Tauranga Intermediate

Infobox NZ school
name =Tauranga Intermediate
badge =
motto ="Kimihia kia taea"
Explore and Achieve
type = State Co-educational Intermediate
established =1958
address =30 18th Avenue,
The Avenues,
Tauranga
coordinates =
principal = Brian Diver
roll =1164
decile =5
MOE =1990
homepage = [http://www.tauranga-int.school.nz/ www.tauranga-int.school.nz]

Tauranga Intermediate is an Intermediate school situated in Tauranga, New Zealand. It is the largest in the country, with over 1,100 boys and girls in 37 classrooms. Notable is its pilot program, experimenting with an all-boys' class to see if segregation could help learning for boys at Intermediate age (see below).

Curriculum

The TIS (Tauranga Intermediate School) curriculum comprises the following compulsory subjects:Maths, English, Social Sciences, The Arts, Information Technology (IT), Māori Language, Physical Education and Health, Sport, Research.

All pupils also take a technology course, consisting of a hands-on lesson one or two days per week. Over the year students will usually cover the following technology subjects: Drama, Dance, Music, Visual Art, Hard Materials, Electronics, Soft Materials and Cooking.

Students may also choose to take the following optional courses:
* Foreign languages- students can choose to participate in learning another language. In year 7 the choices are French and German; and in year 8 the choices are Spanish or Japanese. Students in the CWSA classes must do one language per year and also learn Mandarin (Chinese) for the two years they attend TIS. There are also two Māori language classes that offer Te Reo for three hours per week at level 4 immersion. Any student may opt into these classes if they so wish.

CWSA Classes

Tauranga Intermediate has four CWSA (Children With Special Abilities) or accelerate classes - two are year 8 classes and two are year 7. These classes make up Totara house, and are comprised by rooms 15, 16, 17 and 18. They are taught at an accelerate level (Level 4-5 of the New Zealand Curriculum) and are described as either gifted or talented. Considering that there are approximately 34 students per class of accelerate students, it can be concluded that Tauranga Intermediate has approximately a 1 gifted/talented student in 9 average students. (1200 ÷ (34x4)).

Boys Class

Tauranga Intermediate has experimented with creating an all-boys class which has been now running for 3 years. The class is sponsored by Fit Co. and they often participate in school and external functions. The class is aimed at students without an authoritative male figure in their lives. Views of students throughout the school represent a general opinion that this class houses more bullies and anti-social boys than most other classes in the school.Fact|date=March 2007

Houses

Tauranga Intermediate, since the early days of the school, has had house groups which over the years have changed very much.
* In the 1980s there were four houses:Matai, Rata, Rimu and Kauri.
* Sometime in the late 1990s two additional houses were created, these being Totara and Tawa.
* In 2006 3 new houses were created, and thus the final house list is:Miro, Tawa, Totara, Tanekaha, Matai, Kahikatea, Rata, Rimu and Kauri.

"House Colours:"

Miro (Orange)
Tawa (Dark Blue)
Totara (Purple)
Tanekaha (Light Blue)
Matai (Yellow)
Kahikatea (Light Green)
Rata (Black)
Rimu (Red)
Kauri (Dark Green)

Kaka St. Satellite Class

Tauranga Intermediate currently run a special needs school in the next street from Tauranga Intermediate. Students their have severe learning disabilities. Room 39 is also a special needs satellite class on the Tauranga Intermediate school site. This class has a roll (as of the year 2006) of 14 students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. The class is staffed by two full time teachers, two full time teacher aides and one part time teacher and one part time teacher aide, creating a learning staff to student ratio of 5:14 at any one time.

The class's curriculum involves much the same as the base school, Kaka Street Special School - with a strong focus on life skills and skills required to live as independently as possible.

Multimedia Classes

The school currently has 4 multimedia computer classes in which children have there own Apple Mac. computer, the classes are designed for kids of the future. The children need to buy there own laptops which limits the number of people wanting to go in.

The current principal is Brian Diver.

Classrooms

The Teachers of 2008

External links

* [http://www.tauranga-int.school.nz Tauranga Intermediate's school website]
* [http://www.kakastreet.school.nz/intermediate Kaka Street Intermediate Satellite Class webpage]