Stories

Rotary Enrichment Programme

PENROSE ROTARY CLUB / ONE TREE HILL COLLEGE

ROTARY ENRICHMENT PROGRAMME  (REP)

‘LEARNING THROUGH CONNECTING’  A COMMUNITY LITERACY INITIATIVE

“Ki te pai te noho tahi, kia pai te hikoi tahi i te huarahi ako.”

“Making connections and working well together will make one’s ‘pathway of learning’ journey a successful adventure.”

WHAT IS REP?

REP has been running at OTHC for some time now with over 1000 of our students being given the chance to experience its unique benefits.

REP is a literacy initiative that relies heavily on community involvement. It is ‘learning through connecting’ and involves students being mentored by our many volunteer tutors – all of whom, have made successes of their lives through their many years of hard work.

WHY DO WE HAVE REP AT OTHC?

For some time now, there has been the realization that the literacy skills of a portion of students entering our College, are not at the required levels to encourage success. The REP programme has therefore been devised to upskill our students in the required components in an endeavour to overcome this.

We are fortunate to be able to make REP available to a selection of our Year 9 students due to the support of the management and teaching staff, and the sponsorship of the following organisations – PENROSE ROTARY CLUB, Burnett Charitable Trust, Event Cinemas, David Levene Foundation, Lois Dalley Trust, MSA Charitable Trust, Newmarket Rotary Charitable Foundation, One Tree Hill College BOT, Management & Staff, Rotary Club of Newmarket, Scholastic NZ, The Chenery Trust, The Fletcher Trust and The Harold Thomas Memorial Trust.

HOW SUCCESSFUL IS REP?

The success of REP can be judged not only the data gathered but by the fact that its reputation is spreading, and it has now been set up in nine different colleges and high schools in the North Auckland and Auckland regions, with many more enquiring to set up the programme in their schools.

AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY has just released their report on their research into why REP is so successful – their findings back up fully what the programme was designed to achieve for our students.

The programme targets students who have ability but just need the necessary enrichment of their literacy skills to reach their full potential.

WHAT DO WE TARGET?

On REP we cover all five language strands of the literacy curriculum:

ORAL            LISTENING              READING               WRITING            VISUAL 

In the Reading strand we target the disciplines of summarization and comprehension as students taken on REP have good decoding skills. Broadening core subject vocabulary is also a focus. 

WHY ARE WE PROUD OF OUR RESULTS?

Our results over the years have shown that these targets have proven to be the ones that have led to our many ex- REP students gaining very good grades in their future NCEA examinations.

We are also proud of the number of our students go on to become student leaders of our college, with this year being no exception with Junior Grant and Christian Mona becoming Prefects this year. 

REP is a wonderful programme as it involves parents, community and the school, working together to benefit the Year 9 students at our College to get them ready for their future education.

B LANGDON - REP CO ORDINATOR (2020)

At the recent REP Graduation Ceremony attended by parents, tutors, teachers and sponsors, students received certificates and books courtesy of The Penrose Rotary Club.  In front of a very supportive gathering, students were required to give speeches to express their individual gratitude to both sponsors and tutors.  All present, were incredibly impressed with the presentations and the growth in confidence of the students that had developed during their time on REP.  Parents of the students were extremely proud of their children’s success and enthusiastically expressed their support of the programme. As one parent said, “I am so pleased that my daughter was selected for the REP programme. I can see the difference in her attitude towards work. She has enjoyed her time on it”.  The high point of the graduation was the presentation of the David Levene Top Student Award. On receiving her award, recipient Malia Lupe Vatuvei said, “I was so proud to be awarded this top student award and thank the David Levene Foundation and the Penrose Rotary Club for enabling this programme to be at our school”.  It’s safe to say that this enrichment programme coordinated by Mr Brian Langdon provides the finest education and skills to the young students at our college. Mr Langdon himself acknowledges that seeing the students being rewarded for their hard work is pleasing, and he hopes the Penrose Rotary Club and other sponsors back the continuation of the REP programme at OTHC.