Year 7 News

This week we have celebrated the awesome efforts of our Year 7 classes to complete their PBL projects. From Waste to Taste, The Kindness PJ Project and Hauora Heroes.

Please have a read of the amazing work in Year 7 PBL this term:

Some of our classes completed their "Waste to Taste" products and they are now delivered to their families and community groups. We hope they enjoy the pickles, jams and relishes that we have made as well as the soup and apple crumble we delivered to Presbyterian Support for their community lunch they do every Sunday. Some of our soup and pickles have also been donated to various local food pantries/Pātaka Kai in our community. We would like to thank our local Roslyn Fresh choice, Outram Garden Market and Wonky Box for donating produce and our families for supporting this PBL also.

The Kindness Collective PJ project was a huge success with 237 pairs of PJ's purchased and donated for children in need! The PJ Project collects pyjamas for kids who don’t have access to everyday essentials. They worked in groups to plan, design and execute a fundraiser. In week 8 we held a bake sale, sausage sizzle, guess how many lollies in the jar, competition, a raffle, dunk the teacher, a pie lunch and a running challenge to raise money to purchase pyjamas.

In week nine they had Kim and Harriet from the Dunedin Whānau Refuge come and talk to us about the positive impact that these PJ’s will have on our community. They loaded all 237 pairs into their car and they will disperse them to those in need. Throughout this project they were lucky to have some great support from people in the community. Special thank you to Bakehouse on Bond, The Lolly Shop and Moyle’s.

The Hauora Heroes of Room 9 chose the Emergency Department at Dunedin Hospital as our client for Term 2's PBL project. We have many parents in our class who work in the Health sector or have service roles in the community such as police and fire fighters. We had a wonderful parent come in and speak with the class to explain the different jobs and roles of staff in ED and some of the challenges they face. From there we worked in groups to plan and create a care package to thank the ED staff and help their Hauora/wellbeing as they are always helping others. Some of the things the class created included:

- Baking of all descriptions (along with a brochure about the benefits of baking)

- A smoothie recipe book

- A Healthy snacks recipe book

- A joke book (Hospital/Doctor/Nurse themed)

- A board game with laser cut game pieces (ambulance and virus) along with question cards, game board, instruction card and benefits of board games info card. This also had music playlist that you activate using a QR code when you reach the end of the boardgame.

- Grab-and-Go cups which were had painted and filled with tea bags, hot chocolate sachets and baking

- Bite sized nutritious snacks and recipe book

- Box (hand decorated) with positive affirmation cards

- Stress balls and benefits of stress tools info card

Staff members came back to school where we presented the care packages and they then took them into their staffroom. The staff were blown away with the kindness, research and thought that had gone into developing these packages and were extremely grateful.

Room 11 have also been working with the hospital to create activities for patients to support their recovery while in hospital. These are being completed this week and will be delivered to the hospital over the break. It has been an amazing term of giving back and health and wellbeing related activities and learning.

Next term we move onto a Science based PBL unit around Biological science with some exciting activities planned around our unit called 'Discovery".

I would like to thank all of our caregivers and extended whanau and community for their ongoing support throughout this year. We wish everyone a safe and warm holiday break and hope you have the opportunity to refresh and reset. We look forward to welcoming our students back for the second half year.

Lisa Dixon

Year 7 Dean