Welcome to Silverstream!
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I extend to you all a
warm welcome to Silverstream (South) Primary School situated in Mosgiel, in
Otago, New Zealand, 14 kilometres from Dunedin. Our school, a state funded
co-educational primary school, with approximately 300 pupils was established
in 2004 after the Network Review of schooling on the Taieri. We are proud of our school and its
achievements and enjoy showing visitors around. |
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Our teachers are committed
to providing a caring and supportive learning environment for all our pupils
and focus on ensuring that each child’s academic and social needs are catered
for. While our teaching programmes
have a strong focus on literacy and numeracy, we also provide a wide variety
of other programmes, including specialist teaching in the arts. Children who show talent
and/or passion in a particular area benefit from working in small groups with
teachers and other students with similar skills and interests. Check out the photos of the science
enrichment group’s excursion to the Portobello Marine Aquarium. This visit
was part of their inquiry investigation into marine life. A school-wide Values
programme is an important part of our curriculum with a termly focus taught
across the school. This year the
Values programme will focus on showing respect, being responsible, standing
tall (kia kaha), and
being honest and truthful. |
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We are fortunate to have
extensive playgrounds with many different grass and hard surface play areas
and three playgrounds with colourful equipment. One of these is reserved for our junior
children so they have a quiet area to play on if they choose to so do. The Year 6 children take
part in a week-long school camp at Berwick where they take part in many
challenges. These include rafting,
abseiling, kayaking, search & rescue, archery, and assault course. Parents are always keen participants, many
taking annual leave to be a part of this experience. |
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The school has a reputation
for its innovative use of information and communication technology (ICT) and
over the last four years has introduced a wide variety of technologies into
classes which are enhancing the learning for our children and allowing them
to become effective, independent learners.
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We have been part of an ICT cluster group called
the Highland Cluster for four years and the high levels of professional
practice within the cluster schools has been recognized by the Ministry of
Education in awarding the Cluster an ‘Extending High Standards Across
Schools’ (EHSAS) project from 2007-2010.
This programme offers the Cluster significant additional funding for a
collaborative programme which will enhance work already begun in using the
Inquiry Learning model and raising the level of achievement in writing across
the school. |
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We value the input of
many parents, grandparents and other community members who work closely with
the school to support the learning of our students. Many parents and some grandparents come
into the school on a weekly basis to assist in classrooms and make it
possible for us to offer varied excursions to places of interest to support
our learning programmes. |
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Sport has always been a
priority for children on the Taieri and our school encourages this by
fielding a large number of sports teams, including touch, mini ball, hockey,
netball, soccer and cricket. Our Year
6 School Leaders organise activities for other children to do each lunchtime,
many of which are physical activities with others involving art and inside
games. If I can be of any
assistance to you do email
or phone me.
Principal |
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