zone.
• Encouraging walking / cycling to improve children’s fitness and health.
• Encouraging walking / cycling to ensure that children arrive alert and ready to learn.
• Promoting the Walking School Bus

The “TravelWise” school travel plan has been developed in consultation with the students, staff, and parents.

We encourage all our children to walk, or scooter to and from school.

In order to make this a safer process we have adopted a number of practices which we hope will encourage parents to support the idea of walking, scootering or biking to school.

• We have a 40 kph speed zone around all the approaches to our school
• We have supervised crossings on Hugh Green Drive and Spencer Road
• We have a walking school bus route – currently cancelled due to lack of supervision.
• Free High Viz vests are provided by Auckland Transport to children who have permission to scooter or bike regularly to and from school (forms are available at the School Office or click here)
• Road Safety is taught regularly as part of our curriculum

More information about the TravelWise programme can be found at http://www.travelwise.org.nz/ 

More information about TravelWise and Walking School Buses across Auckland can be found at http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

We use Kindo for our School Shop.

Please click here for more info

All stationery orders can be completed online by clicking here.

Education Review Office

Partners in Learning Booklet – Helping your child do well at school.  This booklet is for all parents and carers who want their child to do well at school.  The information in this booklet will help you know what to expect from your child’s school.  Please click here for the booklet.

The Resilience Project is a well-being programme that has been delivered to over 1000 schools and early learning centres across Australia and is now being delivered to schools in New Zealand. The programme has been designed by teachers for teachers, and has been evaluated by the University of Melbourne.

It is designed to share positive mental health strategies with the whole school community – teachers, students, parents and carers – to support the implementation of a wellbeing curriculum to build resilience, happiness, and drive sustainable change. 

The emotionally engaging programmes deliver a combination of presentations, student curriculum, teacher resources, digital content, and ongoing support from The Resilience Project Education team.

The curriculum is evidence-based and mapped to the New Zealand Curriculum Framework: focussing on Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness (GEM) and Emotional Literacy.

The Resilience Project works with parents and carers in the school community because wellbeing is relevant to them too. Equally important, as the program is implemented in the classroom, students will naturally take it home, ask questions and spark conversation. 

A series of parent and carer presentations (videos 5-10 minutes long) have been developed that are designed to equip parents with experience and answers. We also provide parents and carers with strategies for their own mental health. 

The following resources to support this: 

A dedicated Parents and Carer Hub-hosted on The Resilience Project website that can be accessed at any time (via a secure link, no login required). This includes parent presentations (videos), links to research and additional resources, and – wellbeing activities to complete. Parent and Carer Hub – The Resilience Project.

TRP @ Home shared with families (theresilienceproject.com.au)