Northcross offers a fully integrated curriculum. Concepts are chosen after consultation with students about areas where they show an interest or passion. Consistently two areas of interest come through, one being ‘history’ and the other ‘caring for the environment’. Four concepts are covered each year with the whole school focusing on set ‘Enduring Understandings’ and ‘Essential Questions’. Each term concludes with a ‘task’ that gives the students an opportunity to display their comprehension of the taught skills, knowledge and understandings.
The concept forTerms One and Two will be “Who am I ?’
Northcross places a strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy.
Literacy is integral to all teaching and learning that occurs at Northcross. Via the integrated concepts, students engage with all learning areas through reading, listening, viewing, speaking, writing and presenting. The students are taught to learn the code of written language, to make meaning of texts and to think critically. They are actively taught the literacy skills needed to be able to select from their repertoire of literacy knowledge and skills the appropriate process to use, so they are able to apply them in many contexts across curriculum areas.
All students experience explicit literacy instruction, at their level, in whole class, group and individualized lessons where they develop accuracy, fluency and independence. They are taught to locate, evaluate and synthesise information and ideas and to respond in a variety of ways, both written and oral.
Numeracy Strategies, knowledge and skills are taught independently and where applicable, integrated throughout the concepts. This is taught under the learning areas Statistics, Geometry, Measurement, Number and Algebra. We set high expectations for student achievement as we teach them different ways of thinking and solving problems through mathematical literacy. Through these skills, utilized school-wide, students are given the confidence to take risks. We use a variety of assessments both formal and informal to identify each student’s strengths, weaknesses, interests and needs. These are catered for with differentiated classroom learning groups, Maths extension and support programs and many opportunities for problem solving challenges.
The Key Competencies are also an integral part of our curriculum delivery and emphasised strongly throughout each concept.
Using language, symbols and text, Thinking, Participating and Contributing, Relating to Others and Managing Self, encompass essential skills that encourage the students to become life-long learners.
VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
Values and principles are an integral part of our programme. In addition to the values included in the NZ Curriculum, here at Northcross we focus on integrity, respect, honesty, compassion, tolerance, reliability and trust.
The foundations of our curriculum decision making are the principles of: High expectations, Treaty of Waitangi, Cultural diversity, Inclusion, Learning to learn, Community engagement, Coherence and Future focus.