Aim High

We value The Treaty of Waitangi as our nation's founding document

We celebrate the uniqueness of Maori in the world and have a commitment to the delivery of Taha Maori. Tikanga Maori guides the protocols of how we live together and do things at our school.

We want our student's to understand what makes New Zealand unique and what is important to preserve and uphold.

We value cultural diversity

At Avondale Intermediate School we value our cultural uniqueness. We excel at acknowledging the strengths that these differences bring to our school and understand how to teach to cultural difference. We are cognisant of the abilities of our student's within and across cultural groups.

We want our students to be proud of their own cultural backgrounds and to respect and value other cultures.

We value life-long learning

Students, teachers, and support staff, parents (everyone) are encouraged and supported to fully engage in ongoing learning and develop skills for reslisiency and perseverance.

We want our students to be life-long learners.

We value each person's uniqueness

Ours is a school where all voices are equally heard and respected. Students are provided opportunities to express themselves creatively through Music, Dance, Drama and Visual Arts as well as creative writing, oral expression and performance.

We want our students to be strong in their own identity.

We value academic excellence and achievement

Students are supported to set and achieve personal academic goals. Classroom teachers provide a curriculum that places a priority in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Funding for learning support ensures that students learning needs are addressed.

Avondale Intermediate School identifies those students who are achieving well above their peers and provides enrichment programmes.

We want our students to be able to reach their potential.

We value sporting prowess and team spirit

We have a Health and Physical Wellbeing specialist teacher who coordinates all the relevant programmes: Fitness, PE and Swimming, Sports Teams, Recreational pursuits, Education Outside of the Classroom (camps and trips), Coaching, lunch time and after school activities, Healthy Eating (including the school canteen), Careers education etc.

Students and teachers all participate in Fitness everyday. Students participate in Health and PE specialist lessons every week and all students are encouraged to participate in lunchtime and school-based Sports teams. We have an excellent swimming pool and water safety programmes available to the school community in the summer time.

For students that demonstrate physical prowess above that of their counterparts and who possess a positive team attitude there is a Sports Academy. These students participate in physical activities designed to extend and enrich the talents they already display. 

We want our students to be ‘active for life'.  

We value peaceful relationships

Developing supportive and cooperative relationships is the primary focus for all behaviour management strategies.

Our school wide behaviour management programme ensures that all students understand the limits and boundaries of acceptable behaviour. We have a strong emphasis on rewarding positive and desired behaviours   and recognising the strengths and efforts of students.

Our school-wide ‘Stepping Up' behaviour management programme ensures that the consequences of poor and unacceptable behaviours are known and adhered to by all.

We recognise and address bullying. We have a zero tolerance for violence or destruction of property. We believe that students must be held accountable for their actions and that any consequences must reflect the level non-compliance to rules, respect or safety.

Parents are included in all aspects of behaviour management: in knowing and celebrating their child's accomplishments and successes and in the discussion around and implementation of strategies to improve behaviour.

We want our students to be able to make and maintain positive and healthy relationships.

We value ‘real life' education

We all know that learning happens best when it is embedded in ideas and experiences that children know and understand. At Avondale Intermediate we strive to ensure that the school curriculum responds to the student; their interests and passions, their needs and strengths.

This is especially expressed in our Specialist programmes, our Education Out of the Classroom, our Health and Physical Wellbeing programmes and in the integrated classroom curriculum; where the teachers and the children decide together their learning path.

We want our students to be able to apply their learning to their own lives.

We value cooperative learning

Educational research tells that the rate of learning increases when students help each other to learn. It tells us that the student who gains the most from this cooperative way of learning is the student who takes the role of the teacher or ‘learning coach'.

We want our students to be confident in what they know and can take responsibility for helping and supporting others along they way.

We want our students who can give and accept help.                 

We value the ability to solve problems positively and creatively

Learning to think and thinking to learn are key elements for our vision for learning.     We want every student to leave our school with a rich repertoire of thinking skills: creative, lateral, critical, analytical, philosophical, evaluative, and problem solving. We want them to be able to use these skills in real life situations with confidence.

We want our students to be able to recognise their options and make positive, well thought out choices.

We value parent participation

We want a school where parents and whanau work harmoniously together with the school to ensure that the child is able to reach their potential. We want a school where parents participate and feel welcomed and valued as integral to the school's success.

We want our students to know that all the adults in their lives care for them and their futures.

We value community involvement

A clear shared vision between the school and the community guides our daily efforts to celebrate the life of every person. Our consultative community is to be found both within our staff, and our parents and families.

By encouraging community involvement, and using our community's expertise, our programmes have relevance and cultural breadth.

We want our students to be active in their community.    

We value healthy living and habits

Our children will be offered only healthy food when they are at school and will be strongly discouraged from consuming unhealthy food and beverage options.

Healthy lifestyle choices will be a feature of our school message to students- both for now and at school and for the future as adults.

We want our students to be able to make life-long healthy choices.

We value cleanliness and inviting environments

We are proud of our new buildings and school environment. We know that they reflect a school of the future and all members of the school community work together to ensure that the best is provided for us all from this environment.

We plan for sustainability and work together to have a community treasure.

We want our students to be future thinking and able to care for their environment.

We value spiritual, emotional and physical balance in the lives of all members of our school community.

We want our students to be well-balanced and ‘whole'.

We value effort and ‘Aiming High'

He aha te mea nui, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata, our strength is our people, and our people must be strong.