St Paul's handbook Essential information - St Paul's Collegiate School

groups. These groups meet approximately
once a week with a teacher mentor to discuss,
in an informal setting, the many issues that
face our top academic students. The mentor is
there to listen and offer advice in areas such as:
time management, workload and commitment
management, and study planning. The mentor
is also there to assist the students in finding
and applying for other scholarships available
through a variety of sources. In addition to the
money earned from success in the scholarship
examinations, a number of students from last
year were assisted by their mentors in gaining
other scholarships worth tens of thousands of
dollars each. Some of the students were even
able to gain full study scholarships worth in
excess of one hundred thousand dollars.
Generic Skills Sessions
It has been identified by staff at St Paul’s that
deficiencies in certain generic skills can form
significant barriers to success in scholarship
examinations for even the very best academics.
These skills include: essay writing, question
interpretation, exam technique, and revision
skills. To address this, a number of teachers
have contributed to a seminar programme
designed to ensure that the students enter the
end‐of‐year examinations prepared with this skill
set. These seminars are for the whole scholarship
group and any other student planning on
entering for scholarship examinations. They run
on Wednesday mornings prior to the start of
school, and are regarded as compulsory learning
for our Scholarship candidates.
St Paul’s Collegiate School is committed to giving
its top academic students the best possible
preparation required for NCEA scholarship,
and in doing so, will continue to build on its
reputation as one of the top scholarship schools
in the country.
Scholarship in the
Junior School
Turning young academics into scholarship
achievers begins as soon as they arrive at
St Paul’s. The School has developed, and is
continuing to develop, a range of programmes
within the junior school designed to nurture and
promote academic excellence.
Advanced Programmes of Study
The heads of the core subject departments
(English, Mathematics, Science, and Social
Studies) have collaborated with their subject
teachers to develop specific programmes of
study to cater for the advanced academic
requirements of the top-streamed academic
class. In some cases, this has meant that
the standard Year 9 curriculum has been
substantially re-written to better challenge these
students. Teachers of these subjects have also
collaborated with Year 8 teachers to ensure that
the St Paul’s academic experience at Year 9 is
unique.
Extension Programmes
LEAP – Learning Enrichment and Achievement
Programme.
An extension and enrichment programme has
been developed and takes place initially in the
junior school in Years 9 and 10.
In Year 9, this programme (LEAP) operates at
two levels. Firstly, in the 9A band, students do
a compacted curriculum to enable students
to undertake an individualized research
programme. Secondly, across all Year 9 classes, a
selected number of students who have various
talents in a number of specific intelligences
(kinaesthetic, visual spatial, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, mathematical, logical, musical and
linguistic intelligences) are invited to attend an
enrichment camp.
In Year 10, students can also participate in
LEAP. A number of Achievement Standards
are presented. These come from across the
curriculum. Students have the opportunity to
participate in an enrichment camp.
Using Chess as a Problem Solving Tool
The Head of the Mathematics Department has
introduced a programme at Year 9 designed to
St Paul’s Collegiate School Handbook 17
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