“This was a very practical kit that the students thoroughly enjoyed being part of. They particularly enjoyed giving back to the community! They were motivated and engaged with the roles of leadership and the equipment was 'fun'. The learning worked brilliantly with an inquiry about navigating the journey....that transformed into a student led project of growing! THerefore we used produce as a platform.”
“Maheno School Year 5-6 children worked on this kit while the Year 7-8 students were away in town. It was awesome!! The children enjoyed taking on roles and taking responsibility to organise things by making phone calls, sending emails, sorting equipment and resources. The children decided they wanted to give back to the people that help us in our small rural community -- the teachers, kindy teachers, bus driver, caretaker, people that come and read with us, people that come and help us on pet day etc. We decided to bake some nice treats, make little boxes and a card to thank them. We also decided that when we went to the kindy we would offer our services as helpers for the afternoon (we emailed first to ask) and we had an awesome afternoon - some of the school children didn't want to come home! One of our special community members who has a long association with our school has recently had to go into a rest home - as we didn't want him to miss out we have emailed the rest home and are making a visit to see him and the other residents next week. We have put together a dance and will take some board games to play. It has been awesome to see the kids thinking of others, organising and implementing their plans and giving back to our community. Thanks School Kit for another awesome kit!”
“My students were so excited and engaged when we opened the kit together. Discussions around our school values - Empathy, Respect, Excellence, Integrity and Responsibility and how these fit with the original SVA and what they've been able to accomplish. My students found it difficult to choose between a public space project and a project for those in need, which meant further discussions about what we can do together, and how after one project is completed there's nothing to stop us completing another. Students from other classes have joined us, meaning that I'm hoping next year to have a club here at school for a dedicated SVA team. Again - such a wonderful resource, so many opportunities for engagement, representation and expression from all students. Thank you!”
“In Pohutukawa we used our SVA kit and learning to help our junior school. We created new resources for our buddy classes.
We used the new Digital Curriculum as inspiration and we made new beebot mats for students to use beebots with.
We had fun sharing them with our buddies at a Digital Tech afternoon.”
“Our focus has been taking care of our immediate surroundings with rubbish collection around our area and across the road at the creek. The children are very aware of the gift of our world and our role as having a stewardship within our environment.
We are going to strive to revisit this focus and kit again as the children are committed to carrying on their awareness and activeness in keeping our surroundings clean with a sense of pride.
Some painting also went on around the drain areas to remind our tamariki of our oceans and sea life.
An excellent relevant kit. Thank you.”
“This kit was awesome and was an excellent platform for encouraging our learners to think about identifying the needs in our community and actions that we could do to help. Our students came up with a range of ways we could serve our community and we eventually agreed on one that affected many of our families. At this time one of our contributing school was struck significantly with 'Gastro Bugs'. There were significant numbers affected by this and the school experienced record high absentee rates due to illness. Our students decided to make games for these younger students that would promote ways to keep healthy and avoid passing on or contracting a Gastro Bug. The feedback we have had from their teacher was very heartening. The children were delighted with the games and recognised the work, thought and aroha that went into them.”
“The children in Room 9 have been investigating how to keep our sea creatures safe from plastic rubbish. We have seen upsetting photos and videos of sea creatures eating plastic bags and plastic packaging and we wanted to do something about it.
So, we organised a rubbish pick up around our local pond - Pandora Pond. We were pleased that we didn't find lots of rubbish but we did find lots of dog poo in plastic bags left by the trees. We were disappointed with this and wrote to the council to ask if they could provide dog poo bins.”
