Dear Kunyung Families!
What a wonderful community spirit we are lucky to have!
Just to name a couple of highlights……..Fair organisation, Family Picnic, Open Classrooms, Lucy K driving the Eco Schools Program with our Eco Monitors, including the Kitchen Garden design which is nearing completion, Fiona M working quietly and regularly in our Resource Rooms, Mr Jepson and the Year 6 ‘I See I Care’ Leaders swimming with the dolphins, hosting the Dolphin Research Institute student/teacher meeting, Bronwyn B meeting with all of our enthusiastic Contact Parents……the list just goes on…….
Whilst all of these supporting acts are going on………our students are learning, learning, learning!!!
THIS COMMUNITY SPIRIT SUPPORTS OUR CURRICULUM (Teaching & Learning)
OUR CORE BUSINESS!
Last week we looked at one of our BIG curriculum ideas- ‘Learners Teaching Learners’…..
This week we move onto INQUIRY!
“Inquiry based Learning” (The process initiated by the students or the teacher that moves the students from their current level of understanding to a new and deeper level of understanding.)
At Kunyung it can mean students:
• exploring, wondering and questioning
• experimenting and playing with possibilities
• making connections between previous learning and current learning
• making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens
• collecting data and reporting findings
• clarifying existing ideas and reappraising perceptions of events
• deepening understanding through the application of a concept
• making and testing theories
• researching and seeking information
• taking and defending a position
• solving problems in a variety of ways.
It can also look like students working through the stages of an Inquiry Cycle as they explore their Unit of Inquiry! The Kunyung Inquiry Cycle looks like this…….
Our teachers and students will spend this year deciding as a class what we might ‘think’ and ‘say’ at each stage of the inquiry cycle, what they might do at each stage and what it might look like if they were successful at each stage of the cycle!
Inquiries can be personal, teacher driven, student driven or collaborative………throughout the year our students will have the chance to experience all of these different types of inquiry! 🙂
Inquiry isn’t the only way to best learn but it is our lead way @ Kunyung….
To finish with a lovely experience, I met with the Preps last week! When I asked them what they thought my job or responsibility was in the school, these were some of their responses…..
‘You use a computer’
‘You walk around the school’
‘You check to see if we are learning’
‘You make sure we are happy’
After our conversation they left my office with the understanding that ‘I am a teacher and that I teach the teachers!’
They thought this was very funny but seemed to be impressed at the same time!
Ahhhh…….working with Preps……gotta love what they think and say! 🙂
Have a lovely week everyone!
Kim Jackson