We offer parents and students a choice of learning at Mt Hobson Academy—teacher or parent-led—giving you the freedom to choose what works best for your your family.

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Option 1: Teacher-led learning

Day-to-day full provision for Academic Year Levels 1-13

All students from year 1-10 experience an interesting, varied, engaging and well-paced day, where they are taught by specialist teachers across the New Zealand Curriculum Learning areas. We work to nurture relationships and weave mindfulness through the day to ensure student wellbeing is a foundation upon which to build good teaching and learning.

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Year 1-10

Students will experience an academic morning. There are four one-hour teaching blocks and over three of the blocks, over a week, students will be taught, in real time, English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, and Technology. The classes will be varied with plenty of student interaction and a very good balance and range of activities. These classes will be directly delivered by high quality, New Zealand registered teachers who are subject specialists.

There will be one, one hour block each day in the academic morning, for independent project work. During independent project time students will have access to Project Coaches who are online for specific hours each day for drop-in workshops to support project completion.

The afternoon session will be activity based around Arts, Music, Languages, Community Learning and Community Service.

The Arts & Activities afternoon (1:30 - 3pm):

• Music
• Art
• Health & PE
• Community Learning
• Community Service

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Years 11–13

Students at this level work through a full provision NCEA Level 1 - 3 programme with a variety of online teachers.  Gateway courses can be used to supplement a programme and may incur an additional cost.

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Learning Platforms

In the Year 4-13 area of our school, we use Microsoft 365 and teaching, learning, communications, turning in projects and assessment feedback takes place through Teams. On enrolment you and your child will be given an orientation around the platform and then follow up if required. Some of our senior classes may be instructed via an external provider who may use Google as a platform. Teacher Led students will receive their own email address, a login to our student management system and a login to Education Perfect. In partnership, we support students to navigate and optimise the online platforms to build learning capability, confidence and digital literacies required in today’s world.

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Academic Managers

In each area of the online school (Yr 4-10), (Yr 11-13), we have an Academic Manager who oversees the pastoral and academic progress and development of all students. We also assign small groups of students to each staff member who will regularly check in on the students individually or in smaller groups during their independent project time to develop learning relationships, answer questions about learning and trouble shoot any technical platform issues they may experience in a more personalized manner.

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Personal Development

• Mt Hobson Academy provides an environment where the students can have their personal, emotional, academic, physical, social and spiritual  needs met in a very supportive manner.
• Mt Hobson Academy is accredited to deliver and assess all secondary subjects.
• All grades/achievements are uploaded to NZQA. Each student receives an NZQA Record of Learning.
• NZQA provides support for students needing to undertake internal or external assessments on their laptop, separate quiet space, reader/writer or extra time.
• The Special Assessment Conditions [SAC] we apply for in Term 1 or 2.

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Option 2: Parent-led learning

For Academic Year Levels 1-10

This option involves the parents or caregivers overseeing daily teaching and learning using our comprehensive academic resources.  For parents of Year 1 - 10 students who have the time and skill set, this can be a very good option.  We have found that younger students Y1-3 can get the best results when they are under the supervision of their parent or caregivers.  This enables the student to have flexibility in their learning styles and lessons can be tailored around the family environment.  One important aspect to note is that we fully monitor, moderate and evaluate the curriculum delivery to meet our Ministry obligations as a registered Private School.

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What our Parent-Led Families Receive

• Comprehensive Project Documentation.
• Subject Unit Plans.
• Day structure to suit your family.
• Ongoing teaching and learning support for students and parents from registered teachers.
• Opportunities for parent networking group meet-ups and camps.
• Principal Chats in virtual meeting three times per term.
• Student is fully enrolled at Mt Hobson Academy (homeschool exemption is not required).