A WORD FROM THE PRINCIPAL
Welcome to Royal Road School
It is my privilege and pleasure to be Principal at Royal Road School. I grew up in Massey and attended Royal Road School as a child – many years ago now.
Massey is a wonderful and diverse community. Royal Road School is proud to be a leading hub for learning within it.
Royal Road School has three long term Strategic Goals:
- That students are self motivated and connected to their learning pathways.
- That students have a strong sense of who they are and where they come from.
- That students are aware of their place in the community and world. They make positive changes in themselves and the community.
Royal Road School has been a PB4L (Positive Behaviour for Learning) school since 2011 and was one of the early adopters of the programme. The school operates a strong Values programme. The Royal Road School values are represented by the acronym SPARK.
S – Sustainability
P – Pride
A – Aroha
R – Respect
K – Kia Kaha
Students are actively taught these values from Year 1 – 8. They play an important role in school daily life. The school values are explicitly taught and modelled. Student wellbeing compliments SPARK. We want students at Royal Road School to be resilient, to love learning, embrace challenges and enjoy life.
Royal Road School is a Green/Gold Enviroschool. The school has been an enviroschool since 2003 and achieved Green/Gold school status in 2011. The enviroschool approach is an integral part of the way that the school operates and thinks. Over the years the school has planted well over 6000 native plants on the school grounds. Many of those plants were grown from seeds eco sourced from our own native trees. The school has recently completed stage one of a bush track in an area which the school has restored.
At Royal Road School we want our students to grow to become Positive and Active Members of the Community. We want our students to have the skills to be able to work with others. Cooperative Learning is an important skill that is explicitly taught at Royal Road School. The ability to work and collaborate with others is an important life and work skill. We want our students to learn that they can influence and have an impact through their actions. We want our students to be change makers in their community, country and even the world.
Digital Fluency is an integral part of learning. We want Royal Road School students to be confident, creative and safe in their use of digital tools and devices. Equity of access is important to the Royal Road School Board of Trustees who have made a commitment of providing and maintaining a ratio of 1 device to every 2 students.
In our New Entrant classes we take a ‘play-based learning approach’. The Royal Road School Board of Trustees have supported the purchase of resources for the classrooms that invite students to role play, construct, create, collaborate and problem solve. A ‘play-based learning approach’ does not mean that the children don’t do formal literacy and maths learning. Alphabet, reading and writing groups and numeracy are all still taught in whole class and group situations. Often a Teacher Aide is also present in the classroom to be part of the ‘play’ with the children to assist with the development of oral language skills.
Play is an integral part of child development. Children learn cooperation, compromise and creativity in play. Risk taking is a critical life skill that children learn through play.
Children at Royal Road School participate in play enthusiastically. Their play involves unstructured play, imaginative play and sports that they organise themselves. Our well loved adventure playground has been upgraded in 2023. Children pay it the ultimate compliment by referring to it as ‘the park’.
Being able to ride a bike safely and confidently is an important life skill. That is why Royal Road School has had a bike track since 2016 that we use to teach all our students how to ride bikes. We have a full fleet of bikes and we are able to cater for all ages and sizes. Each child also has a fitted bike helmet to use for the year.
Massey is lucky to be adjacent to the Northwestern Bike track that goes all the way to downtown Auckland. We want our students to be confident bike riders who become lifelong users of this amazing resource.
We want children at Royal Road School to love books and be lifelong readers. To support this, the Royal Road School Board of Trustees commits funds each year which allows the school to be part of the Duffy Books in Homes programme. Your child will receive a minimum of 6 books per year from the school. This means they receive at least 48 books from the programme over their 8 years at school. This is not counting spot prizes and assembly ‘caught being good’ prizes.
Royal Road School is part of the Ka Ora, Ka Ako | Healthy School Lunches programme and the Fruit in Schools programme. This means that every day your child will be provided with a healthy school lunch and some fresh fruit. Children really love the lunches and the wide range of fruit provides a healthy snack during the day.
Royal Road school is also part of the School Donations Scheme. This means that most school trips and events at school are free, paid for by the scheme.
We look forward to welcoming you to our thriving school community.
Wayne Leighton
Principal