Learning "One student at a time in a community of learners"

Here at Taumarunui High School, we value education where:

Learning is collaborative

Learning is creative

Learning has a context

Learning is integrated with society

Parents value these things too, and many schools will claim their learning involves all of these qualities as well. After all, such learning is the very purpose of school!

However, while other schools make the claim and cite examples of this learning in their systems, we at Taumarunui High School build our systems around this type of learning. We walk the talk.

We do this because we recognise that every student is unique in their interests, goals, aspirations, and ability levels.

We believe it doesn’t make sense to move our students through a system purely based on their date of birth, completing the same activities and learning the same content as others of the same age in subject areas that may or may not grow them and prepare them for a lifetime of successful learning.

We don’t believe in imposing learning on students “just in case” they might use it one day.

We are fortunate in New Zealand to have the most innovative curriculum in the world. Our learning model flows from the New Zealand curriculum, emphasising the essence of curriculum areas over masses of potentially irrelevant content, and developing learners who know how to learn and know how to achieve.

We build our curriculum around the student. It has long been understood by educators and parents that students learn best with their heads, their hearts, and their hands. They learn best when engaged in learning that:

Suits their interests, their apitudes, and their aspirations

Empowers them to operate as learners outside of the school grounds and into their future learning.

Is designed by them with the guidance of professional educators and whanau

Challenges them to create, make, and do

Provides them with opportunities to explore, discover, and experience

We want to see them learning to learn and leaving to learn!

But this is not to say our students get to do whatever they want. Their individualised learning plan incorporates key expectations, curriculum areas, and mentoring that is appropriate for their own stage of development and ensures a purposeful, academic rigour in their experiences.

Our students all have the same 5 learning goals to develop their thinking “between the ears”:

1

Empirical Reasoning

How do I prove it?

2

Quantitative Reasoning

How do I measure, compare or represent it?

3

Communication

How do I take in and express ideas?

4

Social Reasoning

What are other people's perspectives on this?

5

Personal Qualities

What do I bring to this process?

In addition, all our students develop the same 5 core skills:

1

Research Ability

2

Oral Communication & Presentation

3

Report Writing

4

Statistical Analysis

5

Personal Well-Being Management

While our programmes are open to all individual students, we still make a distinction between Junior and Senior structures. We invite you to continue exploring our site to see what learning looks like for our students.