Group 5 Learning Highlights

Learning Journey – Grow, Grow, Grow....

In Group 5, we’ve had many great conversations about learning as a journey. To help illustrate this, we read The Seed that Grew by Baeletsi Tsatsi. We then made this idea come to life by planting real seeds in our classrooms. Over the past few weeks, we’ve watched these seeds grow, linking their growth to the different stages of our own learning journeys. We discussed what plants need to grow—water, sunlight, and soil—and compared it to what we need to grow as learners: resources, support, tools, time, and different methods.

We noticed that, just like in learning, some seeds take longer to grow than others. That’s okay! Some plants are now flourishing with flowers, while others haven’t grown at all (perhaps their growing environment wasn’t quite right). Here’s how we’ve come to understand our journey as learners through each stage:

1. I am new

When we’re just beginning, learning can feel confusing and overwhelming, like a seed being rolled around in the little girl’s hand in the story.

2. I am getting used to this

At this stage, it can feel like we’re still in the dark, like a seed that has just been planted.

3. I am getting better

As we grow more comfortable, learning feels like a new shoot pushing up from the ground—we can see the light!

4. I am confident

When we become more confident, we grow stronger, learn from our mistakes, and develop resilience, solving problems along the way.

5. Give me more

When we’re really confident, we seek out more work, can teach others what we’ve learned, and look for new challenges.

We all find ourselves at different stages in this journey at different times, depending on the subject, our prior knowledge, and the skills we’ve developed. By working on personal goals like communication, resilience, thinking, and adaptability, we can continue to grow and learn with the help of those around us.

We hope that as parents, students, and teachers, we can embrace all the different phases of learning and continue growing together!

Metacognition

To tune us in and prepare for the year ahead this unit really helped children to delve into understanding more about their own learning and thinking. There was a big focus on Health and Wellbeing including growth mindset and being aware of the impact of our emotions on our wellbeing. Students learned to use language assertively to express their feelings when involved in conflict. The following sentence starters have proven to be very effective, you could perhaps try incorporating them into conversations at home when your child is upset, angry or frustrated:

I feel  . . .

When you  .  . . (describe what happened)

I need/I would like you to  . . . (share what you would like to happen)

Learning Effectively Online

In this IPC unit students covered a range of areas and now have a selection of tools to help them learn more effectively and safely online.

They learned of the importance of secure passwords and how to create a secure password as well as how to keep personal information safe online. Students explored social situations online and considered how to keep safe when playing games or using social media.

To help with effective learning the students applied critical thinking skills to help analyse whether articles were accurate and true. They also picked up some useful tips on how to search online with purpose and in order to locate specific and relevant information.