We have just got back from an AMAZING week in Christchurch exploring some of the schools that have recently been rebuilt, or that will be rebuilt soon. We made some great connections, packed our brains to overflowing with things we want to bring back to our own school, and got to know each other a whole lot better.
We stayed in two houses about a five minute walk apart. This gave us a great excuse to have a progressive dinner on the first night, where the learning coaches would prepare two courses at their house, the leadership team would prepare another two courses at their house, and we’d all spend the evening going back and forth between the two, hopefully walking off some of the feast we would devour.
It was a DELICIOUS evening. The SLT provided some delectable pre-dinner nibbles, the LCs made a scrumptious chicken and noodle salad (we’d definitely recommend the Conutdown recipe cards for last minute meal ideas!), the SLT sorted the main course, and finally everyone waddled back to the LCs place for desert.
Communicative… Most of our time in Christchurch was spent at schools or packed into the van traveling between schools. But the strike on Wednesday gave us a bit of time for other things. The amazing Amy lead us in some fun and rather challenging activities that helped us practice our collaboration and communication.
First we thought about the differences between connection, communication, and collaboration. The goal was to come up with and explanation of the difference between the three terms. Heike, Wendy, and Kirstin came up with this beautiful garden example:
Then we had to cross a river of lava with only a few scraps of carpet between our toes and the scorching lava below! We (mostly Michael) came up with a plan and the first few brave Matua Ngaru adventures set off. Before long a few of the carpet squares had been lost and a some of us had to be left on one side of the river - abandoned until the main group could reach the other side and send someone back to rescue us. Some of the carpet squares may have burnt up in the lava, but thankfully all Matua Ngaru staff made it safely across in the end.
For our final activity we became detectives and had to solve a mystery together by combining our clues to figure out the whole story in a tight time limit. It was pretty tricky, but we solved it with seconds to spare.
The activities definitely got us connecting, communicating, collaborating and laughing, but they also got us thinking. Some of our main takeaways were that listening is really really good skill to have, and it’s important that everyone has their voices heard. We also learnt that it can be quite difficult to collaborate in bigger groups, especially when you have a tight time frame, and sometimes it's better if someone steps into the leader’s role and the others just do as they’re told.
This blog post is nowhere near big enough to pack in all the amazing things we saw at the schools in Christchurch. We left each one feeling so grateful for the opportunity to see how others do things and brimming with ideas for things we could try next year at Matua Ngaru.
The biggest, warmest, smiliest thank you to our Christchurch hosts: Waimari School, Breen’s Intermediate, Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery School, Rolleston School, West Rolleston School, Lemonwood Grove School, Halswell School, Bromley School, Haeata Community Campus, Marshlands School, and Pegasus Bay School, and the three schools that Di, Wendy, and Kirstin visited further south: Remarkables School, Limehills School, and Shotover Primary.
The connections we have made with these schools are invaluable. We hope we have the chance to welcome them as graciously as they did us when they (hopefully) visit our school some time in the future.
Here are a few takeaways from each of the Christchurch schools:
Haeata
There was a big focus on dispositions and these were tracked and reported on in learning stories above all else.
This school is quite different from what ours will be like because of the demographic they have. We deeply admire the people who work there and think the biggest thing we can take from them is the idea that if they can survive their first year, we definitely should be able to.
Breens
The Breens staff and community had embraced the change brought by the earthquakes, inviting schools and daycares that had lost buildings into their grounds and constantly striving to improve their teaching practice, even when settling into norms is so comfortable.
Bromley
Bromley was GREAT. We were there on Thursday, between their strike day and Christchurch Anniversary (so it could have been a muck around day) but the kids were on point with their learning and awesome to talk to.
There were heaps of things that we could bring back to Auckland: The kids were using twitter to share their learning, which was authentic and awesome. They had list of interesting tasks that they were working through, picking the ones that they wanted to do, and we saw some amazing photo editing (Bromley is an Apple distinguished school - so they were using a lot of apps on the iPads)There was a Reggio focus running throughout the school. so there were loose parts set up in most of the areas, and all of the spaces were relaxing and calm with lots of pot plants and natural materials.
Despite the big chunks of the school being in the middle of a rebuild and lots of the classes waiting it out in portacoms the teachers were trying hard to stick to collaborative teaching practices despite the physical limitations and this seemed to be going admirably well.
Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery
Discovery had a purpose built space in town that was destroyed in the earthquakes. They moved way out into the suburbs but have a new building in town that is nearly finished. Discovery is a special character school that operates with the idea that the child is central in directing his or her own learning so that the enthusiasm and love of learning is retained.The kids seemed happy and to be truly loving their learning. They could talk about what they were doing and why and were (for the most part) keen to share.
There were a few things we thought we could steal: We liked that every child had say in their learning and think that's a philosophy worth weaving into our school. In their new space the younger kids will be with lots of older kids and we feel this idea of tuakana teina has great value for us too.
Halswell
Halswell is an old school (120 years old) with new buildings (4 years old). They have won an award for using their spaces well and we definitely agreed that they very well organised, planned, and laid out. Being well established they had lots of great resources - robots, imagination playground equipment, an amazing performance space, and a well stocked libraryWe liked that the started with play based learning that kids can get into as soon as they come to school rather than when the bell rings. This marked the transition into the classroom easier for the little ones (and therefore the parents) and having play at the very start of the day shows that the school clearly values it.
The acting principal talked a lot about collaborative practice and relationships between staff and clearly really valued and respected his teachers.
Lemonwood Grove
Lemonwood Grove was built in a high growth area, similar to ours. The buildings were FLE/open plan but had lots of divisions of space, kind of like ours are, and we felt like they used their space really well - they were obviously using it flexibly, but had areas for specific things like large and small group meeting spots and areas for individual/quiet work.
There were a few things we would like to bring back. We felt like they were doing play based learning well. Kids had a lot of choice, there was a group making a blanket fort, kids rolling barrels down hills, wooden sword fights, inventing games on the playground, and kids playing with sand and water. There was room to do quite big things (like the barrel rolling) and kids were truly in charge.Another thing that seemed to be working well was having the school vision very central to everything. They had a big golden circles display in the staff room and the principal talked about it a lot.
Rolleston
Rolleston follow the Reggio Emilia Philosophy. Their scrapbooks following learning journeys were amazing and the classrooms were full of wonderful displays and artifacts. We won’t be full Reggio, but there are lots of things we can take away. We really liked the scrapbooks documenting their process and how this covered the classroom walls in many classrooms. We felt that this showed the staff and kids really value the things they were doing and made their learning process clear for the learners, other teachers, and staff. We know this would be a lot of work, but we feel it’s something worth doing.The art was FANTASTIC - lots of it looked way above the level of the kids who had done it and they seemed to have a big focus on careful observation skills when doing everything (art, book making, research etc.) and repetition in order to get better each time which really paid off.
Waimairi
Waimairi was planning to rebuild just before the earthquakes. When the earthquakes hit they were bumped down the list of schools needing new buildings so they have been waiting a long long time for their build to begin (But its close! And this give them the chance to really think about how they wanted their spaces to be).Mike, the principal, spoke of his high trust levels in his staff, the value of having different spaces for different things, and had a great connection with his learners.
The junior school was really nicely set up with different areas named for animals and linked to the actions of those animals (e.g. pukeko = noisy group space, Kiwi = head down bum up) There was a gentle way of easing kids into school in place by mixing the ECE curriculum in with the NZC
Lots of cool art brightened up the classrooms and made even the more tired ones look and feel lovely.
West Rolleston
West Rolleston is a really new school that opened only last year in a new area and experienced rapid growth. The spaces were MASSIVE and were really open. We liked that they had one breakout space - the basket - set aside for brand new new entrant learners so they weren't just dropped straight into the huge spaces but instead given time to adjust slowly.
We liked their idea of teachers marking together as a team at the end of the day so that they could have an informal meeting at the same time. They also seemed to have good structures in place for meeting/getting to know new kids - they got together with their first group at a bookshop so that they families could buy a book for the school if they wanted to, the teachers called parents in the first week, and they have fish and chip evenings for new new entrant cohorts.Pegasus Bay
This school was very interesting. They had some very strong views about what they were doing. One of the driving factors in the design of the school and how it ran was the idea of being "fantastical." Several spaces definitely followed this idea and the children did seem to have a good amount of say in what they did. The oldest children, in particular had 12 options during the week, of which they had to choose 5. There were a lot of outdoor areas and the children had a huge say in what was out there.Marshland
They had moved from single cell classrooms but had found a system that worked for their school in the larger spaces of their new building. Parts over their old school ,like their lovely old playground tractor, had been woven into the new site.
Coming up:
- ‘From ME to WE’ with Sarah at Stonefields School
- Lots of time on site at our new school!
- ECE visits
- Whanau Focus Group - Te Reo and Tikanga Wednesday 21 November
and.... we hope to see you at the Community Consultation Evening - Nov 22, 2019!
It was great to see so many wonderful schools in Christchurch. Building the connections and learning so much from great practitioners.
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