Melissa Grant

Deputy Principal and Junior Team Leader

melissag@tps.ac.nz

It is my pleasure to be part of the team at TPS where we work extremely hard to provide an exciting, creative and challenging curriculum that meets the needs of all our learners. I have been part of the team since Term 3 2009 having returned from living and teaching in London for nine years where I was the Deputy Principal at St Joseph's RC Primary School in Chelsea for nearly 5 of those years. I had the chance to travel around the world with my husband Geoff on the way back from London for a year in 2008 where we experienced a variety of different cultures, met a lot of wonderful people and saw some amazing places! As one of the Deputy Principals at TPS I have a range of responsibilities throughout the school which ensures the school runs smoothly and is well organised. As the Junior Team Leader I look after the Year 1/2 classes and ensure that our new starters to the school are welcomed and have all the information they need. I am the Maths Lead Teacher in the school and my goal this year is to provide teachers with the latest resources and to ensure they have the professional development needed to further support them deliver high quality maths programmes. I also strongly believe that parents need to be fully involved with their children’s learning and I will be running interactive maths workshops for parents. The aim of this will be to help parents understand the number framework and to give a range of ideas and activities based around number knowledge that they can do with their children at home. I am passionate about the effective use of ICT. To achieve this we need a robust, reliable and fast network that keeps us at the forefront of the technology we want to use in the school. We are in the middle of a massive upgrade that is providing many more data outlets and power to all classrooms. In addition we are putting in a new super server that will ensure our connection is fast across the school and out to the digital world – the internet. We are also joining the NEAL network loop that will give us access to a range of on-line content and resources that will further support our teaching and learning programmes. We now have 6 ActivBoards in the school and we are working towards having one in each class. The interactive whiteboards are a powerful tool that engages all learners and provides creative approaches to teaching and learning. Wow, it is all go at TPS!