Kia ora e te whānau,
I am writing to you all regarding the grand plan for Dalefield School’s grounds. As you know the school is going through the grant application process for playground equipment, however a grand plan for the whole school environment is also underway. This plan is critical as it is an integral part of the on-going development of our Dalefield curriculum, and importantly, enabling the vision of a minimum of 10% of the school grounds in native ecosystems, over time.
To date we have enlisted the help of a number of key people to help us get underway - Emilie from the Wairarapa Earth School, Karin and Trevor from the Ruamahanga Trust to name a few. Yesterday we were fortunate to have Karin and Cameron from the Ruamahanga Trust here along with film camera operator, Scott. The Ruamahanga Trust have already donated $1000 towards planting at Dalefield, and they are very interested in talking to young people on their view of the world, the environment, interests and hopes for the future.
Cody, Isabel, Charlotte and Ben from Matarawa hub were interviewed by each other on a range of questions from the trust, and they were filmed in our beautiful grounds.
Some quotes from the children yesterday:
“…the questions allowed me talk about myself and my interests. There were plenty of answers I could give…”
Isy
“…the really cool thing about doing this yesterday, reminded me that people are actually taking action about climate change for example rather than just talking about it…”
“…I really like how we were asked deep questions about the environment because it made me think more about how we are going to be building our school as an eco-friendly place, and our positive steps to help our environment…”
“…I felt proud to be part of this. I really liked asking Cody the questions, and think about what I want to do in the future…”
The trust aim to ask these four the same questions in October over the next four years. The children are very excited by this longitudinal opportunity.
Following the filming, Scott set up his drone and took footage of Dalefield School. He will share some stills of this with us, then Emilie and I will get the grand plan draft developed from these.
Following the drone footage, Emilie, Jules and Minami from the Earth school arrived and planted up the crescent-shaped garden with grasses - thanks guys! Thanks also to the Cody and his whānau for donating 14 kahikatea trees this morning. They will eventually form part of our wetland zone.
Finally, developments this term will be the planting of the green walls for the outdoor classroom, mulching the new garden at the front of the school and rocks/stones for the new grass garden.
With a dry summer forecast we are not going to be putting any more plants in this season. Super-exciting!
Ngā mihi nui,
Eric
