Tuakana Teina--working across the school

This week we spent some time working across the school in our whanau groups.  This is a wonderful opportunity to get to work with other teachers and with kids of all ages across the school.  It gives us a chance to be leaders and big buddies and to work in different spaces.

This time we were all learning about the story of Ngake and Whataitai--the taniwha of Wellington harbour and how relevant they are to our location here at Worser Bay.  We learned a different version of the story that looks at the taniwha and each of their strengths.  Each group explored these ideas through different ways.  Some did collaborative art, team building exercises, and viewing the locations in the harbour that relate to the story from our local lookout.  

Positive Relationships: reconnecting with old and new friends

We had a visit from Mr. Nic and some of his year 7 and 8 students from Ilminster school in Gisborne this week.  It was a great opportunity for us to practise our haka and the way we welcome visitors to our school.  We talked a bit about the significance of our school's site, Kupe, Whetu kairangi and the wheke and then we made our way down to the beach.  We practised our hosting, showing manaakitanga and being leaders.   

We walked to the beach, exercising our appreciation of beauty and excellence, as we marvelled at the place we are so lucky to call ours.  We worked in groups, fostering positive relationships, and building sand sculptures.  It was a lovely way to connect.  

Thanks Mr. Nic for a lovely visit and for helping us make new connections and positive relationships.

 

Welcome to 2023!

We're back! Settling into the new year and developing positive relationships amongst the group was our focus for the first few days. We have focused on the strengths of Teamwork and manaakitanga. 

Soon, we will be launching into an Inquiry investigating our local marine environments. We will be helping to trial and develop a programme in conjunction with Worser Bay Boat Club, Otago University Marine Science department and others. The programme is called Moana Mana and will involve a lot of hands-on learning in the intertidal zone as well as research and experimentation in the classroom. We are very excited to have the opportunity to work alongside real scientists and to have a positive impact on our environment. Year 5-6 students will also have snorkelling opportunities as well as some sailing connected with this learning.

Alongside this will be an Arts project whose purpose is to mark our school site as the former Whetūkairangi Pā. We will be working with artist in residence, Kimi Moana Whiting up until June, by which time we will have some significant sculptural pieces completed. Again, we will be looking to the natural world for inspiration.

Welcome Back to 2022

Welcome back to a new school year! We loved welcoming back our students last week after such a beautiful Wellington summer. We're excited about the learning ahead! We will be kicking off with an Inquiry ‘Words and Pictures, Igniting the imagination’, a study of comics and graphic novels. We are excited about connecting visual and written language and think that this will be really inspiring for our kids.

We have started to think about goal setting for the year. Last week, we chose a focus word for the year. This is a word that will guide us through the year ahead. This will sit on our shoulder and gently nudge us towards achieving our goals. The staff have also created a focus word for the year!

We know that setting goals helps us to stay motivated and feel success. We break these goals into small steps (kaizen steps). We have our "dream goals" then break these down into smaller steps. 

When goal setting, we use the "SMARTER" akronym. We think the exciting and rewarding part is REALLY important! 

Some goal setting questions for our students: 

What are your dreams? what are you passionate about? How will you grow a strength? What are your goals for Literacy and Maths? Other areas of the curriculum? What is something you need to work on? 

What are your goals linked to the flourish model?
Positive Relationships

Positive Purpose

Positive Emotions
Positive Accomplishment
Positive Health

Positive Engagement

The Flourish Model is at the centre of what we do at Worser Bay School

This term we have a focus on the Learner Attribute of being a goal setter. 

We have enjoyed spending time connecting and reconnecting with our friends. We spent time at the beach on Friday as part of Global Play Day. What a great way to develop and build Positive Relationships. 

ASB Sports Day Years 1/2/6

The Year 6 students are focusing on "Positive Purpose" and giving back to their school community. They thought that assisting Year 0-2 students at the ASB would be one great way to do this.

Year 6s spent some time in Autahi while waiting for the bus

At the ASB we did Gymnastics, Ball Skills and Floor-ball. At Ball Skills we practiced catching, throwing and hitting people with the balls. Floor-ball was fun. We did a ‘tournament’ where we have 3 teams and two teams face each other, then after a couple minutes we swap and a different teams face each other. Gymnastics was fun although it was kind of a free for all. Working with the little kids was challenging and we had to be patient but it was fun - Mae S

Gymnastics

I loved doing the ASB trip with the year ones and twos. Even though we couldn’t be as competitive, it was still fun anyway and I enjoyed the activities that they did for us - Sabine M

Floorball

Ball Skills

Positive Relationships ✔

Smiles on the bus home