Welcome to our school

The small school where every child counts!

Many advantages come with being a small school, especially when it comes to leading the way.

Our size makes it easy to adopt new and innovative programmes and ideas across the entire school, allowing our teachers to be as creative and innovative as our pupils!

Here are a few highlights of what happens at St Leonards.

connect to your environment and create change for a sustainable world at a

green-gold Enviroschool

We are proud to be one of only four Green-Gold Enviroschools in Dunedin. This means that environmental sustainability is considered in all of our decisions and everything we do.

Enquiry and action is led mainly by our children who have a strong sense of connection to the environment and know they can effect change for a sustainable world.

Our school values are a living document, regularly evaluated and updated by teachers and children.

We set high expectations for children to embrace these values, not just in the classroom, but in all areas of their life including in the playground, at home and in the community.

Be an

achiever

ask questions
be curious
don't assume it's true - find out if it is a fact

Be a

self manager

make good choices
problem solve
clean up after yourself
have a positive attitude

Be a

problem solver

think outside the box
use what you know
learn from your mistakes

Be

involved

ask questions
be curious
take opportunities
join in

Be

respectful

listen & look at the person who is speaking
tidy up after yourself
look after each other
respect equipment & sports gear

Be environmentally

friendly

Be environmentally

friendly

keep our environment clean
turn of electric switches
don't waste paper
don't drop rubbish

be active

Children's bodies are made to move! Settling down to learn in the classroom is much easier if you have expended some energy first.

At the start of every day the whole school comes together to run, skip or dance with Jump Jam.

We have three physical education sessions a week which include one Play is the Way session and two sesions learning fundamental sports skills, such as ball skills, athletics or learning a game.

Every year the whole school takes part in the West Harbour sports day, the school Fun Run - a 4km (yes 4km!) run on the harbour walk and cycleway, and our school swimming blocks with JC Swim School.

The number of sports teams we field are a testament to how active our children are. School sports teams your child might like to join include futsal, hockey and netball.

Our school playground is so much fun we notice many kids don't want to leave at 3pm! Children are outdoors at morning tea and lunchtimes, with the only exceptions being those days it is absolutely pouring down.

Structured Learning

Structured Literacy and Structured Maths, which have been making headlines in the media, are not new to us at St Leonards. These approaches are deeply ingrained in our curriculum, reflecting our commitment to providing the best education for our tamariki.

Structured literacy is an approach that has emerged from the science of reading - a large body of research that seeks to understand how brains learn to read. Despite the notion that everyone learns differently, brain scan research has shown that the same process happens in all brains when they successfully learn to read. Structured literacy builds on this body of evidence and teaches reading and spelling explicitly, systematically and cumulatively. It considers "cognitive load," the amount of new information that a brain needs to complete a given task, and "executive function," the control tower that discerns what to focus on, prioritise and do.

While all brains follow the same path to learn to read, they don't all start at the same point or progress at the same rate. Recognising the diversity of brains, we understand that some children need more repetition of a new skill to make it automatic. Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words, is also crucial. Learners need to master these skills before moving forward, as they form the foundation of all reading and spelling progress.

While the body of research supporting Structured Maths is less than that supporting literacy, there is enough evidence to support the notion that ideal maths teaching that is systematic, cumulative, and with lots of opportunities to practise will set up our learners for success.

Structured literacy has been embedded in our teaching practice for over four years. Both teachers and Lynne, our teacher aide, have undergone professional development in this area. Alice's role in the Kāhui Ako is to help other schools implement structured literacy. Structured maths is also deeply embedded through our use of the PR1ME curriculum.

We will share with you what structured literacy and structured maths look like in the classroom for all levels at a later time, as well as other vital aspects of our literacy and maths programs. In the meantime, please get in touch if you have any questions about our classroom programme.

I love doing our passion projects at school because people help you to make things like my birdhouse.

AJ (10)

every child takes part

Whole-school assemblys, school trips, the End-of-Year Show, every child will take part in all of our school activities, not just a selected few.

By working together across all ages, older children develop fantastic leadership abilities and younger children have strong role models to help extend their learning.