Tapuaetahi Sandspit Restoration

The student team travelled to the sandspit today to begin work on weed removal, and to gather seeds for raising. This long term project is a special one for our school and we are proud to be kaitiaki of this precious environmental gem.

Excitement and anticipation as the team gather in front of the sandspit with Teresa, Emily and Romy to begin the task of weed removal.

Mahi and Isaac removing plenty of Iceplant from the sandspit area. Those bags get very heavy boys.

Well done Neva and Emily. Digging up those larger plants is not the easiest of jobs in this heat.

Nice work Soraya, the weed pile is just about taller than you.

Teresa taking the tamariki over the sand dunes to collect seeds from the pingao.

Year 8 Exhibition Project - Shaun

 Year 8 students in their graduating year complete an Exhibition project, reflecting a culmination of their learning and skill development in the IB Primary Years Programme. This is generally a fully student motivated passion project and may take a big portion of the latter part of the final year at the Bay Academy to complete.

Shaun has just begun to bring an action to his project, sending out messages seeking support with students across all of our classes. His kaupapa is shared in the image below.

Better Start Literacy in Rooms 1 and 2

2022 has seen a great deal of success for children in Rooms 1 and 2 as we have rolled out the Better Start Literacy approach. Our teachers have undergone extensive professional learning during the year, supported by our RTLB Nicola.

The document here explains what it is and summarises the impact of the BSLA for tamariki across Aotearoa.

For those with a desire to read more research about the BSLA approach these links may be of interest:

 

A Better Start Literacy Approach: effectiveness of Tier 1 and Tier 2 support within a response to teaching framework

The Evolution of an Innovative Online Task to Monitor Children's Oral Narrative Development

Impacting change in classroom literacy instruction: A further investigation of the Better Start Literacy Approach

Early Literacy Initiative: Ready to Read Phonics Plus Project

Better Start Literacy Approach: National Implementation ImpactLab Good Measure Report

Teachers as learners

 

During 2022 teachers Sarah Ross and Doris Anschober have been participating in a Hybrid Learning professional learning journey with a group of other teachers from Te Tai Tokerau. On Saturdy they presented their findings to the Ministry of Education at a hui in Bream Bay.

The Bay Academy was selected along with Bream Bay College as the only two Northland schools to receive funding to research techniques to engage with children not in school due to circumstances outside their control. This was a project designed to open the doors to the classroom and to learning for children away from school. A number of parents also contributed to the research carried out by our teachers.

The Ministry will seek to share the learning from the project widely across the schools in Te Tai Tokerau with a view to continuing to engage with a high number of children currently disengaged with their schools and learning.

We are very grateful for the dedicated work put in by Sarah and Doris in an already busy programme. Their findings and those of others in the project will serve to inform how we continue to improve the way learning is made available to students and their families into the future.

You can read more about the project in this blog post https://futuremakers.nz/2022/11/20/8-insights-for-achieving-resilience/.

The project website is here https://sites.google.com/breambaycollege.school.nz/hybridlearningtaitokerau/home

Soccer Skills

 James Coleman of the Northern Regional Football Association offered our children the opportunity of joining their soccer skills programme in schools. All the children were involved in sessions learning and practicing a range of kicking and passing skills. These sessions were expertly run by Pete from the NRF. With the start of the FIFA football world cup this was an opportunity to grow children's interest in the 'beautiful game'. 

Disco Fun

 A big thanks to the teachers, senior students and all the parent helpers for the organisation for our disco on Friday evening. It was another great opportunity to get together again as a community and enjoy some dress up fun and music.

A special mention to Tiana, Dee and Thalessia for their great organisation and work with food preparation, Olga for being DJ extraordinaire, Monique for her tireless 'do everything' support, and all the other parents who supplied music equipment and made other contributions to the success of the afternoon. Thank you all.

Trapping team

The trapping team have been continuing their good work around the school to assist with pest control in our region. Zane from Kiwi Coast has been visiting regularly to support the team and has added some of our traps to the network of traps being monitored.

Currently 2 traps have been GPS'ed and are visible towards the back of the school grounds. These are significant traps with stoats as the possible prey, although they will also eliminate rats.

We will continue to develop our recording of pests trapped. The team will be looking to expand their reach in the community as time goes on with the hope that they can encourage others to keep and maintain traps in the neighbourhood.

The trapping team are currently Phoenix, Oakley (Room 5), Louie, Ethan, Mahi (Room 4). We will expand the group based on interest and the group will also help to train younger students in Room 3 with an eye to the future.

Staff Changes 2023

Tēnā koutou katoa parents, whānau and community,

We would like to let you know about upcoming changes in our teaching team for 2023. Haere rā. This year we will farewell long serving teachers Sarah Ross and Angela Brewer from our school. Sarah is heading to Wellington to be closer to her family and Angela is seeking to broaden her career, taking up a new opportunity at Oromahoe School. We will also say goodbye to Sophie Malone who has been with us for a year. We wish them all well as they embark on new futures.

Nau mai, haere mai! We are very excited to be welcoming three new teachers to our team in 2023. Angela Miller, who has previous experience teaching at the Bay Academy, will join us in Room 2. Rona Lawson is very pleased to be joining us and will teach in Room 4. Rona has recently worked at Kaeo School and is much loved by her students there. She too has had experience teaching her at the Bay Academy during her teacher training. Michael Baty, who is currently working at Kerikeri Primary School, will also join us in 2023. Michael brings a wealth of teaching and IB experience having recently returned to New Zealand after leading an IB PYP school in the Middle East. Michael will teach our intermediate students in Room 5 and will take on deputy principal and IB coordinator responsibilities for our school. A warm welcome to all three.

Rona and Michael have shared their welcome statements with us below. Angela's will follow. We look forward to providing you our community the opportunity early next year to meet the new team.

Ngā mihi