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.

Friendships and Relationships: Manaakitanga

We have been working together in Learning Groups.  These people are not always our best friends, in fact they may be people we don't choose to play with at all.  When working together though we have noticed that we are developing a working relationship.  When this is working well it is really satisfying.  We have noticed that many of the same things apply to a successful leaning group and a good friendship.  Underpinning this are the principles of trust, responsibility and respect.  We call this Manaakitanga; the things we do to uphold and uplift each other's mana.

This is our brainstorm.  Can you see that Care, Kindness and Help are in the intersection of our Venn Diagram?

This group are supporting each other in their learning!

This piece of writing is from a group of students: 

It feels really horrible when people are mean to us. When people say things like you can't play, it is upsetting. It makes us feel sad.

The kind of things we don't like are:
people not being inclusive
when people steal friends 
keeping friends to themselves
people being mean
when people whisper behind our backs

What is a friend? 
A kind person. 
Someone that is inclusive. 
We have positive conversations.
They sometimes have humour. 
They are respectful.
Someone that makes you feel good about yourself.
A person who makes you feel better when you are sad. 
A person who helps you when you are hurt. 
A person who stands up for you. 

Do you have to be friends with everyone? 
No, if you are friends with everyone you would have no time for your true friends. However, you do have to be kind to EVERYONE!

Global Play Day 2020

Unstructured play is recognised as an important part of developing social, collaborative and problem-solving skills for children. We celebrated Global Play Day on Friday 7th February. Our students enjoyed playing games with each other. It was interesting to see how they used their imaginations to invent new games.

Before we started our students set 2 goals. One was linked to manaakitanga and the other was about creativity. We also spent time playing with other students across the school.

We invite you to watch this excellent TED talk by Dr. Peter Gray, Professor of psychology and researcher at the University of Boston on the importance of unstructured play for children’s wellbeing if you’d like to find out more.