Student Stories

During the week before school started, I attended a new staff meeting and an all staff meeting. I am very happy to be starting my internship at the beginning of their school year. It has helped me feel more integrated and I’ve gotten to be a part of events that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. I set up my schedule and which classes I’ll be working with for the term. I get to work with three different teachers for a variety of subjects:

Year 9 PE-general summer sports

Year 9 Health-Well being/Sex Ed

Year 11 PE-Volleyball (which I will be using for my edTPA)

Year 12 Risk assessment Snorkeling and Leadership Skills

Year 13 Risk assessment Camping and the Outdoors

I am excited to delve into these classes because they are somewhat different from what we have at home. Northcote has a 6 day timetable and every day the classes rotate a period so no two days are the same. I understand the concept behind the rotating schedule, however, as a new teacher it does make it very confusing!

The PE and health curriculum’s themselves are somewhat different as well. The year 9 and 10 PE classes are all practical and line up more similarly to the PE curriculum at home, however as the students get older, they are not required to take PE and slowly there are more theoretical lessons integrated into the schedule. For example in the Volleyball class, we will have two practical lessons in the gym and then a theoretical lesson in the classroom. The percentage of classroom sessions increases as the students get older and so, in theory, by year 13, it should be 90% in the classroom and 10% practical lessons.

Similarly, I am excited to see how year 9 health is different than the freshman health class offered at Sehome, the HS I attended. The biggest concept in year 9 health is an individual’s Hauora or their wellbeing which is made up of:

• Taha Tinana (Physical Wellbeing )
• Taha Hinengaro (Mental & Emotional wellbeing )
• Taha Whanau (Social Wellbeing )
• Taha Wairua (Spiritual wellbeing )

The four components are represented in a house shape and each line on the house is required for overall health and wellbeing. The philosophy comes from the Maori, the native people of NZ.

Moving away from the classes themselves, Northcote values education outside the classroom and for this reason students have two opportunities while at Northcote to attend a camp to extend their learning

Every year the year 10’s get to go on a trip to Motutapu Island. However, last year the camp was under renovation after being damaged in a storm. So, luckily for me,

those students got to go for three days this year. I accompanied 80 year 11 students and 4 staff members and 2 Northcote graduates to Motutapu Outdoor Education Camp. We took the ferry to the island and got to walk most of the perimeter of the island before heading to the camp itself. The kids had some free time to get their cabins set up and then we had a slight change of plans..one of the students hurt her hip right before dinner time, not even an hour into being at the camp. The instructor thought she might have just aggravated it and the pain would subside…unfortunately that was not the case. The director of the camp who is medically trained took a look around 8 o’clock, 3, hours later, and said she had dislocated her hip and had to be evacuated off the island. Why they chose to send the 23 year old student teacher to be the “adult in charge” is beyond me, but it meant I got to go on my first helicopter ride! The student and I was airlifted around 10pm to the hospital. Seeing the lights of the city from up above was a cool experience and one I’ll never forget. Once the student’s mom arrived the hospital I ubered home and caught the first ferry back to the island the next morning to continue to help at camp.