CES Curriculum

Our Curriculum

The Christchurch East Curriculum has been developed in consultation with staff, students and whanāu. It is a guide to support the delivery of our local curriculum - what we want our students to know and be able to do.

Our community is situated in the heart of the city, which brings a diversity of experiences and perspectives to enrich our students’ learning, expand their sense of identity and encourage them to be more helpful towards others. Our community provides authenticity and rich, real life contexts for learning. It is a resource and a context for developing students independence, community participation, service and character.

Our dream is to inspire all students to learn well, to grow well and to love life. This is captured in our School motto “Learning with heart”. To achieve this we build student agency and self-regulation through use of our C+O+O+L factor - Children taking Opportunities to Own their Learning and SOLO Taxonomy as a model of learning progress.

Our school vision is "Nurturing Minds, Building Character and Creating Communities". To achieve this every decision we make is influenced by our kaupapa or core values of Te Ririte Equity, Te Hiranga Excellence, Ngākau Pono Integrity and Nohonga Tahitanga Sense of Community. We have a strong focus on student' wellbeing, character and service.

Our CES (Christchurch East School) curriculum uses the New Zealand Curriculum (values, principles, key competencies, learning areas and achievement objectives) as a framework for developing the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that our students need to lead successful, happy and fulfilling lives.

Nurturing Minds, Building Character and Creating Communities.

Our Place

The Christchurch East School Curriculum is grounded in our local place - our tūrangawaewae in the heart of the city. Our geographical location in the centre of the city is our context for learning.

In adopting a place-based approach to our curriculum, we use our local community and environment in the heart of Christchurch City as the context for teaching the NZC (New Zealand Curriculum) Learning areas of language, arts, maths, social sciences, etc. The city provides the rich social, environmental, economic, political, infrastructural, spiritual, and historical contexts for engaging and motivating student learning. This includes local Māori knowledge, histories, skills, techniques, and tikanga (values and customs).

Our Purpose

Nurturing Minds

At Christchurch East School, we are committed to meeting a learner's individual needs. A structured and targeted approach to teaching literacy and mathematics ensures that our learners can identify and work towards their own learning needs, strengths and next steps. Students are exposed to a wide range of learning experiences in order to develop critical and creative thinking, communication and collaborative skills, to build a sense of purpose and both the desire and skills to actively and positively engage in the community.

Building Character

At Christchurch East School, building character is part of our culture and the conversations between staff and students. Our school values and learner qualities are used to support students to:

- approach learning and interactions with curiosity and an open mind
- build self knowledge
- develop empathy for others
- take ownership of their learning and behaviour
- understand and utilise a range of strategies to promote their own and others' wellbeing

Creating Communities

At Christchurch East School, we continually strive for a caring and inclusive environment. Our diverse community allows for deep questioning, reflecting and understanding of our wider world. An integral part of our curriculum is looking at how our students can work together, form friendships and make positive change.

Te Ririte
Equity

Our Kaupapa

At Christchurch East School, we have four values that form our Kaupapa. These values form who are are and how we act. We strive for knowing about, caring about and demonstrating our values.

Meeting the needs of all.

Te Hiranga
Excellence

Try your best, be proud of your effort.

Ngākau Pono
Integrity

Do the right thing, even when no-one is looking.

Nohonga Tahitanga
Sense of Community.

We're a team, we all play a part.

Te Ririte - Equity

Students ask
Is it fair? Am I treating others how I want to be treated? Whose voice has not been heard? Has everyone had a turn? Would I like that to happen to me? How would I feel?

In Team Koru this means we:
- are kind, fair and respectful in our communities
- understand that all children have different needs
- we treat others as we want to be treated

In Team Harakeke this means we:
- have consistent expectations
- are all unique
- all work together

In Team Kauri this means we:
- practise empathy by treating everyone, including ourselves, with respect
- help others when we can
- know that different children have different needs

Christchurch East School recognises and honours Maori as tangata whenua of New Zealand.

We are committed to a learning journey that recognises our school’s unique bicultural and multicultural context. This means that we look for ways to authentically engage with our community, we value what each individual brings to our environment, we treat everyone with kindness and respect and we take time to get to know our families.

We agree that we want our school to be a place where everyone feels safe and accepted for who they are, what they believe and we commit to modeling that behaviour with each other.

We understand that success looks and feels different for different people and we commit to supporting everyone to achieve and celebrate their own successes

Te Hiranga - Excellence

Students ask
Can I improve on this? How can I learn from this? Is this work I am proud of? What is my next step? Can I share and celebrate my learning? Do I know how to look after myself?

In Team Koru this means we:
use our curiosity to improve and grow
try our best in everything that we do
we give it our best go

In Team Harakeke this means we:
- encourage growth mindset
- strive to be my best
- understand our next steps in learning.

In Team Kauri this means we:
- know that learning feels challenging
- are resilient; we know when to keep going and when to change tactics
- reflect honestly on our learning using SOLO
- celebrate our efforts and learning

At Christchurch East School, we strive for excellence not perfection.

We will never be perfect. Striving for excellence means looking for ways to continually improve, recognising that we don’t always get it right and sometimes we will make mistakes. At those times, our job is to take accountability, to learn from the experience, and to implement the learning so that we can grow.

Striving for excellence also means we are relentlessly curious: What worked?
What didn’t? Why? What can we learn? How can we do better? We encourage and support each other but we also strive for improvement.

Ngākau Pono - Integrity

Students Ask
How will this decision affect others? How will doing this make other people feel? Will I be proud to tell my parents or teacher that I did this? What is the right thing to do here? Can I recognise integrity in others?

In Team Koru this means we:
- are honest, responsible and respectful
- take responsibility for our actions
- we tell the truth

In Team Harakeke this means we:
- understand that our actions and words have consequences
- live and breathe the Values
- support each other to make better choices

In Team Kauri this means we:
- believe that people act with good intentions
- know our values and aim to live by these
- take responsibility for our words and actions

At CES, we commit to showing up with respect, trustworthiness and honesty. We do what is right, even when no one is watching.
If we have an issue with something or someone and are not dealing with it directly, we are part of the problem. We recognise that sometimes we need to seek help from an integrity partner in order to think through a challenging situation and engage constructively. We commit to supporting each other to healthily handle difficult conversations and show up with integrity. What that might look like in practice is encouraging someone to have the difficult conversation they might be tempted to avoid. Likewise, if someone has an issue with us, we’re willing to rumble with it: to lean into vulnerability and to listen to them with the same passion with which we would like to be heard. We have the courage to disagree with each other, and we are willing to be disagreed with. We believe that the aim of any difficult conversation is progress. In showing up, we commit to the seven elements of trust:

Boundaries:
We set and maintain healthy boundaries, asking for what we need and being clear about what is okay, what’s not okay, and why.
Reliability:
We do what we say we’ll do. Note that healthy boundaries are essential in
order for us to be able to deliver what we promise!
Accountability:
We own our work, our performance, and our experience. We own our mistakes, apologise, and do what we need to do to make things right. If something is bothering us, we own our response to the situation.
Vault:
Also called confidentiality. We don’t share information that isn’t ours to share.
Integrity:
We choose courage over comfort; we choose what is right over what is fun, fast or easy; and we choose to live our values rather than simply profess them.
Non-judgment:
We can talk about how we feel without judgment.
Generosity:
We extend the most generous interpretation to the intentions, words and actions of others.

Nohonga Tahitanga - Sense of Community.

Students ask
Do I belong? Do I matter? Do I make a difference? Am I advantaged? Am I missed? Do I laugh and cry and know our stories? How can I include others? How can I contribute? What do we have in common? Do I notice strengths in others? Do we celebrate our differences?

In Team Koru this means we:
celebrate and be proud of ourselves and   each other
respect and include everyone
we support everyone

In Team Harakeke this means we:
- have a sense of belonging
- are learning to be role models
- celebrate success and effort.

In Team Kauri this means we:
- respect and appreciate the diversity that makes up our school
- live our school values as best as we can
- contribute to and participate in our school as learners, leaders and role models.

At Christchurch East School, we strive for a Sense of Community.

We commit to welcoming, valuing and supporting everyone into our school community. We celebrate differences and seek to understand others.

We commit to making our community a better place through active participation in a range of activities and looking for ways in which we can give back.

We create communities by building friendships, providing opportunities for community involvement and looking for ways to make positive change.

We all chip in, even when things are hard, have fun and are happy to be here.