Kia ora koutou,
I hope the year has started well and you have had a restful summer break with your whānau and friends.
I would like to introduce myself to you all. I have the privilege of being
the new Cluster Manager for Te Paeroa RTLB cluster 34, replacing Maureen Allen
who is now the principal of Waitaha School. I was at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto
for 22 years with the last 6 years as Deputy Principal/SENCO. In 2018, I was
seconded to the Ministry of Education in the Learning Support team, and now, I
am delighted to belong to a valuable organisation that aims to deliver a high
quality service to our schools, kura and Kāhui Ako.
We are really excited to have six new RTLB start with us this year. As a
result, we have had to make a number of changes with school liaison positions.
Over the next week, your liaison will make an appointment with your key contact
person to gather your school’s information. We have a new information form that
will be filled in by the liaison. It will be business as usual and requests for
support will be made the same way as last year. If your key contact needs support
loading requests for support on to 'schoolgate' they can contact your liaison.
Last week, our RTLB team and our corresponding Ministry of Education
Learning Support
teams held a combined hui. The focus was ‘how the two organisations could work
more
collaboratively together’. We plan to meet each term to continue to build
positive relationships and develop our collaboration more deeply. We foresee
this as having better outcomes for our tamariki.
The last four days, our team have been running workshops for teacher
aides, including Play
Based Learning, Zones of Regulation, Reading Rockets, Cultural Responsiveness,
Neurodiversity, Numicon and Agility with Sound. They were all well attended
from a variety of our schools and kura.
During term one, our team will be receiving professional development from
Dr Emma Goodall. She is a passionate educator and autistic advocate who now
lives in Australia. Emma works in the South Australian education system as
their Senior Autism Adviser. Emma's drive comes from a belief that individual
autistics need opportunities and understanding in order to achieve their
potential and to live happy and meaningful lives. We are very privileged to
have her visit us in Christchurch.
We will also be involved in professional development with Kathryn Berkett.
Kathryn has her
Masters in Educational Psychology and is a certified Neurosequential Model of
Therapeutics
practitioner - a qualification gained via the Child Trauma Academy (Dr Bruce
Perry). We will be building on our knowledge of trauma informed practices.
Over the next two terms I hope to make an appointment with you to check
your school’s
priorities for the year to ensure that the RTLB service continues to provide a
high quality service to your school, kura and Kāhui Ako. We will continue to
send out a termly newsletter updating you with the latest information.
All the best for Term One and I look forward to meeting and working with
you all.
He waka eke noa
Ngā mihi nui
Michelle Maule
Cluster Manager
> 027 2766713