Term 1 2020
New Vision and Values – Same Great Place to Grow
Kia ora whānau,
The Board is very excited to share with you the School’s new Vision...
The Board is very excited to share with you the School’s new Vision...
Connecting with our people, our learning and our place.
Last year our whānau, ākonga and staff all contributed to the co-construction of a new Vision to underpin everything we do at Sumner School. This is a substantial piece of work which underpins everything we do at Sumner School, so a massive thank you to all in the Sumner School community who contributed. You will notice that the intentions behind our new Vision are not drastically different from that of our community ten years ago, instead it builds on our past vision while emphasising the needs of our current community.
Our Vision focuses on the critical importance and interconnection between our relationships with people and the community, our learning and the environment where this all takes place.
Our Vision focuses on the critical importance and interconnection between our relationships with people and the community, our learning and the environment where this all takes place.
Our new values
Flowing from our new Vision are our new School Values. These have purposefully been chosen in Te Reo, and represent our commitment as a school to recognise and acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the bicultural foundations of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Our new values draw together all the feedback we received last year. An overwhelming response from the feedback we received was about educating the ‘whole child’ and making sure we educate our children’s hearts, heads and hands. This is reflected in the values that we have chosen alongside Ngāi Tahu iwi that are designed to be stepping stones to achieving our vision.
Whanaungatanga - Is all about the value we place on our people. It has Whānau at its centre, recognising the critical role of family in the growth of our children and the importance of respect and relationships with everyone in our school whānau. Character Strengths our children will demonstrate when living this value include Kindness and Social Intelligence.
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Mōhiotanga - Is all about the value we place on our learning. Mōhiotanga is about developing as lifelong learners and the fact that learning is not just the end product, it is about developing a love of learning and the pathway that gets us there. Character strengths from our children include Love of Learning, Curiosity and Self Regulation.
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Kaitiakitanga - Is all about how we value our place. This value acknowledges the important role we all play as guardians of our environment, language, culture and place. The Character Strengths of Appreciation of beauty and excellence and gratitude demonstrate this value.
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The Whole Story – Our School Charter
The full story and context of our new Vision and Values is captured in our School Charter. The School Charter explains our Cultural Narrative (the local context for our school), our Mission (our Purpose), the Vision (how we will achieve our purpose) and Values (what it will look like), Character Strengths, our strategic plan for the next three years and the annual operational plan for how this will happen at Sumner School this year.
A link to our new Charter containing the Strategic Plan and Annual Plan can be found here.
A link to our new Charter containing the Strategic Plan and Annual Plan can be found here.
Graduate Profiles
The Charter also includes our Graduate Profile. This is what we are aiming to achieve for every child by the time they leave us at the end of year eight for high school. Aligned to each value it is what we want to see children be able to “Do, Be and Know” by the time they leave us.
What Next?
One of the first changes will be the introduction of the new student awards in assembly from Week 7. Our Value awards will celebrate students demonstrating the new school values and will replace the Surfer awards.
The Charter is a really big read and we all learn in different ways! If reading chunky documents is not your thing, then don’t worry, as the ‘Sumnerflix’ series will be hitting your screens over the coming months to step you through each of the important parts of this document. The teachers will also be working to explicitly teach our children about these values so that they understand what they look like and feel like in our school. We will also be making sure there are plenty of bite size learning opportunities for all of our parents and whānau too!
As always, we welcome your feedback and look forward to working with the School, community and students to bring life to our new Vision and Values.
The Charter is a really big read and we all learn in different ways! If reading chunky documents is not your thing, then don’t worry, as the ‘Sumnerflix’ series will be hitting your screens over the coming months to step you through each of the important parts of this document. The teachers will also be working to explicitly teach our children about these values so that they understand what they look like and feel like in our school. We will also be making sure there are plenty of bite size learning opportunities for all of our parents and whānau too!
As always, we welcome your feedback and look forward to working with the School, community and students to bring life to our new Vision and Values.
Ngā mihi nui
Sumner School Board of Trustees
Sumner School Board of Trustees
