Swedish educators visit Pinehill

Today we hosted a group of 7 educators from Sweden who were here to look specifically at how we transition our 5 year olds into school. It is always a two way learning experience when we meet with school leaders from overseas and today proved again how much in common we have with schools all around the world.
Takeaways from today -
NZ schools are open to students significantly longer than in Sweden
Our teachers enjoy far greater professional autonomy
Our reputation for providing high achievement is world wide
Schools in Sweden are looking at digital learning - just like us
They have very generous PD budgets - this is the 4th time some of these educators have visited Pinehill 

An up date of the digital learning survey result

Thank you to the people who have responded to the digital learning survey already.
Here are some preliminary results to consider

• 100 % of respondents have internet access at home
• 72% of respondents have more than 3 internet capable devices
• Children make use of at least 2 of those devices
• 43% of children have their own internet capable device
• Over 90% of children make use of i pads, i pods and smart phones
• 53% of homes have internet filtering
• 54% of respondents are open to children bringing their own devices to school
• 67% of respondents are open to children using social media at school

These results are informed by the comments made in the feed back sections

I think Pinehill definitely needs to include digital learning as part of its learning programmes. However, I think the school needs to be clear about what it is used for and what they want to achieve by using it.

I have mixed feelings about digital learning, I believe it has it's place, but needs to be used very wisely. Especially at early Primary School level (Y1 &2).

I think digital learning is the way of the future. I extremely (sic) encourage children to use digital learning at school. I would certainly support this at Pinehill

It is great to see how the school has fully embraced the new digital learning as this is obviously how things will work in the future. Some teachers are obviously more technologically aware than others but it is good to see teachers helping each other out in getting up to speed in this area.

The survey closes on Friday 24 February - add your thoughts to help us plan more effectively for the digital learning programmes

2012 House leaders

This year our students have selected their student leaders from over 40 of our year 6 students who stood for election.
Later in the year our leaders will attend the NZ Young Leaders day to build their leadership skills
We look forward to this group working with us during the year

Digital Learning Survey

As part of the Digital learning focus this year, we are interested in finding what our parents feel about a number of aspects of digital learning. The first step in this is a short survey monkey that will be open until Friday February 24
Click here to take the survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T3KWFZN

The digital learning journey

Welcome to the new year at Pinehill.
This year a focus for us is developing our effective use of digital technologies. This is our focus because of the powerful impact digital learning can have on our children, who are true digital citizens.

We have already noted improved student engagement and parental support for children's learning in ways we have not seen before.

Join us on this exciting journey by following your child's class blogs and twitter feeds