Nukumea Newsletter Term 3 week 8 2025

Kia ora e te whānau, we have lots of celebrations and upcoming events to share in this week's newsletter. Before we get to those, I need to share some thoughts about the last week of political announcements, media and tv coverage that has been damning of Modern Learning Environments.

It has been incredibly frustrating to hear the Minister of Education and other media outlets refer to Modern Learning Environments/MLE's as a "failed experiment." As someone who has both worked in and visited MLE and single cell classrooms in both primary and secondary schools across New Zealand, I will honestly say that I have witnessed both great and poor teaching in both types of environments. So much more goes into learning outcomes than the buildings that lessons take place in. What tends to happen is that MLE's amplify practice - both for good and bad. So, good collaborative, thoughtful teaching practices get better with the ability to use space effectively and collaborate with others, while poor practices cannot be hidden behind 4 walls and so get amplified across the more open space.

One of the lines used often has been that there is no evidence supporting the use of MLEs. Whilst the main reason they entered schools in New Zealand was economic - particularly in the shadow of the Christchurch Earthquakes - there is a lot of good research out there about these spaces. During the development of Nukumea Primary, we regularly referred to the Clever Classrooms research from the University of Salford and worked with researchers such as Chris Bradbeer on Learning Environments and Mark Osborne on Collaborative Practices that helped develop our planning for and now practices within our beautiful environments here at Nukumea.

The work our team did has resulted in amazing learning spaces, with purposeful learning settings, so we can maximise student learning. One of the most common comments I get from families and visiting teachers as I give them a tour through our school is what a great feel there is in our classrooms. This has now been supported by the findings of our Education Review Office visit. The final report will be online next week, but I can give a sneak preview of what ERO felt was one of the key strengths of our school:

"Students learn in positive, supportive and inclusive classrooms that enhance their sense of belonging and wellbeing."

That doesn't sound like a failed experiment to me. That sounds like a good quality environment that is helping us to achieve great learning outcomes for our community. If you do get involved in discussions with people from other schools over the next few weeks about learning environments, please tell them about how your children are experiencing an MLE here at Nukumea, and offer them the chance to come for a tour with me through our awesome learning spaces.

Important Upcoming Dates

• Wednesday 10th September - Voting closes for Board Election
• Friday 19th September 2.15pm - End of Term Assembly
• Friday 19th September - Last Day of Term

Cross Country

On Monday this week, we leapt into the first day of September with our second ever Cross Country event - with a Nukumea twist. Our wonderful children displayed excellent grit and determination as they navigated our obstacle course, including jumping across hurdles, crawling under nets, climbing up walls and weaving through cones. It was fabulous to see our students supporting and cheering from the sidelines and our bigger buddies helping our younger students out along the course. It truly was a fantastic event. We are so proud of all of our students for giving it their all on the day - the training well and truly paid off! Thank you to those who came along to support our runners and a massive thank you to Clare Fielding for her coordination of this awesome event. We look forward to awarding certificates to our fastest runners at the End of Term Assembly, but in the meantime, here are a few photos from the day.