Whānau Day - Tāne and the Bakets of Knowledge

On Friday, we had our first whānau day of the year. This is an opportunity for mixed groups working together across the school and fostering Tuakana-teina Positive Relationships. Tuakana-teina is a concept from te ao Māori. It refers to the relationship between an older (tuakana) person and a younger (teina) person. It is when an older or more expert tuakana (brother, sister or cousin) helps and guides a younger or less expert teina. These roles can be reversed at any time as we see some of our younger students as leaders.

In our groups, we learnt the story of Tāne and the Baskets of Knowledge. We expressed our learning in lots of different ways. Ask us what we learnt...

Here is the story of Tāne

Tuakana Teina Learning with our Seniors

Tautoru and Autahi were lucky this week to have the senior netball team provide netball tutorials. A group of students went down to bottom court to learn how to play centre, pass the ball, shoot and defend. 

PE is an integral part of our curriculum at Worser Bay School, and it's even better when the tamariki we look up to provide their expertise! Tuakana Teina styled learning (when older students support their younger peers) leads to positive results for all. Importantly it boosts our Love of Learning character strength, and provides strong engagement on new tasks. For our seniors it boosts their confidence and provides a sense if Positive Accomplishment.

Many students returned to Tautoru with a fresh love for netball, wanting to play (and enlist our seniors help) more and more. 

We are looking forward to seeing our senior netball team for our next lesson!

Goal Setting

This week in Tautoru we have been busy setting our goals for the year.

We aim to set goals that are meaningful and relevant to our personal learning and growth. 

We look at the big picture - what do we know already, what are our next steps and what skills or help do we need to get there?

We try to make these goals SMART -  Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.  They must also be rewarding too!

We have also chosen a strength word for the year. We discuss strengths often in the classroom and everyone has chosen a word which they identify with.

It could be bravery - as they settle into a new classroom space, perseverance - keep going, keep trying, or love of learning - choosing to continue with a passion in their own time...the list goes on.

Hopefully these will stretch us, but also steer us towards great learning!

We look forward to sharing these goals with our Whānau.

Our Inquiry - Who are We?

 Welcome to 2023 Tautoru whānau! 

We've loved getting to know our new Tautoru students, and creating a kind, caring whānau environment in the classroom. Over the last week we've introduced our Term 1 Inquiry focus: Who are we? With the support of our incredible whānau community we've been learning about the History of our names and what makes our families special and unique. Our tamariki bring such rich cultures and histories and we have learnt so much from each other. Our learnings have ranged from Chinese New Year celebrations, family maple syrup farms to Slovakian traditional dress and dolls. 

Over the next week we will shift our attention to the world map, finding out where we all come from, and how we came together to the beautiful Miramar Peninsula. This learning fits nicely to the New Zealand History Curriculum, particularly the Culture and Identity focus on how "people in our area have come from a variety of places and some retain connections to these places." If you want to know more about our new History Curriculum, check out this link.

Please enjoy these photos from our learnings this week.

Wrapping up 2022

 

We hope that you all have a great holiday. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It was great to see so many of you at the Wrap on Thursday. It was great to have fun as a community!

Thank you to our wonderful presenters at the Wrap! What fantastic leadership. 

 Māhutonga Matariki item at the Wrap

Autahi's item at the Wrap

Tautoru's item at the Wrap

The Year 6 students had a wonderful send off at our Poroaki. 

The whole school farewell

Year 6 Speeches

The Western themed Year 6 dinner

Year 6 had a final trip together to H20 Xtream 

What a wonderful year! We wish all of our leavers the best of luck on their next learning adventure. For the rest of you, we look forward to seeing you in 2023!

Our Rising 6's and Pukeko art

We've had lots of fun in Tautoru this term with our Rising 6's - the year 1's in Autahi who will be coming through to us next year! For the last two weeks we have been creating Pukeko art, focusing on the vibrant black, blues and red of the native Pukeko bird. Our fine motor skills have been strengthened with cutting strands of newspaper for the grass that the Pukeko are playing in, alongside with colouring to make our art stand out. 

This art will be on the walls of Tautoru next year, so our Rising 6's have a sense of belonging when they enter year 2. This in turn promotes Positive Emotions when thinking about quite a big transition!

Enjoy these pictures!

Our Place: Examining the Evidence

We’ve tracked the history of Our Place from its earliest discovery by Māori, through its past as a pā site and kāinga, and also as part of a farm. This week, our Inquiry arrived at the most recent 125 years. With more families making Worser Bay their homes, it was decided in 1897 that a school should be created. Our school began life in the church hall on what is now Marine Parade, moving up the hill to its current site a year later.

The first intake of children was just 16, with one, industrious female teacher. This made the whole of school quite a lot smaller than Autahi is now. The original school building started off with just two rooms, but more were added as the school grew. By November 1902, the roll had reached 77. It's interesting to note that, when the role reached 80, the school board decided that a married, male principal was required.

The original school building (pictured above) was still in use until 1979, when it was demolished and rebuilt to the current 'child-friendly' (and award-winning) design.

Throughout this Inquiry, we've been trying to keep in mind the role of evidence. How do we know what we think we know? Where does our information come from and what form does it take? Our evidence has included legends, photos, newspaper reports and other written accounts as well as exploring our physical environment.

This week, we've been able to make use of the archive of photos and written memories that we hold at school. Looking at the photos has been particularly rewarding. Could we recognise our school and the places we know? What are the children and teachers wearing? What's the same - and what's different?

We have also welcomed a past Worser Bay student to share his memories - another form of evidence. Jack, our visitor, was at Worser Bay 20 years ago and was here for the school's 100th anniversary.

Autahi and Tautoru teamed up, in small groups, to chat with Jack. We had plenty of questions for him about what the school looked like, what games he played, his teachers, his lunch ... Luckily, Jack was happy to answer them all. Here are some cool tidbits that we learnt from our interviews with Jack.

There were no veggie gardens or outdoor classroom in Jack's day, and the fences were less tall, which made them easier to climb over! There was a wormery, though. "We played outside a lot. We played football (but there was no Discovery Time)... We had rain bells and if it rained, we were herded inside. We were a bit crazy at wet playtime [because there weren't any toys to play with]."

Some people wanted to know if there was a school pet. "There were no pets but a couple of the neighbourhood cats used to come by." This sounds familiar!

Back court was a swimming pool! "The pool was very cold. We went in twice a week in Summer. It didn't have a roof and felt as cold as an iceberg. The pool was filled up with a hose."

Bottom court looked a lot the same. "There was no rock climbing wall. People brought in ramps to skateboard on - but they weren't supposed to!"

Big Kids' and Little Kids' Playgrounds were pretty much the same, too. "Stuff looked older - there's more painted stuff now. It's had a paint job."

Jack was impressed that some of our Junior students can do the monkey bars in Big Kids' playground. "We weren't allowed in Big Kids' Playground until you were in year 4." Jack remembered the fig trees very well - and playing games with the figs. "Our teachers hated it when we threw figs!"

Jack remembered sitting on the mat in Tautoru. At the time, Autahi wasn't a classroom so Tautoru was home to years 1 and 2 together and years 3 and 4. "Our Principal was called Murray. He had a big beard and was the best recorder player. He taught us all the recorder."

Our current crop of Road Patrollers will be interested to know that, "After Road Patrol, in the Winter, you got hot chocolate."

And those questions about lunch? "I didn't have chocolate milk in my lunch, no. I used to have an apple because I didn't like bananas. I think I had two blue lunch boxes and a red one. I often broke them by falling over with them in my bag, which made my Mum cross!"

We hope that Jack enjoyed walking down memory lane with us. We're very grateful for his time and the way he generously shared his memories of our school. It's so fascinating to reflect on what is different - and also, how much hasn't changed at all.