At Takapuna Grammar School, the Academic Support Team is dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment where every student can thrive. 

Screening and Assessment

Our support program provides comprehensive screening and assessments to identify students' unique academic strengths and challenges. For those with learning difficulties, we assess literacy, numeracy, and screen for auditory/visual processing issues. We also use checklists and observations to identify executive functioning challenges and sensory over and under sensitivity.

Targeted Learning Support

Once we have identified  students' learning barriers, we collaborate with them, their whānau, kaiako, and external professionals to create learner profiles to ensure teachers understand the student’s strengths and challenges, and suggest strategies for classroom support. 

For students needing more tailored assistance, a team—including the student, whānau, deans, kaiako, and academic support—develops and monitors an Individual Education Plan (IEP) with specific goals and actions to reach the goals. The team meets termly to review progress and determine next steps.

Our experienced team of teacher aides, most of whom are trained teachers themselves, assist students in the mainstream classrooms under directions of the subject teachers. We ensure that no student feels singled out.

Literacy Support

The Academic Support team provides literacy support for students with reading, writing, and spelling difficulties. The program includes structured literacy instruction to improve encoding and decoding, explicit teaching of reading comprehension, grammar, and essay writing skills. Its primary goal is to enhance students' literacy to help them earn the NCEA co-requisite reading and writing credits required for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

Special Assessment Conditions (SAC)

The SAC team determines students' eligibility for assessment conditions and collects the necessary evidence for NZQA approval of NCEA internal and external assessments. We then apply for the specific conditions on the student’s behalf. Additionally, we provide SAC for Year 9 and 10 students to help them reach their potential and become familiar with using readers and writers by the time they start their NCEA level 1 assessments.