Academic
Under the framework of the National Curriculum, Taupo Intermediate School has created a balanced and broad curriculum designed to educate the whole student and cater for the intellectual, social, physical and creative aspects of the emerging adolescent. Our teacher specialisms ensure that quality programme’s geared at the academic level, interests, needs and characteristics of 10 –13-year-old age group: meet the individual needs of a whole range of students.
We cover all learning areas to ensure a broad general education – English, Math’s, Social Sciences, Science, Learning Languages, Health and Physical Education, Technology and the Arts.
Key Competencies are integral to our teaching and learning and are a part of lifelong learning: Thinking, Using Language, symbols, and texts, managing self, relating to others, Participating and Contributing.
Math’s
Taupo Intermediate School offers a comprehensive mathematics program which covers all three strands of the New Zealand Mathematics Curriculum; number and algebra, geometry and measurement, and statistics. Math’s is taught based on student’s individual needs and goals.
TIS students are offered a number of opportunities as part of our mathematics program, such as a statistical investigation in term 2, team problem-solving competitions in term 2 and 3, and Mathsmatters in term 3. All students have the opportunity to compete in our interclass math problem-solving competition, where classes contend for the year 7 and 8 shields. Those students who wish to compete at a regional level are tested and carefully selected in order to form our elite problem-solving teams. These teams then take part in several training sessions with the year 7 and year 8 CWAA teachers to ready themselves for events such as Mathletics, BayMaths, and our very own Mathsmatters.
As well as the team problem solving, our Mathsmatters event offers a number of other competitions for students to take part in, including the Mathsmatters publicity poster and mathematical construction/mobile competitions. We also offer a stained-glass window design competition for our visiting year 5 and 6 students whom we host during competition week.
Having laptops in the class allows students to follow up their mathematics learning with the use of interactive websites. Students and teachers can access a range of numeracy learning experiences online including (but are not limited to):
• Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/
• Study ladder https://www.studyladder.co.nz/
• E-ako Maths https://e-ako.nzmaths.co.nz/
• Mathletics http://nz.mathletics.com/home
• Banqer https://www.banqer.co/
Our mathematics classroom program aims to help students to develop:
- a belief in the value of mathematics and its usefulness to them, to nurture confidence in their own mathematical ability, to foster a sense of personal achievement, and to encourage a continuing and creative interest in mathematics.
- the skills, concepts, understandings, and attitudes which will enable them to cope confidently with the mathematics of everyday life.
- a variety of approaches to solving problems involving mathematics and develop the ability to think and reason logically.
- mathematical and statistical literacy skills needed in a society which is technologically orientated and information rich.
- mathematical tools, skills, understandings, and attitudes that they will require in the workforce
Literacy
Here at Taupo Intermediate we offer students a range of literacy learning experiences. Literacy is broken down into reading, writing, grammar, and spelling. Write that Essay is a major writing initiative that we, along with the Taupo Community of learning have invested in over the last 2 years and the results from this writing program speak for themselves.
The program is anchored in Dr Ian Hunter’s unique skill-based approach to the cross-curriculum development of writing ability. It delivers the total package: from award-winning online software through to expert professional development to cutting-edge diagnostic tools. It includes modules based around many different aspects of writing and tasks made and set by the teacher that directly relate to topics taught in class. www.writethatessay.org
Reading is generally integrated across our topics and themes for the term. All teachers run their reading programs slightly different, but would all include a mixture of shared reading, reading to, reciprocal reading, and guided reading that focuses on specific comprehension strategies including visualising, inferring, questioning, evaluating, summarising, activating prior knowledge, and making connections.
We offer a visual language competition in Term 1 which usually consists of a poster, animated PowerPoint or movie based around digital citizenship. This allows the students to explore this vital topic early in the year. TIS Spelling Bee’s for Year 7 and Year 8 are held in Term 3, followed by the interschool Great Lake Spelling Bee. We run speeches in Term 3, which are usually persuasive arguments accompanied by a visual presentation.
Having laptops in the class allows students to read online as well as from journals and novels. It also means students and teachers can access a range of literacy learning experiences online including but not limited to:
Read theory https://readtheory.org/
Literacy planet https://www.literacyplanet.com/
Pobble 365 www.pobble365.com/
Literacy shed https://www.literacyshed.com/
Study ladder https://www.studyladder.co.nz/
eLearning
As of 2025 Taupo Intermediate School, will provide classrooms with Chromebooks for students to use while learning. Our laptop program is no longer running.