Rochelle Standen, Lance Taylor, John Lynskey
Nau mai haere mai, welcome to Team Rakau
Our name ‘Rākau’ means “tree, wood or stick, as well as ‘forest’ so it ties the names of our senior school learning spaces, Tōtara, Tī Kōuka and Kōwhai, together to make a forest. Our other two syndicate names also relate to Rākau, and these are Mānuka (a small tree common in NZ), and Harakeke (which means flax).
Rākau is a collaborative learning environment that comprises all of the Year 5,6,7 & 8 students. The teaching team includes Suzy Parker (Kōwhai), Lance Taylor (Tōtara) and John Lynskey (Tī Kōuka). We also have Danica Busch, Karen Hook and Caitlin Horne who support our children as teacher aides.
We all love learning for life and are keen to be ‘better than before’ every day, in everything that we do at school. This is vital to who we are, to how we relate to others and interact with people, to how we learn to show care, compassion and empathy to others each and every day.
We are very conscious of the REACH values
Respect – Excellence – Aroha – Courage – Honesty
and our school vision of “Better Together, Mahi Tahi”. This is discussed, modelled and taught weekly as part of our REACH assembly and goal setting + reflections.
Children will be working across the year levels with a variety of teachers and aides according to their specific needs. This will be particularly true in numeracy and literacy where we utilise the skills and experience of all staff to give students the best learning for their stage.
We embrace digital learning and all children have their own Google accounts which they access a lot of tools to support their learning.
Communication is highly important and if you need to contact us then please email us on:
Suzy Parker – s.parker@ashleyrakahuri.school.nz
Lance Taylor – l.taylor@ashleyrakahuri.school.nz
John Lynskey – j.lynskey@ashleyrakahuri.school.nz
