Day two in Tauranga

Off through town to SelwynRidge to meet with Matt Thomas.  This really is a magical place to visit.  First point of difference is the day – class starts at 8.30 and ends at 2.30! A tour of the school followed.  This school is undergoing a major refurb due to leaky building issues.  Some of the many highlights are:    

• the radio station where the seniors run a news bulletin that it broadcast across the school and the local community;
•    the green room, a full working film studio;
•   the swiss drums – would love to see these in action
•   the magic of the library and the reading resources.  I have never seen so many big books in my life…… what a dream
• the QR codes in the books with book reviews - all done on ipads
•   the learning buzz….

Thanks for a magical visit Matt.

Off I headed, north.   I loved the murals of KatiKati and gatherings of tourists chatting and  viewing. 

I headed to Waihi beach for a walk and a look around.  I met and chatted with a number of locals and visitors and experienced the magic of the peace of Waihi Beach.  

Off to Waihi for a look around the mine.  The sheer size of the whole in the ground is amazing, but the more I read the more impressed I became with the vision of beautifying the area.  Really future focussed thinking.

I arrived on the North Shore in time to visit Geoff  Wood at Rosmini college.  Now Geoff and I met at Ulearn after we had both presented and missed our bus back to the events centre.  On the walk back we talked about our learning passions and immediately came up with a collaborative project to share in 2012.  I sat in with a Year 12 class at Rosmini and discussed the adaptation of a project “over the back fence” where the year 12 students have mentored year 3-6 students with health and wellness messages, alongside face to face physical education sessions.  We would not have the advantage of face to face for 2012 but see enormous potential for the sharing of the health and wellness messages, using blogs and skyping.  We may even extend this to include collaborative writing using google docs.   Very exciting times ahead indeed. 

I returned to St Josephs, Takapuna, the school ‘over the fence’ and chatted with my many friends there.  The is my third visit to Takapuna this year and I really feel at home here.  Innovative idea for the day – a year 6 boy had today been ‘Principal forthe day’ – an auctioned prize, and the Principal was in turn, a student for the day.  Possibilities here indeed… 

Back up to Brown’s Bay for dinner out with my favourite North Shore friends who now feel like family.