learning in the classroom

from Little Sister Issue 4 - 2021

playground angels

flourishing at four and five

For both child and parent, the transition to school is a monumental milestone. At St Cuthbert’s we work especially hard on making this transition a positive and happy experience as this helps to shape the girls attitude to school far beyond their first day. If our girls are excited to come to school and confident in their own abilities from the start, this flows on in the years ahead and makes a difference in their learning journey.

From the very beginning we start to build a connection to our school and their new community. Girls start to learn about what it means to be a St Cuthbert’s girl, identifying with their uniform and about our school motto ‘By Love Serve’. We encourage our girls to have a go at all the new learning situations that they are faced with and to not worry about making mistakes, as these naturally become new learning opportunities. In these early years at school we want our girls to build a love and passion towards learning, build caring relationships and have loads of fun. And because the brain in these early years is still very ‘plastic’, we endeavour to support this natural process by providing lots of opportunities, experiences and provocations for girls to be curious, to discover and wonder and to ask questions about their world. Our transition programme builds on a platform of a ‘little and often’ approach where the girls will read, write and work with mathematical equipment everyday with their teacher. Each teaching session will build on from the last and you will see rapid development in this first year at school. With all this learning going on, your child is often very tired after a day at school and we recommend having no other activities other than swimming for the first few months until they have built up some school stamina. As their first teachers we want to develop trust in our girls that we are there to help them in all aspects of their learning whether it be organising themselves in the morning with all their morning jobs. These are aprons on, book bags away, diaries into boxes and drink bottles in the water station to helping them with their tricky lunch boxes, holding pencils correctly and sounding out new words in their writing. We believe that when you build positive connections with our learners, we show them we are invested in their education and, in turn, they become invested too.

When your child starts school you also become part of our school community. This is a great time to get involved in school activities and start meeting other families whose children will move through school with your child. Our class co-ordinators will invite you to coffee catch ups, picnics and other social gatherings to help welcome you into your new community. — Nikki Boyens, Deputy Head of Junior School

Year 1

explore sustainability

From Year 1 upwards our girls look at their role in their communities and our world through P.E.A.C.E. classes through inquiry-led activities. P.E.A.C.E. stands for Philosophy, Ethics, Attributes, Citizenship and Exploration and is an early introduction to Social Sciences.

Year 1’s P.E.A.C.E. topic in Term 2 was 'what's in our lunch box? which came under the umbrella topic of Sustainability. Their exploration started by taking a look into what litter was left at the end of their lunch, and the girls carefully categorised it on a mat together as a Year Group. The girls were so amazed by what they found that, together with their teachers, they looked at solutions for the rubbish and learned how they could compost the remains. They then learned further about how the rubbish from their own homes is processed during their visit to the recycling centre, asking lots of questions of the Auckland Council representatives who guided the tour. Our Year 1 teachers have observed that girls are now much more aware now of what they are bringing in and often present their sustainability-minded lunchboxes to them, proud of their new knowledge and the action they’ve brought about.

Year 2

Discovering Structures through Engineering

Our Year 2 classes came together to learn about structures. The teachers led them through discussions with open questions provoking some great answers around ‘what does an engineer do?’ and ‘what do you need to think about when you’re constructing a building?

The girls started by making sketches of their dream building and were asked to think about the structure from all sides, not just the front side which was very new to the girls. They then made paper bridges together and collaborated across the two classes to create a masterpiece. Some girls chose robots, others choose buildings, but all had to work from a plan and work together to make decisions on their shared projects.

Sofia “I worked with five girls to make our city. Our city has apartments and we made it to look like the big Farmers shop on Queen Street. I worked on it with some girls from the other class. I used to be in a class with them last year in Year 1 so I liked being back with them again and I could see what they’d been doing. My favourite thing about the city is that Emma came and helped us, Emma had a broken arm so I was happy she was with us”. Carla “I liked making a spa for our hotel. If I was in a hotel I would swim there”. Samaira “We decided to huild a robot and we found boxes that were just the right size for each other. We used them to make a face and I made the eyes and eyelashes and the hat. We started with the bottom box and worked up to make sure the bottom was strong and to stop it falling over. This made it easier to put the head on at the end. The thing I liked the most was working with the other class”. Monica “My favourite part of our robot was when we made the hat, I liked making the eyelashes too”. Jiayi “I wanted to put a bed in the hotel. I imagined sleeping with my feet on the pillow and my head at the wrong end”. Sisi “I made a house and I’m very proud of it because it has an elevator. I liked it when I worked with the other team when we connected our two buildings”. Valerie “I liked sketching the drawing before we made it from the boxes the best. I liked the way that our buildings ended up looking like our sketches”.

Year 3

What floats a boat?

Following on from Term 1’s America’s Cup fever, Year 3 wanted to learn more about boats and so their teachers guided a challenge to learn about what makes a structure float or sink.

Miss Inglis and Miss Stevens brought together all of the Year 3 girls for a float or sink challenge, in timed conditions so the girls could quickly learn with the below brief. They tested out their constructions discussing what worked and why. The girls equally learnt as much by exploring the boats which didn’t float and then went back and adapted them. The Year 3 shipmates want to continue learning about this subject and so are visiting the Maritime Museum soon and will take a trip on the (buoyancy pre-tested) Ted Ashby, the Museum's ketch-rigged scow.

Year 4

Electrifying

In Term 2 as part of their Knowledge Rich studies, Year 4 focused on electricity, in particular what it is and how simple circuits can be constructed.

Vector Energy came to visit our students and gave a talk on how to be safe around electricity which they all learned a lot from and enjoyed. This was followed up by a trip to the Senior School to see Electricity in action with their Year 10 Big Sisters who were studying the concept of Electricity in more detail. They joined the Senior students for practical activities involving static electricity and had great experiences together using a Van de Graaff generator which is an electrostatic generator producing high voltage at low current levels. Hair-raising stuff!

Year 5

My place in the world

The three classes of Year 5 have been working together to learn more about who they are, where they are from and where they belong.

Each Year 5 girl explored and created her very own pepeha. A pepeha is a way of introducing ourselves. It follows a structure to identify who we are, where we're from and where we belong. It was wonderful to see the girls exploring how each of them was linked to their ancestors, and what their very own story of belonging was as no two are the same. They brought their pepeha to life through these wonderful circular artworks which were proudly displayed across the classrooms.

As part of learning more about where they are growing up they visited Maungawhau, the maunga closest to St Cuthbert’s. Maungawhau means mountain of the whau tree, and Maungawhau is considered a Tūpuna Maunga, an ancestral mountain. The girls had a tour of the maunga learning about how people used to live there, where they sourced their water from and where they used to store their food.

Year 6

Pottery as an expression of ocean protection

As part of their stretch sessions in Term 2, Year 6 explored the oceans closest to New Zealand. The girls were challenged to research an ocean creature and bring their new-found knowledge to life through pottery. Ellie Jones, a Visual Arts teacher from the Senior School, joined the classes to give the girls expert tuition in each skill needed along the way.

To start the research the Year 6 girls were asked by their teachers “What do you want to protect in our Pacific Ocean, the Tasman Sea, and the Hauraki Gulf?”. From their research they found creatures and plants they considered important to save and from this list looked deeper at the textures each one had.

Girls were introduced to artist Heather Knight and her beautiful approach to pottery. They also researched moana art from other sources, such as coral vases and sea urchin sculptures. Seeing the target outcome of their pottery style students first had to sketch the whole object, then draw an enlarged section where they focussed on the detail and pattern of the texture. Students loved the process, and their artworks are a stunning reminder of all they have learned about caring for our moana.

Read to reel

Book week Book week

The 2021 Book Week was a huge success and loved by all. Each day had a different dress-up theme all tied into the theme of ‘Read to Reel’ which helped girls appreciate the books behind the movies they may have seen. They heard from visiting authors, created dust jackets for books bringing alive the narrative, had ingenious costumes and read, and read, and read!