Being well

Kia ora tātou,

It has been another epic week at school and very much enjoying the hustle and bustle of delivering the New Zealand Curriculum. My students are starting to refine and plan their business plans. This is always a nerve-wracking time with students developing ideas in teams (or individually) and pivoting and taking something to the market. It is great playing with the concepts and seeing students working together.

This week at school has seen our inaugural active April, for this week the student Wellbeing team has had activities for the students at lunchtime and the students and staff have been wearing active sportswear. The idea being a more formal uniform may limit student's participation in events. Activities like biking/walking to school are difficult in formal uniforms and certainly the lunchtime Basketball game (which saw staff also getting involved). I noticed something over the week students who were particularly active was carrying fewer bags. It made something like going from Social studies to Lunchtime Aerobic or Hip Hop to English to Rugby training (this is a kiwi norm for those folk reading abroad) relatively easy.

There was a personal aspect to this week as well. I have been biking to work at least 3 times a week for most of the year. On an electric bike, this cuts down on the sweat but is still an awesome way to get to work. Being in my sports gear also meant I could just bike down to Rugby training without worrying about getting changed. Every Wednesday I have the period after lunch free so go for a jog and have been in my sports gear for this. I went from the jog to a game of Basketball which allowed me to meet many students I had not met before. An immediate positive connection was forged with these students. I also personally felt a huge lift in my mood though the muscles ached a little, the spirit was soaring.

On Wednesday we had the lead developers of Tūturu come into school. This is a group that works on “Supporting New Zealand schools to take a whole-school approach to student wellbeing that prepares students for a world where alcohol and other drugs exist”. It was a fantastic discussion that saw us look at critical thinking and energy drink and vaping advertisement. It started to bridge the gap between our understanding of the media that our ākonga and wider society are saturated with. A truly enlightening and interesting session that really made me think about how we approach these issues.

The other incredible thing that happened this week was we had Rich Briggs and Cord Smith from the USA facilitate a Zoom meeting with our eSports teams and digital students. Steven Peck was, unfortunately, unable to make it. These two giants of the game development and tech industry were able to offer an amazing insight into this growing industry. The ākonga once again was amazing in asking insightful and intelligent questions around the topic of game development and career development. Cord and Rich could not have been more human, excited, and engaging just so exciting for them to take this time to give back to the community.

This was followed up by an incredible win for the Otago Girls Development eSports team to just make the week even more special. The win was huge for the ākonga after a series of difficult games and sometimes hard losses, it was great to see what they could manage with a huge amount of teamwork, grit learning, and perseverance.

Looking forward to some downtime over the next few days with the whānau and hope everyone gets some time to recharge.