Demolition begins new era for school
Drawing on desks is sometimes encouraged at Hawera Primary School.
There are special whiteboardtopped tables in the classrooms where youngsters can practise their spelling words with a marker pen.
It’s one of the many ways teaching and learning are changing as the school undergoes a $2million upgrade.
A leaky, asbestos-riddled classroom block was demolished last week in readiness for a new stateof-the-art building which will replace it after a five-year wait.
Principal Neryda Sullivan said the staff and the students were all looking forward to their new ‘Innovative Learning Environment’, which will be a far cry from the old-style classrooms it replaces.
The new building is being prebuilt in Auckland and will arrive in Hawera in mid-April.
After it is in place, decks and a toilet block will be added.
Sullivan hoped the classes would be able to move into their new home by term three, although the work would continue well into 2018, as the junior block would be renovated to bring those rooms up to modern standards.
The school was already adapting teaching styles in readiness for the new classrooms.
‘‘Knowing that we were moving into a new teaching space, we’ve been doing a lot of teacher development and the teachers have been trialling new practices in their classrooms.’’
The old desks and tables are gone and there is bright new furniture which enabled a lot more flexibility in how classes were taught and how the children worked, with emphasis on drawing out each child’s strengths, she said.
‘‘It’s really all about the learner and how you meet their needs. The question is not how will these children adapt to my learning environment but how can we adapt the learning environment to these children?’’
Sullivan said the new teaching style had already reduced noise in the classrooms. and enabled the children to work more cooperatively.
The total project costs would be more than $2million, a Ministry of Education statement attributed to Education Infrastructure Service head Kim Shannon said.
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