In the vege patch!

Spring is happening at Ashley school and we have had lots of busy beavers in our garden. We have planted tomatoes, capsicums,  potatoes, parsley, basil, cucumbers, beans,  carrots, beetroot, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbages. We can’t wait for them to grow!  We are looking forward to a new green house cover being put on after the new fence is complete!  Exciting!

The children in Korimako had lots of fun and learning as part of the School Kit Little Gardens Project.  Thank you New World for the fabulous raised garden bed for our plants. 

Celebrating Cultural Diversity

 

We are creating a garden with a totem pole to celebrate our connections throughout the school to places around the world.  Each pole represents a different continent.   We can’t wait to see them installed!

Enviro Camp 2020

The enviro group had the opportunity for four of our children to join students and staff from other Enviroschools in Canterbury  to attend a one night student leaders camp at Woodend Beach Holiday park and exploring nearby Tūhaitara Coastal Park. 

They were able to explore and learn about this unique coastal environment and be inspired by the Trust’s 200 year vision to restore the lands, and protect and provide opportunities for mahinga kai. 

They:

• gained an understanding of the biodiversity of Tūhaitara Park including the Tūtaepatu Lagoon and why it is important to protect it. 

• Identified actions as individuals we could take to protect local biodiversity. 

• Networked with other Enviroschools, work together and had fun! 

Highlights included

• catching and holding crabs, talking to other enviro children and planting.  

They would love to:

•  take regular trips to help at the Tūhaitara  biota nodes.

 

A new stage and eating area to provide outdoor learning spaces!

 We are lucky to have two new spaces for our outdoor learning at Ashley School!  

Planning our spring gardens with the help of a nutritionist!

Dr Meika Foster, a nutritionist ,who is Milan in Harakeke’s mum came and talked to children from Kowhai and the Enviro group about some wonderful healthier ideas for foods that we could create from the vegetables we grow in the school gardens. We are now going to keep these in mind as we plan ahead for planting our school garden in Spring. We also had a spring garden competition in which children could design a garden and a health menu from this.

Renaming our School Ashley Rakahuri

This term year we have been privileged to have our Mana Whenua Education Facilitator, Diane Robinson, in school to work with both staff and students in our senior school as we go through the process of renaming both our school and spaces.

We are very honoured that Ngai Tahu have gifted the name “Rakahuri” to us and we are now in the process of formalising this with the Ministry of Education and developing our school logo/ signage to reflect the dual name of Ashley Rakahuri.

Students in Totara, our Year 7 & 8 learning space are now working on developing a school naming narrative. This tells the story of the school related to our environment. Di spoke with children and staff about the importance of naming buildings correctly and that these should reflect our local environment. This meant that we had 4 buildings around the school that needed naming...the hall, the administration area, the library and Korimako. Korimako needed to be renamed as we learnt from Di that birds are moving creatures and so buildings (that are stationary) need to be named after objects that are equally well fixed to the ground, such as trees. To find suitable names, Totara students have taken on an inquiry into a specific tree, selected from a list researched by the Manu Whenua and representative of the plants in our area. They will present their findings to the rest of the school so that we can then decide on the best name for specific buildings. It has been so exciting to have the children involved so actively in this process where they have not only had the opportunity to learn about the trees, teach others what they have learned and gain a deeper understanding of our environment, but also to actively contribute to our school narrative through the naming of spaces. We have very much appreciated the support from Ngai Tahu as part of this process.

 

Adding a touch of colour!

A keen group of Year 5 &6 children made the space in front of Kowhai look a little more vibrant though painting some rocks to look like colourful flowers.

Recycling Rules have changed...How can we make sure we are doing the right thing?

 

Justin from Eco Educate came and talked to us all about Recycling. He showed what can and can’t be recycled and how we can look for the triangle with the numbers 1,2 or 5 in it for plastics. We now know lids of any sort can not be recycled and if they end up in our recycling this could mean all of it gets rejected and set to landfill !

We did a great job of sorting the rubbish and recycling for Justin and now know where each of the items should go ! It is now our job to help educate others ! Thank you Jason for your help.

Bees...Why are they so important to our world?

 

A huge thank you to  Ryan, one of our Year 8’s, and his Mum who brought in one of his beehives for the children to see.

Ryan, and his Mum, run quite a few hives, and Ryan came to share a presentation on all things bee related. It is impressive to listen to Ryan as he has such an in-depth

knowledge about bees and beekeeping, and he was very engaging with the children and adults alike.  Ryan is so well regarded that he has even been asked by local community groups to share his wonderful knowledge on the importance of bees. 

Celebrating Matariki

At the beginning of the term we celebrated Matariki at school by learning about the Maori traditions and history associated with this celebration . Throughout the school our ākonga participated in a range of arts and crafts, waiata, games and rakau activities. Our junior school also celebrated through preparing and sharing delicious vegetable soup. There was so much aroha and ako shown by everyone as we joined together for these activities.

Signage and sculpture

 We are lucky to have a very talented caretaker who has made these new school signs and a sculpture for our entrances!

Bread Tags for Wheelchairs

Ryan who is a student in Year 8 organised the collection of plastic bread tags, including a competition between classes and the staff for who would collect the most.  These were sent away to support funds for wheelchairs.  Well done Ryan for organising this recycling  initiative!

 

GREEN DAY to raise funds for the Ashley Rivercare Group.

 We raised money to help the Ashley River Care group protect birds along the river. They lost many of their traps during the fires that happened in summer.  The group were extremely grateful for our support!

Commemorating 150 years!

 

Looking after our waterways!

Lesley Ottey came to visit us and talk about how we can care for our river and how we can make sure it stays clean and healthy for insects, fish, birds and humans! We learnt about some of the things that are making our waters dirty and some easy things we can do to stop this such as plantIng trees to stop erosion, reducing our use of paper and recycling it too, taking left over chemicals ( weed killer/ paints etc )to the hazardous goods depot at the refuse stations , washing cars on the grass and keeping cows away from the river by fencing . We think we can make a difference by all of us doing a little bit ! Our class is going to carefully paint some signs around the drains at school to remind us that these drain to our waterways and are for rainwater only.

In the garden

We have:

• Planted and grown potatoes, corn, tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, onions and silverbeet.
• Taken care of our garden to grow by watering and weeding.
• harvested and cooked our corn crop..such an easy and healthy snack.
• Created delicious rhubarb muffins
• Baked potatoes.

Sadly this year we lost quite a lot of our crop due to school closing for COVID 19!