Our School

Green Bay School is a full primary state school catering for Years 0-8. Located in West Auckland between New Lynn and Titirangi. The school is Decile 7, with a student ethnic composition of 53.78 % European, 5.9% Maori, 8% Pacific Island and 12% Asian. Our community is socio-economically diverse, including families from a wide range of backgrounds. Some families have lived in Green Bay for generations, while there is also a current trend for Green Bay to be a “suburb of choice” for young families to settle in. Adding to this interesting mix are ‘alternative’ or ‘green’ lifestyle families. Our families have a stated preference for educating the whole child, which means we teach all of the New Zealand curriculum and afford students many different types of opportunities for enriching their learning.

Our School Vision is Mauri tu mauri ora; Live trees stand up. Freely translated the Vision is about seizing opportunity. Our School Vision embraces our three Expectations: Respect, Initiative and Positivity. The Expectations were defined by parents, staff and students following an extensive consultation process.

Staffing comprises the Principal,x2 Deputy Principal, Acting Assistant Principal Senco/PB4L Co-ordinator, 6x Year 7/8 teachers, 3x Year 6 teachers, 4x Year 5 teachers, 4x Year 4 teachers, 3x Year 3 teachers, 3x Year 2 teachers and 5x Year 0/1 teachers (depending on student numbers). The Deputy and Associate Principal roles are to mentor and support teachers, and assist with support programmes. We offer support programmes such as English as a Second Language (ESOL), Rainbow Reading, Lexia, BSLA, Reading Recovery, STEPS (Sequential Teaching of Explicit Phonics and Spelling) and VAMP (Visual, Auditory, Memory Processing). Staff who have expertise in languages are asked to share this with students. Gifted & Talented students benefit from identification and planning differentiation to enhance their learning.

As well as strengths in teaching Literacy and Mathematics, the school is a lead school in Science & Technology education. Every student from Year 2 to Year 8 attends a weekly specialist programme in Science. Design Technology is integrated into high interest topics of work which enables students to have opportunities to develop technological literacy, enterprise and entrepreneurship, with class visits to work in a special multi-purpose Technology Room learning skills to enable students to participate in a futures-focussed 21st Century environment. Intermediate students from Kauri syndicate have a special opportunity to do technology lessons over in the specialist rooms at the adjacent Green Bay High School. This gives them a seamless transition to a high school environment and aids in their move to Year 9.

Many curriculum subjects are integrated into learning themes or topics, with a main focus each year on a major and minor curriculum area. Integrated topics use an Inquiry Learning approach called “Learning Pathways”, which helps students learn to ask powerful learning questions and helps them learn the research skills to find answers to their questions. The various curricula skills are woven in to this programme by skilful teachers. We aim for depth of learning rather than trying to pay lip-service to the curriculum. Neither do we routinely break up the school day into discrete curricula subjects as this has the effect of compartmentalising knowledge rather than helping students make links. We incorporate thinking skills and digital technologies with the research skills. Our aim is to develop independent life-long learners and to engage all students, whatever their level, to make learning fun and interesting.

ICT (Information Communication Technologies) is used as a tool to further learning in all curriculum areas.

Physical Education and Sports programmes are supported by a Sports Activator who works alongside and helps teachers to provide high quality P.E. lessons. There are many varied opportunities for students to participate in lunchtime games, sports activities, sports team training and tournaments.