Congratulations to Rangi Ruru 2011 Scholarship winners (click here). Or for information on applying for Rangi Ruru Scholarships (click here).
... on the Rangi Ruru Strategic Direction (Rangi News April 2008)
... on the Rangi Ruru Strategic Direction (Rangi News April 2008)
The last two weeks have been very good indeed for Rangi Ruru. It was heartening to see that our students continue to achieve at very high levels in NCEA , considerably above the national average. The published results did not include scholarship results, which were also wonderful. Hard on the heels of academic accolades was Tournament Week, the results of which showed that we are doing what we say we want to do - producing all round girls and offering a wide range of opportunities and support for girls to release their potential and achieve success.
The week began with the Touch team winning the South Island title, and was closely followed by the Tennis team doing the same. The Waterpolo team was 7th in the South Island and the Athletics team achieved four firsts, four seconds and seven thirds at the South Island athletics. I was at Lake Ruataniwha with the Rowing squad for the Maadi Regatta. The Rangi team was a small squad of 30 rowers, compared to some huge squads of 70 or more from some schools. Twenty three of our rowers were place getters in the A finals, an extraordinary achievement for a small, but enormously dedicated and committed team of rowers. We achieved five golds, four silvers and two bronzes, and are the top girls’ rowing school. We hoped to hold on to the Star Trophy (for top school over all) but were beaten by Hamilton Boys’ High School. While we couldn’t field as many entries as HBHS, we did achieve two more points than we had last year. All in all a brilliant result for the girls, who managed to juggle a challenging training programme with all their other activities and class work.
As we were driving home my husband asked me what it was I thought brought about such wide ranging achievement and such commitment from Rangi students and staff. I suppose it’s easy to say success breeds success, but certainly the ongoing role-modelling that junior girls have is a component. When novice rowers see the more experienced ones putting in huge hours of training and commitment, they want to be part of that and they see what it is that they have to do. Every week in assembly girls perform, speak, and receive awards for an incredibly wide variety of activities. Doing your best, getting involved and working hard are the norms. The range of activities and successes of Rangi girls was an aspect of our school which greatly impressed our recent visitor Stuart Shanker and affirmed much of his research in this area (page 6 Rangi News April 2008). Behind all of these successes are wonderful parents, supporting the school and their daughters, and dedicated staff.
JoAnn Deak maintains that two of the key ingredients in a successful school are the teachers being passionate about what they do and the girls believing that the teachers care about them. This is true not only in the classroom but in sport, music and all the other aspects of the school. But no school can rest on its laurels. Just as the girls are encouraged to set personal goals and to refl ect on these, every year each faculty analyses its previous year’s goals and results and looks at what might be done differently or better. The school as a whole also needs to do this, and while strategic planning has become almost a cliché in the eyes of many, it is nevertheless something every wise organisation must do, particularly those at the top of their game!
The Board and Management Team have been meeting to review the Rangi Ruru strategic plan. Underpinning our deliberations have always been the aspects we consider particularly important for Rangi Ruru. These include the capability, now and in the future, of providing a wide range of stimulating and challenging opportunities, preparing our girls for the next step and for making future opportunities available to them, and of recognising and supporting the special character of our school.
These aspects are summed up in our Vision statement and Promise to our school community. Our Vision is: Creating Opportunity - Releasing Potential - Achieving Success.
The Rangi Ruru Promise is: An education at Rangi Ruru is enriching, challenging, supportive and fun. Our promise is that we will support your daughter to reach her potential and to gain the knowledge, understanding and skills required for her next step and beyond. At Rangi Ruru she will have opportunities that enable her to develop a strong set of values and positive lifelong attitudes and dispositions including independence, resilience, adaptability and the courage and confidence in herself to pursue and achieve her dreams. Our Guiding Principles sum up what we believe are both important and particularly special about our school and make a difference to the enjoyment, opportunity and achievement of Rangi girls and the school environment.
These are to:
• Provide inspiring teaching and learning opportunities
• Provide exceptional opportunities for each girl
• Respect the Christian heritage of the school and live and promote RR values
• Ensure every girl is known and cared for
• Establish a positive partnership between home and school
• Engage positively with our communities
• Ensure Rangi Ruru’s future through prudent financial stewardship
The Ministry of Education’s new Curriculum document, launched at the end of last year, has a three pronged approach - curriculum, competencies and values. Fortunately, while many State schools are grappling with all three of these, including a set of Government lead values, we already have the Rangi values firmly embedded in our culture.
The curriculum itself has not changed very much and is a broad overarching document of outcomes beneath which lie school-based curriculum documents and schemes.
The competencies mark a shift in emphasis in teaching and particularly in the philosophy of teaching. The acquisition of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is no longer acceptable - and in fact has not been for some time. Knowledge must be relevant, it must have a context and it must be able to be applied and transferred. As important as knowledge are the key competencies:
• thinking,
• using language, symbols and texts,
• Managing self,
• relating to others
• participating and contributing
The document says of these: “people use competencies to live, learn, work and contribute as active members of their communities. More complex than skills, the competencies draw also on knowledge, attitudes and values in ways that lead to action. They are not separate or stand-alone”.
At Rangi Ruru we began looking in depth at key competencies two years ago and we are a considerable way down the track of weaving them into all that we do. Clearly they are not just about what happens in the classroom; by nature the competencies are about all facets of our lives, and thus co-curricular activities have a big role to play in our students’ personal development. These three initiatives in curriculum, IT and competencies have major strategic implications and will provide clear directions for future infrastructure development. Changes in staffing, resourcing, timetabling and facilities will flow on from the decisions we make. At all stages the decisions are made in the context of the Vision, the Promise and the Guiding Principles.
The future is exciting and we look forward to the implementation of the exciting initiatives that will take place as a result of this process and the continued future successes of our school and students.
Rangi Ruru, Creating Opportunity - Releasing Potential - Achieving Success
For more information on the new New Zealand Curriculum see http://www.tki. org.nz/r/nzcurriculum/pdfs/curriculumframework- draft.pdf
The last two weeks have been very good indeed for Rangi Ruru. It was heartening to see that our students continue to achieve at very high levels in NCEA , considerably above the national average. The published results did not include scholarship results, which were also wonderful. Hard on the heels of academic accolades was Tournament Week, the results of which showed that we are doing what we say we want to do - producing all round girls and offering a wide range of opportunities and support for girls to release their potential and achieve success.
The week began with the Touch team winning the South Island title, and was closely followed by the Tennis team doing the same. The Waterpolo team was 7th in the South Island and the Athletics team achieved four firsts, four seconds and seven thirds at the South Island athletics. I was at Lake Ruataniwha with the Rowing squad for the Maadi Regatta. The Rangi team was a small squad of 30 rowers, compared to some huge squads of 70 or more from some schools. Twenty three of our rowers were place getters in the A finals, an extraordinary achievement for a small, but enormously dedicated and committed team of rowers. We achieved five golds, four silvers and two bronzes, and are the top girls’ rowing school. We hoped to hold on to the Star Trophy (for top school over all) but were beaten by Hamilton Boys’ High School. While we couldn’t field as many entries as HBHS, we did achieve two more points than we had last year. All in all a brilliant result for the girls, who managed to juggle a challenging training programme with all their other activities and class work.
As we were driving home my husband asked me what it was I thought brought about such wide ranging achievement and such commitment from Rangi students and staff. I suppose it’s easy to say success breeds success, but certainly the ongoing role-modelling that junior girls have is a component. When novice rowers see the more experienced ones putting in huge hours of training and commitment, they want to be part of that and they see what it is that they have to do. Every week in assembly girls perform, speak, and receive awards for an incredibly wide variety of activities. Doing your best, getting involved and working hard are the norms. The range of activities and successes of Rangi girls was an aspect of our school which greatly impressed our recent visitor Stuart Shanker and affirmed much of his research in this area (page 6 Rangi News April 2008). Behind all of these successes are wonderful parents, supporting the school and their daughters, and dedicated staff.
JoAnn Deak maintains that two of the key ingredients in a successful school are the teachers being passionate about what they do and the girls believing that the teachers care about them. This is true not only in the classroom but in sport, music and all the other aspects of the school. But no school can rest on its laurels. Just as the girls are encouraged to set personal goals and to refl ect on these, every year each faculty analyses its previous year’s goals and results and looks at what might be done differently or better. The school as a whole also needs to do this, and while strategic planning has become almost a cliché in the eyes of many, it is nevertheless something every wise organisation must do, particularly those at the top of their game!
The Board and Management Team have been meeting to review the Rangi Ruru strategic plan. Underpinning our deliberations have always been the aspects we consider particularly important for Rangi Ruru. These include the capability, now and in the future, of providing a wide range of stimulating and challenging opportunities, preparing our girls for the next step and for making future opportunities available to them, and of recognising and supporting the special character of our school.
These aspects are summed up in our Vision statement and Promise to our school community. Our Vision is: Creating Opportunity - Releasing Potential - Achieving Success.
The Rangi Ruru Promise is: An education at Rangi Ruru is enriching, challenging, supportive and fun. Our promise is that we will support your daughter to reach her potential and to gain the knowledge, understanding and skills required for her next step and beyond. At Rangi Ruru she will have opportunities that enable her to develop a strong set of values and positive lifelong attitudes and dispositions including independence, resilience, adaptability and the courage and confidence in herself to pursue and achieve her dreams. Our Guiding Principles sum up what we believe are both important and particularly special about our school and make a difference to the enjoyment, opportunity and achievement of Rangi girls and the school environment.
These are to:
• Provide inspiring teaching and learning opportunities
• Provide exceptional opportunities for each girl
• Respect the Christian heritage of the school and live and promote RR values
• Ensure every girl is known and cared for
• Establish a positive partnership between home and school
• Engage positively with our communities
• Ensure Rangi Ruru’s future through prudent financial stewardship
The Ministry of Education’s new Curriculum document, launched at the end of last year, has a three pronged approach - curriculum, competencies and values. Fortunately, while many State schools are grappling with all three of these, including a set of Government lead values, we already have the Rangi values firmly embedded in our culture.
The curriculum itself has not changed very much and is a broad overarching document of outcomes beneath which lie school-based curriculum documents and schemes.
The competencies mark a shift in emphasis in teaching and particularly in the philosophy of teaching. The acquisition of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is no longer acceptable - and in fact has not been for some time. Knowledge must be relevant, it must have a context and it must be able to be applied and transferred. As important as knowledge are the key competencies:
• thinking,
• using language, symbols and texts,
• Managing self,
• relating to others
• participating and contributing
The document says of these: “people use competencies to live, learn, work and contribute as active members of their communities. More complex than skills, the competencies draw also on knowledge, attitudes and values in ways that lead to action. They are not separate or stand-alone”.
At Rangi Ruru we began looking in depth at key competencies two years ago and we are a considerable way down the track of weaving them into all that we do. Clearly they are not just about what happens in the classroom; by nature the competencies are about all facets of our lives, and thus co-curricular activities have a big role to play in our students’ personal development. These three initiatives in curriculum, IT and competencies have major strategic implications and will provide clear directions for future infrastructure development. Changes in staffing, resourcing, timetabling and facilities will flow on from the decisions we make. At all stages the decisions are made in the context of the Vision, the Promise and the Guiding Principles.
The future is exciting and we look forward to the implementation of the exciting initiatives that will take place as a result of this process and the continued future successes of our school and students.
Rangi Ruru, Creating Opportunity - Releasing Potential - Achieving Success
For more information on the new New Zealand Curriculum see http://www.tki. org.nz/r/nzcurriculum/pdfs/curriculumframework- draft.pdf
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Rangi Girls show their support for the All Blacks during the 2011 World Cup.
