Purapura (Years 0–2)
Welcome to the Purapura whānau!
New Entrants, Year 1 and Year 2.
Our whanau believes in encouraging every child to be a curious and motivated learner who bring their own passions, knowledge and personality to share with the team. We are very lucky at GHS to have a wonderful team of teachers and teacher aides committed to teaching and nurturing the Tamariki together with their whānau. In Purapura, we are driven by our school values and our Positive Behaviour to Learning approach, ‘The GHS Way’. We place emphasis on Social & Emotional coaching to support our children to form relationships, solve problems and become confident GHS citizens. This is balanced by an academic approach that builds the foundational skills through a structured Literacy and Numeracy approach. Through topic-based studies we help the children develop an inquiring mind.
But…we can’t do it alone! When you join GHS in the Purapura whānau, you are making a commitment to ‘teaching and nurturing our community together’. This is our school mission and we truly believe in what we are trying to achieve. In the Purapura whānau we will support you, as much as your children, to create a successful school experience for all. Using Hero, attending workshops, checking in with your child’s class teacher, working with your child on their goals at home are all ways you can work with us to do this.
Purapura Whanau New Entrants:
Led by Gill Steel, we have an amazing programme in place for our New Entrants and their families. Whether you are old hands at GHS, or new to our community, Gill and the team work hard to foster positive relationships with whānau, and get to know them even before they start. At school, we support the children to explore and discover new learning through research-based approaches to Reading, Writing and Maths; using equipment such as Numicon and a tailored structured literacy programme.
Year 1 & 2:
As the children move through the first two years of school, our team of experienced and dedicated teachers continue to foster that sense of awe, wonder and inquiry; whilst at the same time, developing independence and responsibility. We build on the learning from your child’s first ‘settling term’ at school as a New Entrant, using the same equipment and approach to Reading, Writing and Maths. This way, the children experience consistency and develop confidence in knowing what school is ‘all about’. In these years, your child becomes more aware of their own abilities, and will work more closely with their teacher to identify their strengths and next learning goals. By the time they move on to the Teina whānau, in Year 3, the tamariki are ready for that challenge!
At Gulf Harbour School we have two intakes of children every term. We are a zoned school. Please check our website for more information.
Children can only start school if they are 5 years of age. It is not compulsory for children to start school at 5. Parents have up until the age of 6 to start their children at school.
For more information on Enrolments please click here
Teaching and Nurturing our School Together.
Our GHS Purapura POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR PLAN – is based on ‘Teaching and Nurturing our Community Together’ – this is often referred to as ‘The GHS Way’ and we work towards having a confident GHS citizen who can collaborate, communicate, be creative and who can problem solve.
At GHS te reo & te ao Māori are integral to teaching & learning. Children are exposed to, and explore, a range of concepts & vocabulary through daily teaching opportunities, immersive experiences & dedicated teaching resources such as Kapa Haka online. Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles are at the core of life at GHS and we are continually looking at ways to enhance our culturally responsive practices. We have a junior Kapa Haka group that students can opt to join. As they progress through the school they join the Teina and then Tuakana Kapa Haka and continue to deepen their understanding and broaden their te reo ability.
At Gulf Harbour School, we are using Numicon which is a systematic and progressive approach to teaching mathematics. It provides access to learning mathematics through concrete apparatus and practical resources. Numicon provides our students with an experience of numbers through a structured set of activities with shapes and pegs or counters. The way numbers are split into parts is evident from the beginning, along with the comparison of patterns.
What is Numicon?
Numicon is Based on a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach. It encourages children to explore mathematics using structured imagery and apparatus in order to understand and explain mathematical concepts. It is a distinctive approach to children’s mathematical learning that emphasizes three key aspects of doing mathematics: communicating mathematically, exploring relationships, and generalizing. It encourages conversation and is hands-on. Problem-solving and inquiry learning are key aspects of Numicon.
Why Numicon?
The aim of Numicon is to make numbers real for children through them being able to see and touch them. Each Numicon shape gives children an image of what a number looks like. They begin to see the relationship between numbers, with each piece having one hole more than the previous one. It appeals to their strong sense of pattern, and helps them understand how numbers fit together. All areas of mathematics, number and algebra, geometry, measurement and statistics can be taught through Numicon.
Below is a video where Dr Tony Wing explains numbers and Numicon.
What is Structured Literacy?
A Structured Literacy approach is a pedagogical approach to teaching literacy. It is based on the science of reading and backed up by extensive research into the process of how we learn to read. Many different programmes are based on this approach. They all share the systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading and writing, by teaching comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, alphabetic principle (the understanding of letter/sound relationships), and phonological awareness (the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language which sets the stage for decoding, encoding, and, ultimately, word reading) interdependently. Structured literacy programmes combine decoding and encoding and follow a systematic approach with a clearly defined scope and sequence of the sounds that are taught. The students are taught strategies to decode and encode that can be applied to all phonemes in the English language.
While struggling readers often use their visual memory and try to remember the shape of words, proficient readers use their auditory memory and store information about letters in connection with the sounds they make. The process of retrieving sound/grapheme information to decode words quickly is called orthographic mapping. Learners that struggle to read need to be taught explicitly to hear sounds within words and to manipulate them. Research shows that phonological awareness and skills such as phoneme manipulation, the breaking and making of words, and the development of decoding strategies are essential for the development of orthographic mapping within the process of learning how to read. Structured Literacy addresses exactly that.
Why use a structured literacy approach?
The current New Zealand approach to teaching reading and spelling has been a successful approach for many years. As a matter of fact, a lot of elements of Structured Literacy have been part of successful reading programmes at New Zealand schools. That’s why this approach does not feel entirely new. However, Structured Literacy elements are interdependent, systematic, and explicitly taught through all components of a Structured Literacy programme, which goes beyond the approach that has been used at New Zealand schools in recent times.
Research shows – and we have been noticing – a growing number of students at our school that we have been failing. This means we have seen more Tier 2 students across the whole school. We know that we are not alone with these observations. In 2021, the Ministry of Education introduced the Better Start to Literacy Approach, which is a structured literacy programme, to respond to a growing need at our schools in New Zealand. Better Start targets Year 1. This development suited our school, as we had been exploring the Structured Literacy approach since 2019. Our Year 1 teachers have either gained micro-credentials in the Better Start programme in 2021 or are taking their papers this year, 2022.
How the structured literacy programme then assists learners to be writers
As the students become more aware of the phonemes (sounds that letters make), they start to record what sounds they can hear in words that they want to write. They work to crack the code of spelling rules so that they can expand on what they can write with confidence. At Gulf Harbour School, we have developed a scope and sequence that the teachers and students follow that is developmentally appropriate. The students are regularly assessed to check they are acquiring new knowledge and skills, and we have a number of different interventions to assist students that need further instruction or repetition of the key skills.
At GHS we are learning how to learn!
We are curious. We make new knowledge. We are excited by the magic this brings!
We learn by taking this journey in our WAKA.
