Our kitchen gardens

We have a few teachers and teacher aides in our school with green thumbs. They love spending time in the kitchen gardens with kids. It's a great place to while away* a lunch time, watering, digging in the dirt, perhaps picking a passion fruit to munch on. For some reason, eggplants love our gardens and grow ferociously - we get to have baba ganoush at least a few times a year. Kids are always so proud to serve up food cooked from something they've grown themselves.

The gardens are amazingly fertile given the soil conditions in this area - all those lunch box compostings really help. Our lime tree is heavy with fruit, the pineapples and paw paws are growing, and it won't be long before the passion fruit vine needs pruning again.

Many staff members have contributed to the gardens - there's plants and trees from home, art work, a worm farm and compost bin. And everyone looks for an excuse to walk through there.

The gardens are all ready for a new year of plantings and we have a fabulous new scarecrow to look over things as they grow. Our last scarecrow was disappointingly dismantled by vandals one weekend last year. Hopefully, this doesn't happen again. Children get so upset and disappointed when their efforts are trashed by vandals.

Our kitchen gardens are cool, tranquil and so peaceful - and this week, particularly, are soaking up some of the summer rain we've had.

The garden is a wonderful place to learn about insects, food, and companion planting. It's a great place to chat to a friend and marvel at what's growing. And I love that I can see it from my office window.

* Foot note: The phrase meaning to pass time idly is while away. It is older and more logical than wile away. But because the second phrase occurs so frequently, it is now included in many dictionaries and is rarely considered incorrect.

Writer's Block

Writer's block was a term invented in the 1940s - such an interesting concept really. Prior to that writing was a hobby for the wealthy or the hip. These days we are all called on to write - to document our ideas and share them with as many people who are interested. Ideas spread this way and develop their own power and influence.

Seth Godin challenges us to think of 'Writer's Drip' instead - the alternative to writer's block is a drip - a post a day, week after week 365 times a year. Not sure I can keep up with this so I've committed to the next 30 days along with my colleague, Chris Wise. You can read his entertaining views on life, parenting and education and just about anything else at The Dad Regime.

Me? I'm blogging about school. There's more than enough material in a school with more than 1100 children, 150 staff and upwards of 2000 members of the community interacting every day to ensure I can drip without interruption for 30 days. And who knows...maybe I'll just keep going...

It's absolutely okay to deface your hat

When I do enrolment tours on a Thursday I always mention hats. Our new families are startled when I announce it's okay to deface your child's hat. Go ahead - personalise it anyway you wish. Some ideas - ribbons through the holes, big colourful cloth patches, names in fabric paint under the brim, beads and strawberries and unicorns - whatever you want! I also warn them that if they only write their child's name on the small label provided by the manufacturer, expect to never see the hat again! We seem totally unable to locate the hat eating monster in our school!

Personalised hats are great - kids can pick their own hat out of a pile really easily, the hat rarely gets lost, and when they are misplaced, they are most often returned. Our teachers and teacher aides also get to know the hats and can identify who is running around underneath them. It's a win-win all around.

As I walked in the playground this week I collected some photos of some terrific examples. These hats will remain with their owner for a really long time!

Go ahead, be bold and make this next weekend's project.

Our first Assembly of the year is always a great time to tell stories

I love numbers. They tell so many stories. And there are many stories that are important for our school - especially at the start of the year. This morning 1HJ helped me tell some stories at Assembly.
1120 - our total enrolments for 2019. We are a very big school!
1120 kids in 45 classes. When we opened in 2010 we had only 12 classes!
264 - the number of children we had on 27 January 2010
10 - we're 10 years old this year!
9 - we're not 10 yet but all nine year olds can't wait to get to double digits! We will be 10 in Term 4 and we'll be having a big party with many classes contributing something towards it
189 - our biggest year level is Year 4
143 - and our smallest is Year 3
158 - we have 158 Preps in seven classes. It's the most Preps ever!
4 - four students didn't have black shoes to complement their uniform this week. We're hoping parents will be able to sort this out this weekend! 4 is also the number of children not wearing a hat for outdoor play. A hat is a must and we encourage all children to personalise their hats so they are easy to recognise and find.
32 - the school's leaders have picked up 32 pieces of rubbish as we've walked around the school this this week. Much of this was plastic and straws. We would love all children to bring nude food lunches - and many are! I've seen some fabulous lunch boxes this week.
31 - being at school as much as possible is really important. Every day makes a difference! 31 children came to school late this week, 16 left early and 51 didn't come at all. That's too many for the first week.
25 - we are celebrating 100% attendance and 25 classes had every child at school every day.
7 - we've felt sad that 7 children have experienced mean moments. These were all swiftly dealt with by class teachers and staff on duty.
886 - in end of 2017 reports 886 children received the equivalent of an A or B for behaviour. This is amazing! When this many children are focused, polite, caring and considerate teachers can teach so much more and everyone learns better.

2019 is going to be a bright year and we've gotten off to a great start.

Learning is a conversation

As a little girl I loved nothing more than lining up my dolls, stuffed toys and friends and playing 'school'. I read them books, set assignments, wrote on my chalkboard and gave them maths tests. When I first started teaching in the early 1980s my classroom wasn't too different from this! I was often at the front presenting all the information. I assigned the projects and I determined how to mix up the instruction. I always connected with my students personally but I didn't teach them as individuals.

Early in my career I attended some amazing professional development in early literacy (ELIC) and for the first time learned how to develop flexibility in classroom environments and lessons with each and every individual learner in mind. No longer was there a 'one size fits all approach'. I thought about how students learn best, how to give them voice and choice, and how to present a menu of options including collaborative work in groups, independent work, working closely with me as the teacher or a combination. Learning became a conversation with each child and achievement soared; so did engagement and social literacy.

These days our teachers at Peregian Springs State School are absolute masters of this way of teaching. Learning is preparation for life. It's relevant to children's needs. It's enjoyable and engaging. And children are achieving so much more than my dolls ever did!

This week tiny Year 1 students presented their work for feedback at lunch time all around the school. They discussed what they've been doing, what they've learned already in the first three days of the school year and what they will do next in their classrooms with students from other year levels, passing teachers and me - so impressive! There were smiles, use of great language and pride in their work.

Learning is a constant conversation and these Year 1s are certainly having it!