In the junior school, we will have mostly year level classes and will start with 6 rooms. This gives us smaller classes to support teaching and learning.  We will have a start-up New Entrant classroom at the start of Term 2 2026.

• NE - Year 1 - Mrs Beth Lemon
• Year 2 - Miss Isabella Tierney with Miss Olivia McIntyre as her Beginning Teacher support and Release Teacher
• Year 3 - Mrs Sharon Reid    
• Year 4 - Miss Olivia Wise
• Year 5 - A new teacher currently being advertised 
• Year 6 - Mrs Melissa McLellan and Mrs Margaret White as a job share position - both doing half a week each.  Year 6 will have the pleasure of some secondary teachers coming down to take PE, Health and some arts. 

Mr Tim Byrne will be working in the middle school but has release weekly to continue to work with the senior primary school classes with differing initiatives. 

• Year 7 - Mr Tim Byrne as the teacher of core curriculum - Maths and Literacy
• Year 8 - A new teacher currently being advertised - Maths and Literacy
• Year 7 and 8 will have a larger proportion of core curriculum - Literacy and Mathematics - than other subjects to support their transitions as they move towards the Senior School and to support the implementation of the new Maths and English Curriculums.  

Mrs Sandy Nelson, as an expert teacher, will target Literacy and Social Sciences across the middle school.  Sandy will be working alongside me to develop initiatives to target extension and support across the middle year, just what this will look like will adjust across the year as we respond to student learning needs.

• Year 9-10 will work as one cohort as both these classes are small in comparison to year 7 or year 8.  We have allocated two teachers for the core curriculum of Literacy and Mathematics with this cohort - this is to target student learning and to allow for flexibility to best support our learners. Miss Jayne Evans and Mrs Dorothy Torrenueva will teach Mathematics, and Ms Melissa Neill and Mrs Sandy Nelson will teach literacy. Year 9-10 will have an increased time on Core Curriculum compared to past years. 

The new Maths and English curriculum have higher expectations than the past curriculums so we have much work to do in accelerating student progress to meet the new expectations.   The focus on smaller classes in the junior school and the increased time allocation for Literacy and Mathematics across the middle school will support our work in this area. 

In the middle and senior school we have endeavoured to offer more subjects with a teacher.   I want to acknowledge the staff in their flexibility to take on other curriculum strands to provide the best support and opportunities to our ākonga. 

In the middle school we have introduced the William Pike Programme for years 7 and 8 and Duke of Edinburgh programme for 9 and 10 which our students can carry forward across years 11-13 to gain their Gold level while at school. We will hold an elective afternoon for two periods each week for Year 7-10 to extend learning opportunities across a wide range of interests and passions. We have implemented these initiatives at Akaroa Area School and they have been really beneficial in enriching learning and providing student autonomy as a learner.   

I will be seeking whānau and community support to offer our students access to experts and people with strengths in life and learning from whānau and the wider community. (You may know of people who have strengths in a specific area that would be willing to teach a group of students for a 9 week block (with school support) - examples from AAS -  dance, drama, specific sport, astronomy, fishing, arts, weaving cloaks with our Te Reo teacher, languages, cultural experience) 

In the middle school we are providing a wider range of subject areas with the introduction of Financial Literacy as well as the wider curriculum of Technology, Science, Visual Art, Music, Drama, Social Sciences and Health and PE. 

In the senior school, we have focused on trying to increase subject options with a teacher onsite, this was a priority for our students.  We continue to offer a wide range of the Arts with Music, Drama, Visual Arts, a wide range of Technology options with Hard Material options, Food and Fabric options and Digi Tech.  Mrs Cia Winter is also delivering Business Studies.  In Science this year we are offering all three Sciences at TAS - Biology, Chemistry with Ms Heather Dixon and Physics online with Ms Heather Dixon supporting. There is the potential of Mrs Sandy Nelson supporting the Social Science students with their NCEA distance learning. 

Ngā mihi nui,
Vicki McIntyre,
Tumuaki