Our Next Focus - Manaakitanga

 Over the past weeks we have been focusing on displaying aroha for others.  Each class has had a jar, for every act of kindness a marble has been placed in this jar.  These marbles have then been combined by placing them in our big jar. 

Now the jar is full, we will move onto our next focus.  This focus will be manaakitanga, displaying respect and caring for others.  This virtue is so important, respect is something that is lacking in our society today and desperately needs to be modelled for our children.  It also links beautifully with kindness and goes hand and hand.

This is something you can talk about at home, and something you can directly model for your child.  

Just as we have done for our last focus, we will work together to fill the jar.  

Love and kindness received, love and kindness given.

Our next group of Good Citizens

If you are new to our school and wondering about the concept of Good Citizens, I have included a description below.  It is amazing to reflect back on how we were, and how we are now.  I love our school.

Kaurihohore Good Citizens

The Good Citizen project was begun in 2006 in response to a lack of leadership and role models amongst children in our school.  We had a lot of children making poor choices, particularly boys.  Research showed that to promote leadership the children who may be consistently well behaved and perhaps go 'unnoticed' a lot of the time needed to be promoted to positions of leadership and be given a more visual presence in the school.

In conjunction with other strategies we saw this project have huge benefits for our children and children became much more aware of the effect their actions had on others.

Good Citizens continue to have a big role to play in our school.  Good Citizens are selected based on the fact that they consistently help others and display empathy, without need for reward.  They show the ability to be role models for others and a willingness to carry out extra responsibilities in their own time if required.  Good citizens also display excellent manners and a high level of respect for others.  Being selected as a Good Citizen is a huge acknowledgement and not given lightly, it is always given for a genuine reason and not one that is shared around to all children unless well deserved.  This means that some children may get it more than once in acknowledgement of their consistent citizenship.

Teachers do not take their decision lightly when choosing their two representatives and if for any reason the child lets themselves down during this time, the award may be taken away from them.

Parents can be assured that if a child is selected as Good Citizen that they have truly earnt it.

At the end of the term all Good Citizens are awarded with a certificate in recognition of their efforts.  One child is voted by the children as the overall citizen for their class and then the school votes on these finalists to find the Good Citizen of the term.

At the end of year the whole school again votes out of the four finalists to find our Good Citizen of the Year.  This is a very coveted prize.