What have I got to give?
CHRISTINE HARRIS has good reason to be proud of her pupils, who staged a CANS film festival and a special concert for grandparents and showed key competencies to fit a community spirit
ur schoolwide theme for the first half of this year has been “What have I got to give?”
We wanted the students to focus on the key competencies of self-management and participating and contributing.
City Mission is in the centre of the community. The students all know where it is and are aware of the services it provides in our community. Focus on giving quickly became the theme.
In our Linwood learner profile this translates to being ‘connected to others’ and being ‘actively involved’. The junior school looked into their family life, and focused on the special relationships they have with their their grandparents.
This led them to reflect on the gifts their grandparents give them – a sense of belonging, fun, special times, and the handing down of skills and knowledge. In order to give something back to their grandparents the children researched what types of things were important to grandparents and decided to give them a special afternoon tea. After much discussion it was decided to make homemade scones and jam.
Songs and dances the grandparents would recognise were chosen for entertainment. The children all stood to sing the national anthem at the end of the concert because they had discovered that was the norm in their grandparents day.
The afternoon was a great success with the children expressing their love and gratitude for all that grandparents
– and uncles, aunties and neighbours, etc – do for them.
The senior and middle school chose to communicate their learning about giving through a range of arts-based contexts – music, drama and film.
The result was the CANS film festival where the students ‘gave’ their talents.
We had a concert in the school hall and the entry was a can of food which the students would donate to a local charity. The DVD of the film was also used to create revenue by selling it to parents. As well as gaining the skills necessary to create, produce, and publicise their event the students also came up with the idea to donate to their community.