The Gully School - Learning Naturally.

A day full of pride and achievement for our amazing learners. Children working with new friends and trying new things shows that our confidence is building and our resilience is growing with each attempt. The flow state that children were in was mesmerising. Adults were doing our best to stay out of the way and not disrupt it 🫣

One learner was so determined to achieve his fire badge and was happy to take the task into the bush as others were learning the steps up at the firepit. He went through the steps methodically, calmly and confidently. It wasn’t easy but his persistence paid off and he proudly wore his badge all day. He is now inspired to try other things - and he also inspired others to try for themselves. A highlight was popping popcorn 🍿 over the fire 🔥 really showing what a “tool for survival” (as he put it) it is 💪🙌

The gold miners working in the digging area were remarkable to watch. Each person had an important role to play and this made everyone feel valued and important. They had systems and machines in place and it was as working so well. Two learners were amazing leaders supporting younger students and welcoming new friends into the play.

With the pressure on in the classroom it is so lovely to see children leading their learning and confident in their ability to make decisions, problem solve, share their ideas and be accepted by others as they are. My teacher heart was singing today 💗

A beautiful day to be in nature. A frosty 🥶 start meant we began our day on the hill in the sun. We admired all the landmarks we can see - Mt Ngongotaha, Pōhutu geyser, Mokoia Island and Mount Tarawera to name a few. What a lovely way to start our day.
We are really enjoying supporting learners with growing their friendship muscles. What does it mean to be a good friend? How we speak and behave with our friends impacts our relationships. Sometimes we aren’t included by others when our actions hurt them. This is such a hard thing to experience but so important to understand as we move through our life. I’m so very proud of our learners who are are able to work through big feelings and learn new and healthy patterns 🥰

We’re looking forward to next week with lots more wonderful experiences with this exceptional group 💖

The vibes were so good amongst our group today. Joy in abundance and children getting stuck into their learning were everywhere to be seen. The day just flew by and when teachers are feeling somewhat redundant you know that flow state has been reached 🙌👌🏻✨

Being near the end of term (3 weeks to go!) the emotions can be big and we again chatted about how this is part of the human experience 💖 All emotions are welcome and we are learning how to deal with these various feelings in healthy ways.
It was fun to make our own squish balls and calming sprays. Sitting and focusing on the task at hand isn’t always easy. How can we help our brain? We can notice what we feel, hear and smell which brings us back to our bodies again.

We all have heard the adage “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing” and for the most part we get on board with that kaupapa! However there are times where uncomfortable is replaced with unsafe and that’s where we find ourselves today. The first video was taken yesterday at about 3 pm - and is shows a safe level of operation.
✅ slow flow of water
✅ lots of scope for discomfort and resilience building
✅ safe observation from a distance for our ratios
✅ weather watch issued - no warning
The following videos are from this morning after a night of heavy rain with more to come….
❌ upgraded from watch to warning with a lot more heavy rain predicted
❌ high flow of water strong enough to make walking challenging. High possibility of loosing footing.
❌ multiple rivers joining and a strong fortex noted
❌ difficult to maintain safe observation under current ratios.

So as much as we don’t like cancelling sessions we are finding that our weather events are playing a bigger part in our session planning. We always think “safe as necessary not safe as possible” and today we can’t modify things enough to make that work (I’m sure many of our hardy kids are disagreeing strongly with me today 😂😂). Thanks for your support whānau 💚💚💚

It always surprises me that we never have one day the same as the next. The amazing was that children think, respond and play just inspires me so much. I was awesome to see a group of our older learners take a shining to carving a stump using some chisels.Their bud is to continue with some carved art next week on some of our stumps in the forest. Authentic child initiated learning which I can support in the next few weeks with some examples of amazing carving artists in our country ✨