Students from room 13 split up into small groups and each took on a project of their own. The projects covered a lot of different areas, ranging from creating a breakfast club to animal rescue.  Below the pictures are all of their reports.

“We decided to organise experts and ambassadors to come in share what can be done to support people who suffer with anxiety and depression. We wrote letters to our school Principal and Board of Trustees for their support, and to Sir John Kirwan who is an ambassador for Depression.org.”

 

“In the middle of term 3 we formed a group for an inquiry project and decided to educate people on suicide prevention.
For the rest of the term, we planned out how we were going to help educate and prevent suicide rates from increasing in our community.
We thought of inviting Suicide Prevention Ambassador, Mike King in to talk to the school about suicide, how to prevent it and how to support those who have lost someone to suicide.
We had to find out if there was a fee for his visit and times he was available to visit us.
As it is a sensitive topic, we also had to get the approval and support from Mr Kenny (School Principal and the Board of Trustees)Thankfully, they gave us the thumbs up and thought it was a great idea.

Our motivation for this project came from a survey we conducted with our school community. Our survey results show that over 75% of the school know someone who has committed/thought of suicide or know someone who has. 56% of those people were under the age of 18, We believe that needs to change because the suicide rates continue to go up each year meaning more families are losing loved ones.

It took a while to make contact with Mike King and find out if he was available to visit and talk to our school.
Vinita managed to have a telephone conversation and was in text communication with Miike King.
We have been successful in securing a date and have arranged for Mike to visit us early next year on 12th of March 2018. This coincides with the launching of a new program called, “I am I Hope” and it involves riding 6 50cc motorbikes painted by famous NZ artists delivering the IM hope message. After Mike King’s visit, we hope that the percentage of suicide will decrease in the area and people in our community become more aware of what they can do to support those thinking of taking their own lives.”

 

“At the end of term 3 as a part of our inquiry Nathan and I decided to plan a breakfast club.
After we completed our investigations, we found that a number of students come to school without breakfast. One of the reasons for this is our parents commute to work early so they don’t get caught in traffic.
Nathan and I started planning where it would be, how we will promote it, and the expenses involved in establishing a breakfast club. Once we had gathered necessary infomation, we met with our school Principal to hand deliver our letter and discuss the matter further. He gave us feedback and feedforward advice which we used to further improve are inquiry.

After further investigation, we have found a programme called Kickstart. Sponsored by Fonterra and Sanitarium, this programme provides free breakfast items to schools and the great thing about it, is you just need to sign the school up!
Sadly we have missed out on doing it this term but have since received support to sign up for term 2 2018.
We have enjoyed this challenge and yes it got challenging, creating something that meets a need is a great experience.”

 

“This term we, fundraised for Te Omanga Hospice, to help them rebuild. This project was to help people’s well being, enhance, educate and unite the community .

We raised about $300 by doing a sausage sizzle and bake sale for 2 hours in front of Silverstream, New World.
On Friday 17th November, we went down at 2.30pm and handed over the money to Te Omanga Hospice.The staff thanked us for our efforts. We also invited Collin from the Hutt News to come down and take some photos of us handing over the money. Our event was published in the Hutt Leader newspaper. We have done really well and would like to thank everyone who supported us by purchasing a sausage or baking.”

 

“As a part of our hauora inquiry we decided to create a small christmas care package to donate to a family in need. The plan was to hand this over to the Salvation Army who would then gift it to a family that would benefit from this.

We met with Mr Kenny to seek guidance and support, unfortunately, we were told that this time of year probably wasn’t the best time to be asking the school for donations because it was too close to christmas. Luckily, R13 classmates agreed to support our project so we could contribute to the community. We started of wrapping a box in christmas wrapping paper to make our box more festive. We then asked our classmates to donate christmas items like food that we would eat for christmas or presents.”

 

“At the start of term 4 room thirteen have been working on a health project to improve the hauora (well-being) of our community.Liam and I created a cultural calendar that explains all different cultural celebrations and how they celebrate it on the calendar and we have put it on the school website.

To start this project off we went around the school and asked people if they had different ethnicities that we usually don’t celebrate in our community. We then wrote all those ethnicities down and the celebrations they told us about. After that we looked up some more celebrations to fill some of our calendar up. Then we wrote all of that down on a draft calendar. We then published the calendar on a computer to make it look professional and now we’re waiting for the next upcoming year!

Our inspiration for this is that there are kids around the school who do not get their culture celebrated (Sri Lanka,South Africa etc.) and we wanted there culture to be included in our school. Overall it was a fun topic and we learned a lot of new cultures and what they celebrated. When we did this we had good intentions and we hope we educated, enhanced and united the community. Unfortunately we could not get every celebration in so please forgive us if we have missed a couple.”

 

“Three girls from fergusson intermediate spent 2-3 weeks working on their self organised can run. As part of their class health inquiry project the trio had to come up with a way to unite, enhance and educate their community. Phaedra Boyd, Gemma Goodwin and Paige Hawkins raised 206 cans to donate to the Upper Hutt Foodbank. The girls were very successful. On the 1st of December, the trio took the cans to Upper Hutt Foodbank, which will knowingly help many over christmas. Many thanks to the behind the scene work of the families of the girls and all those who donated to this worthy cause. So many people in Upper Hutt struggle and have very little food. With rent costs going up and payment rates going down, not many are coping. The food bank appreciates every donation, big or small.”

 

“Three students from Fergusson Intermediate, Teah Burrin, Ilah Beattie and Zerinity Davies conducted a bake sale on Friday 25th November. $160 was raised given to support the Wellington SPCA. This was for a class inquiry project to educate, enhance and unite the community. These three girls have a huge passion for animals as well as baking and that is how this project begun. This event started as a little idea but as time went on this grew and it became a big success with almost 60 orders placed. They are using the majority of the money given to buy necessities for the animals.”

 

“For the past term, room 13 has been working on projects to enhance, educate and unite the community. For my project, I wrote a story from the point of view of a kid with a parent suffering from cancer.
I wrote about my struggles, how I got through tough times, coped with stress and never gave up. I then sent the slideshow to a child cancer foundation to see if they could have my story on their website to help people struggling with cancer in their family. It is also being put up on the school website for students at school to read if they need some support. I have made myself available for anyone who needs someone to talk to about any issues or concerns they may have with people close to them struggling with cancer. I hope that with my project, I can help support people and inspire them to never give up.”

 

“Ashton Church,Connor McHenry and Nicholas Rai volunteered their time and services at the SummerSet Retirement as part of their well being/hauora inquiry project. Now some may think it would’ve boring being at a retirement home, but actually it was quite fun and at some point educationally. We learnt about their daily routine. We read the local news, participated in the one of their fitness programs and even played board games with the residents! Each of us make new connections with some of the residents and maybe made some new friends! We learned alot about what it is like in a retirement home and they thanked us greatly! “I never thought i would have so much fun their!” Ashton said after their visit. Nicholas talked to one of their residents who had stories dating back to him fighting in WW1! We had lots of fun their and hope that we made some of those elders last day enjoyable!”

 

“Kia ora,Namaste,Talofa. We are students from R13, Kahurangi Kingi and Sanithu Edirisinghe. We chose to volunteer our time at the local Animal Rescue because we want to help care and look after animals who have suffered.
We called animal rescue in Upper Hutt to ask whether we can help them to looking after animals. We love how Animal rescue is a place that saves animals from starvation and abuse. So basically they look after animals who don’t have a home and animals up for Adoption.

After making contact with Animal Rescue and offering our time and support, we were invited us to go along next wednesday to work at Animal Rescue.
Sanithu’s dad came along with us for the morning. After we had a quick tour, we got straight into work. We scrubbed cat cages, vacuumed play areas and played with the kittens so they learn how to associate with humans . Although it was dirty work, we met some kind and caring people who give up their time to support their community. We really enjoyed supporting such a worthy cause.”

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We brainstormed as a class to establish three key aspects we would like to explore. This has resulted in a group of the students visiting a rest home, organising a fundraiser for the S.P.C.A., and conducting a river cleanup.

The river cleanup is taking place in a few weeks as a whole class activity and the students are looking forward to the day.