Wednesday 24 October 2018

Athletics Day at Worser Bay Beach



We had a great day at the beach on Thursday. So much fun was had by the students and we managed to jump, throw, and race with the wind and occasional rain!

It was fantastic to hear students supporting each other and celebrating their efforts.



These photos are from the dress up relay. 





Tuesday 23 October 2018

What, no play !?

We have started our new inquiry for this term which is based around play, games, and creating new games using our imagination and innovation.



On Tuesday we headed outside with our base groups and spent 10 minutes doing anything we wanted but we were not allowed to play.



Obviously, this was tricky for many of us. There were a number of very sad and confused looking faces.



After our 10 minutes period of no-play we posed a set of questions to the students. Here are some of our first ideas.


  • What would my world be like without play?
Boring, still, frustrating, we would get sick, lonely, exhausting, still, left out.

  • What do we need play for?
Exercise, to learn how to play and make friends, to connect to other places and people, to get fit and stay healthy, to feel included.

  • Is play only for kids?
We never stop playing though sometimes adults don't have enough energy!, adults like having fun too, adults teach children how to play, adults play sports and video games.

And then we went out for a game ! Awesome



Soccer Skills



This term we are developing our soccer skills. We are working with a group of professional soccer players that are kindly sharing their knowledge with us.



We started our first session on Thursday and worked on dribbling the ball with two feet and keeping it close to our body.



It is a great opportunity for us to work with different people at school and build on our large ball skills at the same time.

Check out the blog for more soccer updates!






Thursday 18 October 2018

Shake Out Week

This week we have been finding information about earthquakes and how to be prepared in case we are in an earthquake. We already know a lot of what to do when there is an earthquake but it's always good to remind ourselves so we feel confident and prepared.

We watched some funny clips from the Shake Out website like this one:

We did some writing about how to stay safe when there is an earthquake.






Some groups did research projects about earthquakes as well.




And most importantly, we had a real drill!

Wednesday 17 October 2018

Algebra- The World of Patterns

We have begun to explore patterns in algebra. This week some of us used the ideas of supermarket displays to work out how a pattern can grow. 

We had to work out how many cans in total would be needed to make a display 10 rows high. Then we had to work out what the rule is that makes the pattern grow evenly. It was super tricky. We will keep practising to help our brains grow new connections about how patterns are formed.






We have also been learning about function patterns and how to use a table to find the pattern

Getting Ready for Athletics

Next Wednesday is our athletics day and the weather has been so good we've begun to practice our skills: quoits, vortex, sprints and long jump. On Friday we will be heading to the beach to have a final practice before the big day. We have been showing our perseverance and growth mindset by having a go and learning new skills.

Here we are practising the vortex, quoits and long jump:












Friday 12 October 2018

Maths Parent Workshop


Message from Jude: 

In Week 9, Term 3, we had the Parent Workshop on Maths Learning. As I said, we are very proud of our Maths academic results. In 2017 a colossal 86% of our children were at, exceeding or well exceeding curriculum expectations in Maths for their year level. And we are tough on our judgments, as the reviewers from the Education Review Office noted in their feedback to us! But that doesn't mean we rest easy. We have never known so much about how students learn - thank you to the inventors of MRI scanning technology.


All of our teachers are undertaking Maths professional development through Stanford University - focussed on the latest research and thinking in Maths education as to where and how you get the biggest shifts in achievement. The Board recognises the importance of ongoing teacher development and, as a consequence, Nicola was awarded a study grant this year, yes - you guessed it - focussed on Maths. Nicola and Ximena have also been selected to present at the largest national educators' conference ULearn these upcoming holidays, which we are really proud of. (And their session is booked out!)


So we were very excited to have the opportunity to share our ongoing learning and thinking with many of you last week. We started with a little activity - asking parents to simply answer this question:

BEFORE: What did Maths mean to you at school? (3 words)

Then at the end of the interactive workshops we asked this question:

AFTER: What does Maths learning look like for kids at WBS? (3 words)

Please find the first and second Word Cloud results below:



This was really great and informative feedback for us, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on a screen in Auckland at ULearn sometime soon as part of a presentation!

If you couldn't make it, you may find this Jo Boaler Ted Talk interesting. Or What our Children Think.