Special Character

Tamariki's aims may be summarised as:
To equip each child, according to their nature and talents, to lead a personally satisfying life, and to be an effective and contributing member of a democratic society.
To be a supportive community which nurtures its members.
The means to achieving these aims are different in emphasis from mainstream New Zealand schooling and are what give Tamariki its Special Character.

There are eight main areas of emphasis:
  1. Emotional and social growth are regarded as the base for cognitive development and strategies, which support these growths, have priorities over all other activities. Tamariki operates in many ways more like an extended family, offering support and encouragement to all its members. It seeks homeliness and limits its numbers to sixty so that all members may know everyone else. Children mix freely irrespective of their age or gender.
  2. The school values and works to achieve close relationships between teachers and children, children and children, and parents and teachers. These are based on trust, and we accept that children may need to test the reliability of teachers before learning takes place. Teachers are expected to be emotionally nurturant of the children, willing to cuddle them, and accepting as natural a child's need for physical contact. Teachers are also expected to physically restrain and hold a child when appropriate.
  3. The children are deeply involved in creating and maintaining the social structures by which the school functions. This involves rule-making, and dispute resolution through the mechanism of whole school meetings, which, when called, take priority over all other activities. The school rejects punishments as a source of control or a response to inappropriate behaviour.
  4. The child's learning is to a very great extent under their own control. In this way they can genuinely advance at their own pace in response to their unique developmental sequence. Attendance at classes is generally voluntary, and exceptions must be justified. Such justification would normally be that the child is afraid of taking the risk of failing and compulsion woul d be applied for a limited period mutually agreed, to carry the child over the risk period. Mistakes are regarded as important learning information and grading is NEVER done. The child's learning belongs to themselves, and they are responsible to themselves, not their teacher for this learning. No adult has the right to demand to see the child's work and such access is always under the child's control. There are no class stratifications until the child enters Year 8. A child always works at their individual level of competence.
  5. We reject norm-referenced tests and examinations as incompatible with our emphasis on the individual. Competition is not regarded as a desirable learning activity. The children are encouraged at all times in all areas to compare their work and skills with their own previous achievements and their own goals. Self-examination is constantly fostered, and the capacity to use a skill and to generalise from it is taken as demonstrating its possession. The focus of teaching strategies is to acknowledge and support what children do well, and use these strengths in areas of weakness.
  6. Play is regarded as children's work. By playing with ideas and objects they develop functioning cognitions about their world. The children may and do use all the materials in the school for their own purposes. We require an environment in which unstructured play freely occurs, with access to trees, sand, water, mud and junk materials. We also respect the child's need at times to be passive and inactive.
  7. The children have a very large measure of control over the environment, which the adults in the school recognise as a most important resource for the children's development in all areas. Accordingly, they will defer their need for an orderly and tidy environment to the child's need to experience cause and effect; to experience why order and tidiness are desirable. The school values and fosters a child's full and committed engagement in any activity, and this engagement can be inhibited by a concern about mess, so we accept that.
  8. Parents are welcome in the school, have unrestricted all-day access, and are not required to fill any particular role. In keeping with the school's function as an extension of the family, pre-school siblings are welcome, and enjoyed by the children.