Welcome to our latest update of information and stories you may be interested in... Please make sure you read the conference information in particular around registration. Jane. 
Conference Update - Important Registration Information Welcome to the sixth Conference update, there will be further news, information and guidance in weekly editions of Kōrero. The Conference is being held on July 10th 2018, 8.30 am to 5.15pm, at the Te Papa Museum, in Wellington. The overarching lens for this year’s Conference is PANONI - Celebrate! Challenge! Change! - With the aim of transforming our practice, assumptions, and ways of being! We look forward to another wonderful Conference! Administrators and Teacher Aides Conference Registration Administrators and Teacher Aides please can you confirm your attendance by emailing tania.braybrook@wmkindergartens.org.nz by the Wednesday 20thJune 2018. In this e-mail please also include any specific dietary requirements for Monday lunch, and whether you are intending to stay on for drinks and nibbles at the end of the day. We look forward to seeing you there. All Staff Conference Registration ENROLMENT OPENED in HR.Net on Monday 11th June 2018 - registration will be open until Wednesday 20th June at 5.00pm. Thank you to everyone who has enrolled for conference. Please note, it is important that staff only select a presentation from the available options. If a presentation is not showing up on HR.Net it is already at capacity so cannot accommodate any further enrolments. Please note that each staff member must enrol into HR.NET using their personal login details. Any concerns, queries or questions about HR.Net please contact Hannah To’omaga on Hannah.toomaga@wmkindergartens.org.nz. If you have registered for conference already please do not try to re-register! Tuesday 10th July All Staff Conference Information for Keynotes and Presentations All Staff Conference on Tuesday 10thJuly will consist of three compulsory Keynotes (please note that you will automatically be enrolled into these), and you will choose two further presentations to attend. You will need to register your choice of presentations as below: Enrolment for the Conference Presentation Session 1 – choose your first presentation! Please choose ONE presentation from the following: Presentation 1: Dr Ann Milne Dr Ann Milne is a strong critic of pervasive, deficit-driven explanations of “achievement gaps” and Māori and Pasifika “under-achievement.” Colouring in the White Spaces: Lessons from my Mokopuna In my role as a Pākehā educator, researcher, writer, and former school principal, and in the work I am doing now, I find schools continually asking for support for what they mostly perceive to be the “problem” with Māori achievement and Māori education. It’s an issue where the interest is huge, and we have a lot to learn. Wearing my other hat, the one that is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother of Māori children, in a whānau that has been on a deliberate trajectory to the point where my great-grandchildren speak fluent Māori and no English, I have no more patience with the idea that further generations of our babies are going to be failed by our education system, while we mess around collaborating about their deficits. A child develops a secure cultural identity when the environment and the ecosystem around them, provide opportunities for learning, practising, and normalising cultural values, and these are embedded in teacher learning and practice. How’s your ecosystem doing? OR Presentation 2: Claire Jongepier Claire Jongepier is the Head teacher of the Hill Street Early Childhood Centre, a community based Centre in Wellington. She has worked both in kindergartens and early childhood centres for over 30 years. She has built up a wealth of knowledge and experience in working with a wide age range of tamariki and is particularly passionate about working with infants and toddlers. She has also worked as a senior teacher with Whanau Manaaki kindergartens and has worked with students and teachers delivering a wide range of professional development opportunities. What? Not another nappy! For some kaiako the mundane repetitive nature of everyday care routines can be tedious and time consuming getting in the way of “real teaching”. Let’s reconceptualise these moments as being rituals with wonderful joyous moments full of learning. Relationships that are respectful and responsive have a life time impact on our ākonga, they build the foundations for effective learning. You can make a real difference in how tamariki build strong healthy minds, bodies and spirits from the way you view and respond to these moments. OR Presentation 3: Glenda Rowe Glenda has worked in Early Learning for 28 years including teaching in most service types, working in the Ministry of Education, Education Council and most recently managing seven ECE services. She is excited by the new Code of professional responsibility and what it might mean for guiding and supporting great teaching practice. Shaping Futures: our professional responsibility to society What is our responsibility as teachers to enact the new Code of Professional Responsibility's 'Commitment to Society'? How can we promote social justice in our teaching to reduce biases so that all children, families, whānau and colleagues can participate fully in education to ensure equity of excellence? Presentation Session 2 – now choose your second session! Please choose ONE presentation from the following: Presentation 4: Lyn Wright Lyn has been a Senior Teacher with Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens since 2013 and has been involved in ECE for the past 34 years. She was involved in delivering PLD during the early days of Te Whāriki and has been passionately promoting children as capable and competent learners and communicators ever since. Have we shifted paradigms - learning or learned? For a while now I have been grappling with how teachers’ practices can support children as learners, rather than focussing on what has been learned. In this presentation I will challenge you with some of the thoughts that have been challenging me. OR Presentation 5: Papamoa Kindergarten Teaching Team Our very experienced teaching team places a strong emphasis on providing an authentic, inclusive learning programme that caters for and reflects all childrens needs and interests. We endeavour to Build Learning Power in our tamariki through supporting all of our children to become better learners. Knowing how they learn, and supporting them in exercising their learning muscles is crucial if children are to be confident and competent lifelong learners in the 21st century. Our kindergarten philosophy developed in consultation with our whānau is based upon six pou/foundational posts. Whanaungatanga/relationships, ako/teaching and learning, wairuatanga/spirituality, manaakitanga/kindness and generosity, rangatiratanga/leadership, and social justice are the posts we believe reflect the very essence of our place. Innovative Bicultural Pedagogy: Building and Making Visible Children’s Learner Identity. Through genuine engagement and collaboration with kindergarten Māori whānau, the Papamoa Kindergarten teaching team developed a bicultural teaching, learning and assessment framework specifically tailored for our place which supports tamariki in becoming 21st century competent and confident lifelong ākonga/learners; who have very clear ideas about their learner identity and who view themselves as learners in different contexts over time. This presentation takes you on a journey from 2015 through to 2018 and shows the transformative change that has taken place during this time. It will explore how our practice needed to change to enable us to genuinely engage with our Māori whānau. It will also critically examine how changing our assessment practices supported building and making visible children’s learner identity and the explicit role of the teacher in this process. Fundamental to this mahi was the affordance of rangatiratanga (one of our six philosophy pou) through engagement and extensive knowledgeable input from our tangata whenua whānau. OR Presentation 6: Amy Scott Amy Scott has risen to being one of Australasia’s most sought after professional speakers with her dynamic delivery on the art of communication. Amy comes from a farming community in Ranfurly, Central Otago and is firmly recognised as an authority in the art of communication. What began as a young person’s desire to help individuals transform the quality of their lives through communication, has grown into a lifelong crusade. “I’m passionate about people playing to their full potential and tapping into the potential of those around them. Life is far too short for unnecessary stress!” She is fully accredited in the New Zealand made “Dots” Communication model and is now infamously regarded as “The Human Dynamo from Central Otago”. Her courses are designed to both entertain and inspire, while helping people to take action. "Dots Distilled" A Condensed Session! This presentation will help you to: - Discover why some people can’t help but rub others (or you) up the wrong way!
- Gain an understanding of your dominant “dot” / communication style
- Get a taste of some of your natural strengths
- Take away some excellent tips to assist in more effective communication
- Have a fun time whilst learning some key concepts in living a less stressful life!
Accommodation Thank you to everyone who sent through a request for accommodation for Monday 9th July 2018. Shortly you will receive an email confirming what venue you will be staying at. Please note that this year breakfast IS NOT included in the accommodation paid for by the association. You are welcome to contact the hotel directly and arrange to pay for your own breakfast @ $25 per person.
PA1 Cut Off Just a reminder that the cut off date for PA1’s related to property work over the July term break is Friday 22nd June 2018. Any questions please contact Lorraine.Coulston@wmkindergartens.org.nz
Giveaway Day The next giveaway day is being held on Saturday 23rd June at Nuanua Kindergarten. If you have any goods you wish to donate to this giveaway day we would appreciate them to be dropped off to us at the office throughout the week of Monday 18th June. Donated goods could include clothing, bedding, kitchen utensils, furniture and linen. We are always appreciative of the generosity of our kindergartens, their families and community. Thank you. Getting Our Message Across In Parliament This week Whānau Manaaki presented to the education and workforce select committee at parliament, speaking to our submission about the Education Council. A new law proposes returning elected positions to the Education Council, which Whānau Manaaki supports. We also spoke of difficulties for English as a second language teachers to get registered, particularly Pasifika teachers, and asked for the Council to be more flexible. We also called for a move to a more high trust approach from the Council, with fewer documentation requirements for teachers to register and re-register. There were questions, including about the availability of registered relievers and about the IELTs test for those not born in New Zealand. You can read our full submission on parliament’s website here.
Men's Network Casual Drinks Friday 29th June 2018 at the: Parrot Dog Brewery 60-66 Kingsford Smith Street Lyall Bay Wellington Time: 6.00pm onwards For more information or if you want to join our facebook group please contact adrian.smith@wmkindergartens.org.nz 
This Week On Facebook  
Plimmerton have been making their own bees wax wraps! This is such an awesome environmentally friendly idea! 
Bellevue have been learning about sustainability! ‘With the group planning focus being around sustainability this term , we have been looking at what can be reused, reduced and recycled in the lunch boxes. Rubbish was collected for a week and then the children along with Janices's support sorted and catergorised it and then graphed it (Numeracy and literacy). There were some slick moves by the children at Katoa Kindergarten, you can check them out here - https://www.facebook.com/KatoaKindergarten/videos/1687033094726504/
Feedback Our Wairarapa kindergartens have been receiving some great feedback from families recently. For all of our teachers, you guys are doing amazing work, what you do really touches the hearts whanau and communities. Keep the good work team!
Thanks 
On behalf of the Coulston whānau, Mandy, Andy, Lorraine, Rob, Trinity, Sam, Bryar and Baby Bob would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for all the love, support, cards, flowers, food and beautiful words you have shared with us since we lost our adored Dad, Bob, Poppa and mate. There are no words that can describe the immense loss and grief we feel losing the centre of our universe. As you all know, we lost our beautiful Nay less than 1 year ago, so to loose Bob now is a bitter blow and a hard thing to take. Please know that we appreciate all of you. " To laugh often and much.
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children.
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty.
To find beauty in others.
To leave the world a better place by either a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition.
To know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here.
This is to have succeeded”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Appointments Congratulations to the following on their recent appointment: | Rachel Watson | .6 Teacher | Brian Webb | | Michelle Ellison | Teacher | Cottle | | Erin Laas | .85 Teacher | Discovery | | Erika Urlich | Teacher | Meta Riddiford | | Nick Pert | Teacher | Ngaio | | Jill Konise | .3125 Teacher | South End | | Xinhua Wang | .65 Teacher | Wadestown | | Anna Smith | Administrator | Papararangi | | Melissa Dickinson | Administrator | Paraparaumu | | Karen Blade | Teacher Fixed Term to April 2019 | Churton Park | | Angelique Crump | Teacher Fixed Term to December 2018 | Cottle | | Andrea Cooke | Teacher Fixed Term to October 2018 | Cottle | | Cathie Parsons | .4 Teacher Fixed Term to end of Term 1 2019 | Newlands |
Hot Tip  It’s happened to the best of us - static cling. But, if you attach a safety pin to the seam of your item of clothing, the static will be gone! Magic! 
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