The Centre is a busy, positive environment for students to work independently or with assistance on personalised programmes designed to meet their learning needs.
Teacher Assistants
We are privileged to have a dedicated, highly skilled team of Teacher Assistants available to students both in the Learning Centre itself and going out into classrooms to support students.
The Learning Centre provides student leadership opportunities through buddy reading, peer tutors, mentoring and lunchtime support groups.
Programmes currently run through the Learning Centre are:
1. Numeracy support groups (Yr 7&8, Yr 9&10, L1 Numeracy) - Small groups that meet once or twice a week to build on gaps in the student’s knowledge and build self confidence. Teacher aides have been trained to use Numicon to support these groups.
2. Literacy support groups (Yr 7&8, Yr 9&10, L1 Literacy) - Small groups that meet once or twice a week to develop reading comprehension, phonics and writing skills and build self confidence.
3. The Brick by Brick programme (formerly known as LEGO-based therapy) is an evidence-based social skills programme for individuals on the autism spectrum and related social skills difficulties. The Brick by Brick programme is highly structured and uses children’s own natural interests in LEGO to promote development of social communication and play.
4. ORS students work on their own curriculum designed and monitored by the LSC and a specialist teacher. Their curriculum is based on their Individual Education Plan.
5. SPEC - South Pacific Education Courses - This is a comprehensive programme developed by Carolyn Baines. There are several courses that are designed to be motivational, give student choice and develop the Key Competencies (Thinking, Relating to Others, Using Language, Symbols and Texts, Managing Self and Participating and Contributing).
6. Mentoring programmes - This is run through mentoring agencies funded by the Ministry of Education or our Alternative Education Programme. The programme aims to build students self esteem and to teach them self management skills based on the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum. .
At Otamatea we run:
1. SPEC Kiwi Quest - for students with particular learning needs. Students who complete this programme may move onto to Trump/Headway courses.
2. SPEC Trump/Headway - For students in yr 7-10 who need to build their self belief and engage in learning in a positive, productive way.
3. The NZ Certificate in Foundation Skills Level 1 - This is NOT an NCEA course but a separate Level 1 qualification which will appear on the students NZQA Record of Learning. This is a two year programme which is designed to assist students who may find it difficult to achieve NCEA. At Otamatea most of our students studying this will be able to develop and use material from these courses toward their NCEA L1 Literacy.
Special Assessment Conditions
These are co-ordinated through the Learning Centre by the SENCO (Paddy Hallissey). Where a student is of average or above intelligence, but struggles with reading and/or writing, we can apply for Reader/Writer support in NCEA exams. We need to have identified this and have testing evidence BEFORE YEAR 11. Considerable time is spent analysing results and consulting with teachers to identify students who may be entitled to this. If you have any concerns or queries regarding your own students eligibility for SAC, please contact the SENCO.
Please contact Paddy Hallissey, Learning Support Co-ordinator at paddy.hallissey@otamatea.school.nz for more details.