Author Archives: pesdstone

Room 4 have been learning how to justify their thinking. We have done some mini debates on topics such as which are better, cats or dogs?

In this video we shared our answers to a range of prompts. Check it out:

Do you agree with their ideas? What would you rather do?

We have had a great start in Room 4 Literacy! We started with some getting to know you activities before moving on to completing our first reading and writing sessions, woohoo!

We have been getting to know the members of each reading group, working together to make sure that we can learn together effectively. One of our activities including making a puzzle! Some groups had the added challenge of building a 3D car. This took some persistence as there were quite a few instructions.

It will be great to learn even more about each other as the term progresses.

Today we had our first whole class discussion. Our topic was our class treaty and it became clear that we all felt very strongly that our main class value should be respect. We want to respect ourselves, eachother, our property and chromebooks. We have also respect for diversity and difference.

To help support the building of our treaty, we’ve participated in a number of challenges throughout the week. Each challenge has required us to work with a different group of people and we’ve ensured that we are all contributing and including everyone in our groups.

These have included a number of outdoor games, the spaghetti/ marshmallow challenge and a bustop activity. On Monday we will be signing our finalised Treaty for the year!

Today we had our first day of school for 2023. It was fantastic to have the vast majority of our class back at school today after we were delayed by the Auckland flooding.

The focus of our day was ‘The Pt England Way’ and our class treaty. To support this, we played a variety of team building games and were challenged to work on our communication and concentration.

It was fantastic to see everyone willing to participate and work with a variety of people. We will continue to work on our Treaty for the rest of the week. Stay tuned to see what our class come up with!

Do you like your school photos? Have you ever experienced a school photo day disaster? Is Room 4 cursed on school photo day?

Each year something slightly funny (and slightly disastrous) happens on school photo day, so we thought we would make that the theme for our film festival movie this year. We also wanted to try a different style of film, so we picked an old school silent movie format.

The students in room four are all amazing actors, so everyone had a role. Our teacher was played by Chaun and our cameraman was played by Leonidas.

Today we were blessed with kōrero from local rangatahi and businessmen who shared their journey from Pt England to now. Each shared about how they got into their current career, their journey to get there and their dreams for the future.

Our keynote speaker was Tyrone Tangata-Makiri. He is a local entrepreneur or business owner, who runs ‘Into The Flow State’. One of his main pieces of advice was to ‘be an alien not a sheep’. He also made us an awesome commitment – if at 18 we have an idea for a business, he would support us to make a first step.

Miss Tia talked about being told no. This was something that really stood out to us – we will be told no in the future. Perhaps we will be rejected from a job application, or miss out on an audition. This does not mean that we should quit.

Miss Shania talked about not being your own barrier. Being true to yourself and surrounding yourself with positive people.

David Clarke shared about not knowing exactly what you want to do when you grow up and this being okay. You should start by thinking about the things that you enjoy and are good at.

Miss Haare talked about overcoming adversity. You can overcome challenges when you lean on others for support. Even though times will be tough you shouldn’t give up.

Tanielu Tele’a talked about his journey into professional rugby. This is something that a lot of us would love to do. It involved a lot of hard work, perseverance and training. He talked about needing a positive support system.

We had an amazing and inspiring morning. We would like to thank everyone for giving up their morning to support us.

In room 4 we have been participating in the kindness project. This involves sharing compliments about our classmates with them. We are trying to compliment aspects of their personality and are learning to be specific when giving compliments.