Waiau Pa School

It's quarter after four, and I think it's safe to say that our whole team is exhausted. Kelli was sick overnight, Jody missed dinner and slept for about 12 hours straight, and I was sleepy most of the day. Brittany taught her two lessons today, and she did a good job. One of the boys in the first class (science) told my sister that she should adopt some of Brittany's teaching strategies! (Of course, it would help you to know that the strategies to which he was referring was the use of Mars Bars to teach about tectonic plate theory!).

Waiau Pa is a high decile, country school that goes from Year 0 to Year 8. The population of the school is a little under 400, so it's a small school. The students seem pretty well behaved, and seem to benefit from a lot of out-of-school experiences such as music and dance. They seemed confident and eloquent. Many of them spoke to us and asked questions.

I was talking to the caretaker at lunch time and mentioned that we keep snakes. He said there was a turtle in Room 4 and that I should visit, so immediately after lunch he escorted us to the room where I met the teacher. She stopped the class and had me up the front answering questions about snakes and turtles. The kids had done a lot of research (so had the teacher) because they had a red-eared turtle in their classroom called Myrtle. Apparently Myrtle came from another teacher and was supposed to have been a female. The room 4 teacher had done some research and concluded Myrtle was a male. I was able to confirm that - Myrtle is most definitely a very healthy male turtle!

I was impressed at the questions the students asked. They asked about all sorts of things including why Myrtle stretched out his arms, and dug in the stones. It was a pleasure to be in the class (I think it was a Year 5 class), and I told the teacher they could email me any questions they might have (of course, I'll probably pass most of the questions on to my reptile-guru husband!).

After the turtle talk, we watched a "Rock Star" competition with a Year 7 and 8 class. They were focussing on risk taking, and the teacher had challenged them to get up and sing in front of the class. He was really encouraging and supportive, and there was quite a lot of talent in that class. Several students sang, and you could tell it was not easy for them all. One of the boys (seemed like a troublemaker) got up and sang and was amazing. He has a wonderful voice. It made me sad to think that in some Ky schools where they have dropped music because of funding problems, these kids just don't get to shine. :-(