Tēnā koutou katoa!
Week 7
What an action-packed week this has been! And, to top it off, we’ve been lucky to have lots of opportunities to work on site at our school and get a feel for the spaces. As with any kind of learning, the 4C’s have been ubiquitously woven through our week which was full of collaboration, communication, curiosity and creativity!
On Monday, we started off the day by sharing our ‘Blind date with a Book’ professional reading summaries. We got to present our summaries and hear a snippet about how each of these books would help us extend our practice.
Some examples of the books were “Teach like a Pirate” - Dave Burgess, “Play like a Pirate” - Quinn Rollins, “The sacred urge to play” - Pennie Brownlee with Kimberley Crisp and “Mindset” - Dr Carol S. Dweck, just to name a few! We then spent the afternoon with Crispin from Microsoft, getting to know our Microsoft Surface Pros and how to maximise their usage. The possibilities are endless!
Collaborative...
On Tuesday, the lovely staff at Huapai District School allowed us to shadow them until Lunchtime, to let us get a feel for the ILE workspace. We were able to pick their brains about what works and what doesn't and how best to move forward and learn from their experiences. We talked about the importance of providing various provocations and the value of play-based learning. We all walked away with tonnes of new ideas and ponderings about how to move forward.
Curious...
Wednesday morning had the entire staff meeting Te Kahui-iti and Te Rongopai from our local iwi, Ngati Whatua, at Maukatia Bay by Muriwai for a Hikoi to understand the history of the land and the journey of the mana whenua. It was an enlightening morning that allowed us to connect with the land. We then drove further North to Helensville or Te Awaroa (The Valley of the Long River) to see the serpentine river from up above.
It is truly an honour to be able to have a strong connection to the land and its history from the moment we open the doors to our new school.
Thursday brought on a very busy but exciting day! First, Jenny and Del from the Ministry of Education came to talk to us about PB4L (Positive Behaviour 4 Learning) and how it will benefit our learner. A wonderful picnic was organised on Thursday afternoon to allow the New Entrant learners from the community to come and meet the Matua Ngaru Crew. Lots of fun and games were organised and we even had a great view of our new school as a backdrop to the event. It was such an exciting time, getting to know some of the community and allowing the learners to break the nerves of starting in a new place with new people. This was followed by a Curiosity Quencher that allowed any families and whānau that are curious about our school, to learn about our kura, ask questions and meet some of the Learning Coaches.
Jason from Mindkits kindly joined us for a few hours on Friday and introduced us to the world of Robotics using these nifty little Edison robots. A number of us have used different types of robots in the past but Edison was new to us all. It was a lot of fun and we were able to be creative with the codes we put in to see whether the robots would follow what we were trying to do. So much to learn with these little machines. We used a whole lot of collaboration, communication and curiosity to make them work.
What a great way to end such an amazing week. There are some very exciting times ahead and after this week, it's fair to say the whole community can feel the buzz.
