An important part of the Year 10 pastoral programme at St Andrew’s College is Te Waka. This innovative programme involves students working in a small group with a mentor teacher as they focus on the journey into adulthood through a focus on resilience, respect and responsibility. This programme, introduced in 2014, has proven very successful with staff and students alike. You can read more about the programme here.

While the Te Waka programme has strong, common themes that all groups address, there is the opportunity for groups of students to spend time investigating issues that are of particular interest to them. One such group, led by their mentor Mrs Richards, wanted to investigate issues around digital citizenship. Having spent some weeks discussing the particulars of such issues, the group were keen to share their learning to a wider audience; through a website.

The great website 8 Te Waka students made about Digital Citizenship

The eight students in the group were randomly paired up, and each pair was assigned one of four topics; Digital Footprint, Cyber Bullying, Social Media and Texting. Each pair of students worked independently on their area of the website, with a little guidance from their mentor.

The aspect of this work that was particularly impressive was that the content of the site was entered, proofed, and published within two periods. What this success also indicates is that other staff, who may be thinking about the possibility of creating such a resource with their students, can be very confident that the learning curve is not too great for our students and that there are clear benefits for student learning.

Sharing the Learning Further

Year 10 Te Waka students sharing their learning with 8C

When shown the result of the learning, the College’s Director of IT Sam McNeill suggested sharing the website with a class in our Preparatory School. One of our great Year 8 Team, Mrs Preston, jumped at the chance and recently 5 of the Te Waka group presented their website to 8C. It was really pleasing to see students speaking about their learning, and be able to articulate their learning to a different audience and respond to their lines of questioning.