Uru Manuka Student Summit

On Thursday, 15 students from Gilberthorpe School travelled just down the road to Hornby High School to present and attend the 2nd Uru Manuka Student Summit.

This full day action packed event focused on creative and collaborative use of digital technologies to promote innovation and learning. The programme included problem solving challenges, breakouts, hands-on workshops and demonstrations led by students for students.

There were 24 sessions, each about 45 minutes. The Summit ran from 9.15am until about 1pm.

After the students returned from the Summit (and enjoyed a well earned lunch!), they then spent the afternoon teaching our other Te Ara Takitini Students about a toolkit they attended.

2nd Annual Uru Manuka Ki-O-Rail tournament

On Friday, the 7th of September, Gilberthorpe School hosted the 2nd Annual Uru Manuka Ki-O-Rahi Tournament. (The first tournament was held at Yaldhurst Model School last year).

Teams from Hornby Primary, South Hornby School, Yaldhurst Model School, and of course our very own Gilberthorpe School, participated in the tournament. It was held over 5 rounds, with each team having a bye during the round. The team having a bye wasn't able to rest though! They had the responsibility of refereeing the four games that were being played. It was a great afternoon, with great camaraderie being shown amongst the akonga in our Uru Manuka Cluster.

We are looking forward to next year's tournament already!

If you'd like to know more about how Ki-O-Rahi is played, click here.

Gilberthorpe goes skiing

We were fortunate to take a group of students, teachers and whanau up to Mount Hutt for the day.

We arrived at school before 7am, ready to load into cars for the trek. There was much excitement! - From our littlest 5 year olds, to our parents and teachers! It was quite dreary weather during the drive, but as we headed up the access road, we drove up through the clouds and found ourselves with clear skies up above.

We had the option of skiing or snowboarding. It was pretty tricky getting the ski boots on for those of us who weren't used to wedging our feet in. We headed straight into our lessons with the fabulous Mt Hutt Instructors.

Digital ignition

Today brings us to our final session of three. We recapped the story of Maui, using picture prompts which Lyn held up. 

The key vocabulary is:

Algorithm - (a set of Clear Step-by-step instructions)

Bug - something wrong

Debugging - fixing the bug

Decomposition - when you have a problem, you reduce it down to make it better and work.

We talked about plastic bag use and the discussion around them in the news.

Only 1% of plastic shopping bags are recycled. If they go to the dump, they blow away and get into the water. They kill as many as one million sea creatures each year. 

Today we are going to communicate an idea to make a difference, using Scratch Jnr on an iPad. 

KiwiCan - Accountability

Last week in KiwiCan we were talking about ownership and accountability. Being responsible for the way you behave and the things that you do.

Kiwi Can says: We are honest, we are true, we take ownership for what we do.

Owen gave everyone a body part and a colour. We then needed to find something that colour and put that body part on it. 

We talked about accountability and that it means taking responsibility for things. For example, taking ownership of your room by keeping it tidy. 

We are accountable for the attitude and behaviour we bring to our learning. Getting our work done, to the best of our ability. Choosing not to call out or disrupt others by being there in the moment.

The key is to take responsibility for our mistakes and own up to it, to make it better.

Dawn McMillan comes to Gilberthorpe

We were lucky enough to have author, Dawn McMillan visit today for our Duffy Assembly.

She read 'Mister Spears and his Hairy Ears' to us. The idea came from Derek having really hairy ears!

Dawn McMillan

She used to be a teacher, but now she's an author. Best job in the world because she can do it in her pyjamas.

She lives in the Coromandel. 

She lives with her husband Derek and Lola her cat. Occasionally Lola walks across the keyboard. Derek brings morning tea and cups of coffee out to her studio, sits on the couch and checks what she has written. Sometimes Derek makes snoring noises when the story is boring.

When you're writing , you need to listen to the voices is your head. 

She has written 220 books for schools and about 30 for shops. She always liked the idea of writing stories. 

You can find out more about her on her site