At Yendarra School, we are proud of our ability to ensure that every child every day experiences a tranquil haven with highly effective teaching and learning programmes. Yendarra parents are excited about their children actually wanting to come to school every day. They love seeing their children thrive in our safe and nurturing environment.
Education Review Office visit May 2019
We are humbled and incredibly proud of our latest ERO report from May 2019.
Our reviewers described their visit to Yendarra as “exciting, very emotional, overwhelming and a privilege to visit.” One of the reviewers, who has been with ERO for many years and visited many schools said she had to keep “biting her tongue to stop herself from crying with what she saw and heard.” The other, wished that her child could attend Yendarra School.
Some of ERO’s korero included:
* The way we use Māori and Pasifika values
* The way we use the diversity of identity and culture to strengthen our practices- our kids’ culture matters and we celebrate it
* The words we use are all wrapped in aroha
* The respect we have for both tamariki and their whānau
* The strong focus on hauora (wellbeing)
* The strong promotion of belonging
* The enactment of our school values- whanaungatanga, aroha, manaakitanga, piripono and koha
* The alignment between our school expectations and Māori and Pasifika values e.g we sit together to eat, karakia before we eat, morning lotu, shoes off before we enter the classroom, hats off during karakia
* That for 5 hours a day we try and make school special for our tamariki
* The unity, teamwork and respect our staff have for each other and our tamariki
* Our love for our tamariki in caring what our kids eat- kai here is about spiritual kai, physical kai, hauora kai
* Our high aspirations for our tamariki to succeed and to become whatever they dream to be
* Tamariki pride and whānau support with our school uniform
* Our aroha and care about tamariki coming to school everyday
* Our pristine, orderly and supportive school environment that allows tamariki to thrive
* We are mana enhancing, focusing on each others strengths
* Our strong commitment to The Treaty of Waitangi
* Our great love and care for our tamariki
Yendarra was the first Ōtara school to receive ERO’s highest recognition with consecutive ‘gold medals’. ERO’s overall judgement of Yendarra’s performance in valued outcomes for our students is STRONG.
Read their full report here.
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LITERACY
Literacy is a learning priority at Yendarra School. We aim to develop competent, confident and articulate tamariki who can apply their reading and writing skills to everyday life.
Tamariki are provided with exciting, authentic and relevant literacy opportunities each day. Classrooms are print-rich, our library is fully-stocked and tamariki have ready access to quality reading and writing materials.
NUMERACY
We want tamariki to experience success in mathematics, so that they can continue to use their numeracy skills throughout their lives. We know it is important for children to understand how maths relates to their everyday lives, so when developing numeracy skills use authentic contexts as often as possible. For example: shopping for whānau food, sharing things with others, spending money wisely.
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY
Play can be a gateway to learning, because it develops imagination, creativity, problem-solving abilities and social skills. One exciting learning environment is Te iti Pounamu, where our youngest children learn to develop important social skills such as sharing, working together and learning oral language through imaginative play.
INQUIRY LEARNING
Learning is no longer just about learning facts; it is more about learning how to learn. Through inquiry-based learning, students discover how to think about the strengths and weaknesses of their own thinking when they are learning, which helps them to make thoughtful decisions on what to do next.
The walls of classrooms are disappearing as we move away from the traditional teaching styles to embrace learning experiences that are more relevant and personalised to our students. We use classroom spaces differently, and we take learning beyond the classroom whenever we can.
In equipping students for the global workplace, we recognise the need to teach differently and embrace technology to develop the ‘knowledge worker’. Easy internet access and web-based tools allow schools to meet the demands of our rapidly changing society. We aim to equip our students with the thinking, problem-solving, self-management and resilience abilities needed to succeed in the employment world of the future.
FOCUSED LEARNING
We are proud of the classroom programmes that operate each day at Yendarra School. Tamariki are engaged in meaningful learning and visitors often comment on the peaceful-feeling that permeates our classrooms and playground.
Music, singing and dancing are a strength of our school. We make the most of the immense skills and talent within our teaching and parent communities. Every year Yendarra performance groups delight many different audiences around Auckland.
We believe in inclusive education, so we have created focused learning environments to cater for the different groups within our school. For tamariki who require an extra boost to their literacy and numeracy, we have ‘Learning Personal Trainers’ to provide further support over and above the classroom programme.
