Music and gardening end Motupipi School year
The new potting shed and vegetable garden. Photo: Ina Holst.
Approaching the end of their year, Motupipi School children have geared up for two major performances, their end of year production and an extravaganza in their spring garden.
A prominent approach to teaching in the school was learning by doing, explained principal Mark Cullen. The children get involved hands-on, from start to finish, in all projects happening around the school.
The latest addition at Motupipi is the new garden. It boasts a professional-looking potting shed, a superbly laid out herb spiral and a strawberry pyramid, bright sunflowers, edible berries, potatoes and yams as well as a bean tipi. They make the garden a delightful area to dwell in and turn more ad-hoc gardeners green with envy.
"The children are keen as on the new garden," said Mr Cullen. "They do all the work themselves, from seed-raising to planting, shovelling sand and making compost. Most of the seedlings have been taken home by the children to go into their own gardens at home."
Gardening guru Sol Morgan was instrumental in the establishment of the garden and he keeps the students going by getting them dirty once a week and teaching them the way of the vegetable. A bit of competition has also been introduced as the Motupipi spud challenge is coming up.
"Every child got two spuds, a plastic planter and some compost, and on 16 December we will have a big weigh-in to see who has the biggest spud or the funniest-looking one. Some of the parents and grandparents took some as well," Mr Cullen said. "It is great to have Sol here as a facilitator to keep it all together and he gets on really well with the children and shares his knowledge."
Students also got creative for their end-of-year performance, Best Foot Forward. With dance routines and music from every decade since the 1920s, the whole-school cast got the audience's feet tapping when people flocked to the Pohara Hall last week.
Set in the Starlight Dance hall, the musical tells the story of bad boy developer Daryl Diamond and his assistant Nancy and their plans to flatten the hall to ground zero for a new tower block. The good guys come to the rescue to save the hall, and the story, written by Deborah Martin, incorporates the history of the Pohara Hall.
"What we try to do is to give all the children a role in the play so they get actively involved," Mr Cullen said. "People want to see their children on the stage and it is a good way to report on the children's oral skills, drama, dance and music skills, and to do this visually is so much more powerful."
Students are now looking forward to the completion of a BMX track on their back field. Though parents have helped to build it, a lot of the hard work was again done by the children.
"The children had to do all the drainage themselves. Someone called Doug the Digger came to the school and dug the drain for the children, and they had to come with their buckets and get the drainage metal for the track."
Blisters and all, the students' hard work will leave them with a sense of ownership and pride.
Ina Holst
