Nau mai ki tenei wiki Kōrero. We know that the last few weeks of the year can be a busy time for you all both at work and personally. So, thanks for your continued enthusiasm and dedication and the part you all play in ensuring that the kindergarten experience is relevant and personal for our children and their whānau. Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi With your basket and my basket the people will live Jane 
Association Staff Contact List  If you click here you will get the most up to date phone list for the Association office team. You may want to print this off and keep it somewhere handy.
More Full Year Kindergartens Two more kindergartens are moving to full year operation from next year, Arohanui Kindergarten in Levin and Brown Owl Kindergarten in Upper Hutt. That will bring the total number of Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens open for a full year to 37.
Regional Information For The Kōrero  We are wanting you to send us information that is relevant to your kindergarten and other kindergartens in your area that we can then put in the Kōrero. This could be advertising an event you are having, kindergarten open days, a trip you might have been on locally with your tamariki or some resource you have accessed in your local area that others may want to know about. We will put this information in the left hand side of the Kōrero. Please send this through to korero@wmkindergartens.org.nz.
Senior Teacher Update As you will remember at the RSMs, we asked staff for feedback on Covid-19 and its impact on them and the kindergarten children and whānau. We also asked for feedback from Senior Teachers and senior staff about how everyone has been coping. It’s been a challenging, rewarding, and exhausting time!! We needed to have a reset and we need to think about how we do things while living in this world where a Covid-19 vaccine has yet to be developed. To this end, in terms of Professional Learning and Development (PLD) and Gatherings, we decided to put a hold on everything except first aid and child protection. For Appraisal, we decided: - You need to continue to develop an Appraisal Goal, as per our policy, but you are not required to gather evidence or keep an appraisal folder. Instead, undertake kōrero around your goal and keep records of this kōrero - focus on professional growth, not on collecting evidence.
What this Means Talk with or email your Senior Teacher (ST), and we’ll sort things as we go along. As we have also decided to hold off Annual Reviews next year means that you will need to talk to your ST about progressing your Strategic Teaching and Learning Plans (STLPs) or evaluating them if you feel they have come to an end. We imagined the extra time on STLPs would be useful. Essentially, we expect you to continue your own PLD through reading, engaging in team discussions and meetings and in online learning such as webinars. We also expect you to engage with your Senior Teacher because this is in itself PLD. But we want to use this time to take stock of the more formal PLD and gatherings we organise which we are doing currently. For the next few months, we want you to progress your STLP as noted, and to focus on the day to day provision of learning for children, to nurture your relationships with the families, and each other, and to look after yourself. Life is too short. To quote Khalil Gibran: “Love has no desire but to fulfil itself!” Kia haumaru me ora koutou katoa! Be safe and well! Social Competency Review A group of STs been reviewing the Social Competency policy, in line with feedback from you as teachers in RSMs earlier this year and aligned with He Māpuna te Tamaiti - Supporting Social and Emotional Competence in Early Learning . In addition, the review of our Social Competency policy has included our Inclusive Education policy and to develop additional guidelines for kaiako when managing extreme behaviours. The update to managing extreme behaviours has also been driven by the recent updates to the Education Act. All of this great work will be shared with everyone it during Term 1 2021. Te Manawa Review The Senior Teacher team continue to work on the review of Te Manawa. Much of the work to date has been to identify what needs improvement, clarification and addressing feedback from teachers that we received in our RSMs last year. This has been a process of setting a foundation for the update. In our recent hui we discussed themes identified from teachers feedback last year. These were furthering our discussion about: - how to ensure Te Manawa reflects Tiriti o Waitangi
- developing a shared understanding of what localised curriculum means and in relation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi
- a position paper about Learning Outcomes and how they could/should be used
- how we proceed with planning for a community of learners in a way that is not onerous for teams,
- clarifying what we can do to support teachers to implement effective assesment and planning documentation practices.
Professional Growth Cycle We are holding a ‘focus group’ on 18th November about the Professional Growth Cycle. We needed to limit the numbers to follow our own guidance about large meetings and PLD. So if you would like a copy of the background information and the Teaching Council guidance please email: glenda.rowe@wmkindergartens.org.nz. Please email if you would like to share your thoughts, suggestions and feedback, we would love to hear from you. When we have a draft of a possible cycle/s we will send it/them out to you for your consideration.
How To Make A Quick Visual Using Google Images The team at Cottle Kindergarten has developed a webinar that can help you develop visuals using Google Images. They are often asked whether they have Pecs or Board maker visuals that the MOE have. You can find some of these on Google Images if you learn how to search for these specifically. But much easier now with their webinar. You will find the webinar and all other learning support webinars in the Teachers Toolbox on Storypark - go to the Learning Support Webinar folder. 
We Say Farewell .....  He Tifa mai Tokelau E lagona te fiafia ma te Agaga fakaafetai lahiri mo na galue ma fakatino e Joe (Lealofi Kupa), I loto o te Ofiha ma te hi komaga I Whanau Manaaki. Tifa te vevela o te ua, te malohi mai o matagi, monika is uaga mate house o te moana, ko koe nae Tumu ma galue malohi aua he Inati mo fanau taeao. Te Atua e o Ia te mana, te vikiga ma te Agaga fakafetai. Malo Ni te Ola tautua. Ke fakamanuia te Atua ki na lahaga ka kui e koe. Na he puli ma He Whanau Manaaki. Congratulations to Lealofi Kupa who is taking up a new role as Senior Analyst Research and Evaluation with the Ministry for Pacific People. This is an exciting opportunity where she will be able to utilise 25+ years of her skills and experience working with young children and adults and their respective families within their communities. It is also an opportunity for Lofi to continue contributing to the education, wellbeing, and prosperity of Pacific people, which she is deeply passionate about. Lofi has held positions within our association as Teacher, Head Teacher and more recently as Visiting Teacher with our Etu Ao Homebased service. During this time, she completed her masters degree and is in the process of completing her doctorate. “While I am incredibly sad to be leaving after so many years, I am satisfied that I have provided a high level of care and education to all children, families, colleagues, and community that I have encountered over the years . It has been an honour working alongside an amazing team of dedicated colleagues, who are passionate about working with all families and communities whilst nurturing the Mana and integrity of all our young children.” Lofi finishes with us on 27th November, taking up her new position on 7th December.
Election Banners Thank you to those kindergartens that have sent back the election banners. There are still a number outstanding so if you still have yours can you please try and get them back to the Association office as soon as you can. You can give these to your Senior Teacher to return when they next visit if that suits better. We will store these until the next election and then re-distribute. Thanks! 
Messages For MPs If an MP visits your centre, where do you start in communicating our messages about high quality early childhood education and its benefits for children and families? The main thing to get across is that the early years are the most important, and quality early childhood education sets children up for learning for life. It’s a good place for governments to spend money, to get a good return. Here’s a list of our main messages: - Quality education involves qualified teachers – and that is one of the most important things the last government did for children and families- reinstated funding for 100 per cent qualified teachers. It is hard to overstate how important this is – it must be sustained, whatever the government.
- Funding has been a problem with the Covid-19 crisis, because of strict attendance rules. These need to be relaxed, especially if we want children and adults to stay home with coughs and colds. Centres should not be penalized for following health advice.
- Quality public early childhood education – we need to make early childhood education about learning, about families, about community, not about profits. Profit oriented early education compromises children’s experiences.
- Learning support – more and more children have learning support needs, and we need timely specialist support, with psychologists, early intervention teachers, support workers, speech language therapists and others. Children and families can’t afford to wait.
Reducing Family Violence Through Reducing Gender Stereotypes For Boys The White Ribbon organisation is calling for masculinity to be reframed in boys, as part of a move to reduce family violence. This follows a report from Australia that shows many people don’t recognise punching, controlling money, controlling friendships and limiting family relationships, access to healthcare etc as family violence. Here’s what the White Ribbon organisation says healthy masculinity looks like: - rejecting unhelpful outdated stereotypes and unspoken rules about what it is to be a boy
- being kind, empathetic, finding peaceful resolutions to problems
- boys confident in who they are without feeling pressure to be a certain type of boy
- boys can still be ‘brave’, and have ‘muscles’, be assertive, tough, love rugby, enjoy time with other boys, but should also be free to express sad emotions, enjoy cooking, dancing, gardening and anything else that does not fit gender stereotypes
- treating everyone with respect
- recognising that people express gender and sexuality in a variety of ways.
Here’s a link to the White Ribbon website. Previous Kōrero Editions If you are wanting to access previous editions of the Kōrero you can find them at www.wmkindergartens.org.nz/archive or you can click here. It is a good idea to save this link as an icon on your desktop.
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