Good Day All!
We all know our children are natural inquirers! They love to ask questions and are generally curious about most things!! As an IB school we try to harness these questions, build on what children already know and guide them/allow them to pursue their interest further……………along the way we provoke their thinking, encourage them to share their learning with their peers, ensure they understand what they are learning and why, explicitly teach them the skills they need to inquire and research, explicitly teach the skills required to communicate with others (reading, writing, speaking and listening) AND support them to become internationally minded!!!
Yep, that’s it in a nutshell!
To support these wonderful little people to develop into confident learners we need to provide an environment that offers many wide and varied experiences! Not just randomness of ‘things to do’ but carefully and strategically planned out incursions and excursions that support the thinking and ideas of the students.
For example, when the Middle School students were asking questions like ‘Can you judge art and how?’ ‘Is there any such thing as good and bad art?’ ‘What would the world look like if there was no art?’ and ‘How do we know what people are trying to express in their art? What is the evidence?’ then organising for 13 ‘Artists in Residence’ to come into school and to answer questions and discuss their ideas about art was a perfect incursion! Follow this up with a trip to Melbourne to observe and discuss many artistic features of the city and the students were inquiring and discovering the answer to their questions!!
Meanwhile in Prep World the discussions were centred around ‘What do scientists do?’ and ‘What makes a
scientist?’ Learning how to ask questions, make an hypothesis and conduct experiments were explicit skills taught and this all culminated in a Prep ‘Science Explorers’ afternoon where parents shared working through the scientific process with their children!
The Juniors exploded into their next Unit of Inquiry by being involved in a ‘Hands on Science’ incursion! How does matter change to meet our needs? Well that’s what they are going to discover looking at the world through ‘the eyes of a scientist’!
The Seniors have started their Exhibition and are currently organising their own mentors and experts whilst developing their own questions, tensions and provocations! Their Exhibition is a culmination of all of the previous 6 years-worth of Units of Inquiry! It is a celebration!
Please enjoy the accompanying photos of Kunyung Kids in Action! What a plethora of learning and engaging experiences that support our children to be the internationally minded adults of the future we so want them to be! J
Happy Days! J
Kim Jackson
Assistant Principal
