Hi, I'm Whaea Jenny!
It is my absolute pleasure to be the Whānau Pukeko kaiako here in the idyllic setting that is Rangiuru School. This is my first year at Rangiuru School and I am loving it! I am so grateful for the amazing team I work with and how the students and school community have welcomed me in. The school values prioritise kindness, belonging and high expectations which naturally align with my own personal values.
This is my first year as a classroom teacher, having completed my three year Bachelor of Primary Teaching at the University of Waikato in Tauranga at the end of last year. My passion for teaching was ignited during my ten years working in a primary school actively supporting learning and behaviours for individuals and small groups in a classroom setting.
I live in Pāpāmoa with my husband Nathan and our youngest daughter Bianca who is studying architecture at Toi Ohomai. Our eldest daughter, Hannah is studying towards her Fine Arts degree in Auckland. Rocky, is our energetic, loving pet dog! I am lucky enough to have my parents and my sister and her family living nearby in Pāpāmoa. Cairns, Queensland is also close to our hearts as Nathan’s large family reside there.
On the weekends, I enjoy relaxing at home or spending time with friends and family over a cuppa or out for a walk. In the holidays we like to take bushwalks and camp at Lake Whakamaru with friends.
Thank you for the way you contribute to our school community and making me feel so welcome. I look forward to meeting more of you around school throughout the year as we have some exciting events planned! Ka kite āno.
This is Whanau Pukeko!
Whānau Pukeko is our Year 2 - 4 class, with 16 ākonga (students). We are kind and friendly and always do our best to be ready for ako (learning). We also show our school values by looking out for each other and our environment.
We love being at Rangiuru School with its unique rural, and bush setting! We enjoy being active, sharing our experiences and knowledge, especially about nature and supporting our classmates as we learn together. Our akomanga (learning space) is welcoming with plenty of space to move our bodies and lots of awesome resources to support our learning and our strong interests in construction, reading and games. Our Calm Corner is an enjoyable place to come together over a book or take some time for a mindfulness activity.
Our Class Treaty - Our Whānau Pukeko Partnership (co-constructed by us!)
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We show respect
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We help each other and show kindness.
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We look after our environment.
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We are ready for new learning.
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We begin our day with karakia, a waiata and selecting our class captain for the day. Our literacy programme includes daily writing including learning about grammar and different topics and types (genres) in writing. We take pride in our writing quality and practice our handwriting daily too. In reading we enjoy learning with our group and doing meaningful activities that support our comprehension of what we have read. Our Structured Literacy learning explicitly teaches us about the single-letter and combination-letter sounds that make up the words we read and write so we can produce interesting pieces of writing with increasing accuracy in spelling and grammar. We enjoy our Maths lessons with a whole class warm-up and a ‘Discuss and Defend’ daily slide to share what we notice and what we know in an image with a maths theme. Then we break into our maths groups for our focus area. Each term Rangiuru School has a school-wide theme which is reflected in our learning, especially our Topic learning. Te Reo and te ao Māori are woven through our day and also explicitly taught. We really enjoy finishing our learning week Fabulous Fridays where we get to learn alongside other Rangiuru School students and kaiako in Garden to Table, Bush Classroom and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths).