Bonjour and Thank you to Brindas School in France

What a lovely surprise! We received a package from our friends at Brindas School. They made us a card and sent us a French and European flag! 

Student Led Goal Setting Meetings

We are underway with our goal setting meetings with our teachers and parents. 

Why do we set goals? 

Martin Seligman says that achievements are required for us to feel masterful in our environments and in our lives, it’s about finding meaning.

1. Goals direct our attention, both cognitively and behaviourally, toward what matters.

2. Goals energise people, and difficult goals are more energising than easy goals or no goals.

3. Goals impact persistence, and hard goals particularly impact persistence because they prolong effort - impacts performance

4. Goals lead to the discovery of our skills and resources

The Positive Accomplishment Literature Review from the Institute of Positive Education says that, "an essential aim of positive education is to help students develop their potential through striving for and achieving meaningful outcomes. Within the model of positive education, a focus on wellbeing and flourishing is interconnected with efforts to help students learn, achieve academically, and develop skills and competencies. Positive accomplishment involves helping students embrace opportunities, learn from disappointments, and maintain effort in the face of adversity. In the increasingly challenging, global, and competitive environment schools provide invaluable opportunities for helping students to deal proactively with both opportunities and setbacks. In addition to benefits for themselves, it is hoped that students will pursue goals and objectives that have beneficial consequences for the greater community. Integral to positive accomplishment is the pursuit of goals. Goals are believed to provide mental sign posts that direct and sustain cognitive and behavioural efforts (Covington, 2000). Helping student to develop self concordant goals is believed to be especially powerfully in increasing motivation and perseverance (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Similarly, helping students to cultivate mastery goals and growth mindsets ensure they will seek out feedback and view setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow (Grant & Dweck, 2003). By nurturing hope, it is believed that students will become increasingly excited about future possibilities, understand that challenges and set backs are an inevitable part of life, and develop the grit and resilience to persist when times are tough (Snyder et al., 1997). Similarly, Duckworth et al.’s (2007) work on grit emphasises that no great accomplishment is achieved without persistence and effort. Overall, it is proposed that helping students strive towards meaningful outcomes and embrace new opportunities with grit, hope, and a growth mindset equips them for success in the present and the future. "

Read more on their website: https://www.ggs.vic.edu.au/Institute/Resources/literature-reviews

It's Our Treaty/Tiriti!

Our first week back at school was punctuated by our beloved national holiday, Waitangi Day. Everybody was, of course, very thankful for such a gradual return to routine. However, by Tuesday of week two we were really kicking our brains in to gear, starting with a question of national significance - What IS the Treaty of Waitangi?

A day of rich learning ensued. Read more about the social experiment our teachers literally plastered on us here. 

Through a 2018 collaboration between The Spinoff and The Ministry of Education (via School Journals) we now possess the most colourful, engaging and honest Treaty of Waitangi resources in existence.

As one of the comic's creators Toby Morris points out, Te Tiriti o Waitangi "tells the story of the Treaty of Waitangi for primary school and intermediate-aged kids, but considering how sparse education in New Zealand has been around this subject, we think the adults might need it too." You can see it for yourself here.

We kicked off our Treaty learnings by reading the comic together. We then investigated some Tika/Teka (True/False) statements using a range of resources. 

This group answered the true/false question "The Waitangi Tribunal has helped make things more fair" with "True - It's the reason there's peace today."

Learning about the Treaty inspired us to do something about our own unfair dot/non-dot situation. 

At the end of the day we reflected on how our Dots/Non-dots social experiment connected to our Treaty of Waitangi learning. 

How does this connect to the treaty of Waitangi? Because the British took over New Zealand 🇳🇿 and bossed the Maori around (that was the dots which was not me). But later the British listened to the Maori and switched it around (the teachers listened to the non dots and switched it around) - Charlotte C

People make agreements like the Treaty of Waitangi to stop wars and tribal rivalries. The treaty made peace between people - Billy B

I was sorry for the other people because the green dots were kind of mean. People should have a treaty so they are not told what to do as people do really mean things. We need a treaty in our class - James N

People make agreements like the Treaty of Waitangi because they don't want their selfish, mean, greedy, annoying, tattling leaders being mean to them and acting like they're worthless MUD! - Nye W

We are certainly powerful, connected thinkers here at WBS. Our Treaty of Waitangi day of learning was the beginning of an Inquiry centred on relationships. We'll call it 'He Waka Eke Noa' - We're all in this together.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi - Dots and Non-Dots

This year our Inquiry for the year looks at Relationships! We kicked this off on Tuesday with a look at Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Through play we began to learn about privilege and inequality. We divided the students into dots and non-dots and played games giving one group a disadvantage. We felt irritated by this and a lot of us started discussing fairness.

"... we did a game where some people get a dot (green sticker) on their chin, and the people that got a dot got to have the "power" while the no dots do not have any "power" if you are a non dot that means you are a servant and can not sit on chairs or use devices."- Mae S

"When I was powerless it was tough and they were mean to us so we were angry. They made us do things that were hard . This is related to the Treaty of Waitangi because the pakeha slaved the Maori. I also went on a petition to have it banned and we got 55 people to sign. I did not like this game."
- Hadley

This experience gave our students a deeper understanding about the Treaty, and what it is that makes things fair. We have started talking about what we can do to make society fair and equitable. Ask your child to tell you about their experience in this social experiment.

Collaborative Art

The Pineappleverse!?!

We have been working collaboratively in learning groups in most areas of the curriculum.  This is challenging!  Probably our most successful collaborative work so far and one in which we displayed our creativity, was this colourful piece in which we doodled, with no boundaries.  Tuakana, our older leaders, really stood up during this activity, showing the way.

The benefits of working collaboratively are many and well documented.  The ability to cooperate, problem solve, and create together is one of the most important skills for 21st century learners and a sort after attribute for those in the work place. We are effectively knowledge building together. 

Pictured are the students in action.  Great work you guys!

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.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school everyone. It is a new year with new friendships and new learning opportunities. We’re looking forward to all the adventures we will go on and all the fun we’re going to have together in the upcoming year. We hope that you are too!