Daily / Weekly Organisation

A five-day, school-wide timetable operates ensuring that a broad curriculum is delivered to all pupils. The school day officially starts at 8.40 with a House line-up in the quadrangle. The children form up in house lines with seniors and juniors inter-mingled to ensure there is support for the young ones.
 
On a Monday morning, the houses then file into the school hall for an assembly. The assembly begins with a hymn and a prayer, reviews the virtue being focused on for the week, and covers all the administration notices for the week.  This is followed by reports from  pupil leaders such as the head-chorister,  and the head prefect.  Honours and virtues awards, as well as any other certificates or trophies, are then presented by the principal.
 
From Tuesday to Thursday, the house line up is the forum for the kaeakia, the distribution of daily notices or reminders for the children. On Friday mornings, after the line up, the school walks the hundred metres to the Church of the Epiphany, on the corner of High and Intermediate Streets, for the weekly chapel service. The service is approximately thirty minutes long and follows the Anglican Prayer Book. The children lead the service and the sermon is delivered by a staff member or visiting member of clergy.
 
Each morning, until lunch time at 12.00, all the classes focus on numeracy and literacy. There is daily, explicit teaching and learning in reading, writing, and numeracy. The school’s philosophy is that literacy and numeracy underpin all the other learning activities and this three-hour block is the school’s acknowledgement of the importance of a strong foundation in these key skills and concepts.
 
Afternoons are also structured into half-hour or hour blocks so that all the other essential learning areas can be delivered by both the classroom teachers and specialist curriculum deliverers. This teaching and learning programme means that all children receive a broad curriculum delivered by the teachers who have the passion for a specific learning area.
 
Sport and cultural practices occur during lunch-times and after school.