As a school committed to excellence and the adoption of appropriate best practices, we have spent the past two years reflecting on the feedback we received in our community surveys of 2023, from which we gained valuable insights into the views and experiences of the staff, students and whānau of Sancta Maria College. These voices, along with best-practice educational research both worldwide and in Aotearoa, were used to form part of our 2024-2026 Strategic Plan.
One common thread within the surveys was the need for our students to become more active in their learning journey, with the ultimate aim of improved educational outcomes for all. We therefore this year introduced formal structures for Academic Mentoring into our kura.
Furthermore, the collective future vision for Sancta Maria College evident from the survey, was the desire to embrace a more holistic curriculum, encompassing life skills, hauora/wellbeing, and a strengthening of the faith values of our young people in an ever-changing social landscape. To this end, in 2025 we introduced a new subject into our school curriculum: Navigation.
During Navigation, the class teacher (kaiurungi), both oversees a bespoke curriculum including Mindfulness, Learning How to Learn, Ethics, Community Service, Sustainability, Social Media Literacy, Financial Literacy, Catholic Citizenship, Digital Fluency, Global Citizenship, Kaupapa Māori and other cultures, and also mentors ākonga in supporting their academic achievement.
We believe that Navigation will not only provide opportunities for the broader learning of knowledge and skills not explicitly delivered within the existing New Zealand curriculum, but it will also ensure that ākonga have a stronger sense of belonging and connection.
By connecting every ākonga with an academic mentor – a significant adult to accompany their academic journey – they are better able to know, understand and moderate their own learning and academic progress.
Recent topics covered in Navigation include adopting a Growth Mindset approach to learning, the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, and the whole-school learning of the Sancta Maria College haka, gifted to our kura in 2025.
We look forward to sharing with you further exciting developments as we oversee the delivery of the best possible educational opportunities to our ākonga.
With blessings,
Ray Green.
Associate Principal
