“Room 13 embarked on their SVA projects in groups of 5. They each completed the skills survey to evaluate themselves and their strengths and how they aligned to the different group roles. They chose a role and embarked on discussing their ideas for improving the community in some way, guided by their passions and personal priorities. In some cases, the students were able to make a link between their chosen speech topics from earlier in the year, as these topics were things they had an interest in, and had already done some research about. The SVA projects allowed students to take this learning further by creating a group presentation to inform others about their chosen cause, and take some action towards improving their school community where appropriate.
A breakdown of the SVA projects is as follows:
Platoon 1 and 4: Anti-bullying and cyber-bullying
These platoons combined themselves with their common interest of preventing bullying among the student group. They created a powerpoint slideshow and an iMovie to get their message across, and acted out a scene of bullying and how to address it properly according to school policy, supported by research they had done. They also made flyers to hand out to students, emphasising positive-play messages. Students enjoyed wearing the hi-vis vests while role playing to emphasise different roles. Using the equipment provided helped students dedicate themselves to the task.
Platoon 2: Child-abuse
This group created an iMovie, and used their research and role play to teach people to respond to child abuse by reporting it. This group worked very well and improved their teamwork while working together.
Platoon 3: Help the homeless
This group created a slideshow to encourage people to help charities that provide for homeless people.
Platoon 5: Re-usable items
This group was inspired to research ocean contamination and pollution, and showed their classmates ways to reduce pollution through using re-usable itmes. They took action by making reusable items. They took their learning further by bringing items from home and asking their families to help.
Platoon 6: Racism
Witnessing racism in the school spurred this group towards this topic - they created a slideshow using research about how racism started and why it’s unacceptable. They were dedicated to teaching their classmates about how to stop racism in school and in the community.
The students reported having fun during the process. They all eagerly participated in researching their topics, working in teams and getting creative about how to present their messages to an audience.”
“Ruma Whio had a great time planting some new natives in our developing outdoor classroom. The area is developing slowly, so we hopefully will be able to go out in the area next year!”
“Awesome response and engagement from the students. Easy to unpack and was able to stretch out over a series of lessons and then intergrade into others.”
“This was a great kit to motivate children and have them begin to think of the wider community. My class ended up breaking into a few groups and focus on areas they were passionate about. One group wanted to help out at a local preschool. They wrote an email and organised to go and help the small children make Christmas decorations. Another group wrote to the SPCA and received a response. The SPCA suggested the children could make toys for some of the animals. That group are currently researching different toys to make and will begin making them within the next week. Another group are passionate about cleaning up the waterways. They will be joining a large group early next year to clean the river located near Canterbury University. I have one more group who have been brainstorming ideas and are looking into spending time at a local rest home. I have enjoyed seeing the children express how passionate they are and when they realise they can actually do something they get so excited. While it hasn't been on the same scale as the SVA, I believe they understand the concept. Thank you for a great kit, I look forward to more next year (although they are very hard to get, the more popular they become).”
“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to take part in your SVA project.
Room 13 is a Year 3 class at Pt Chevalier School. We have decided to build relationships with the retirement village in our community. We visited the residents 3 times so far, sang songs to them and read with them. The class also decided to make Kindness rocks. Last week we delivered them to the village and the residents hid them for others to find. We were so happy to receive a card from one of the residents who found the rock and thought that our project is great for their community.”
