Westbrook School, Rotorua

Good morning everyone, I hope you have had a great start to your day and that you've participated in the Shake Out just like millions of other New Zealanders right across the country (Mrs Barrett).



After the 'earthquake'

1.  What school do you go to?  Westbrook School has a roll of nearly 600 children ranging from Year0/1 to Year 6.  Our class is in the Year 4 team and we have 28 children in Room 23.  Our teacher is called Mrs Barrett (she loves chocolate!).

2.  What is something special about your school?   Sierra says that the Westbrook Way is a great way of learning how to look after each other.  Our values are Initiative (I think for myself and take positive actions), Respect (I care about myself, other people and our world), Responsibility (I am responsible for all that I say and do), Excellence (I will be the best ME that I can be), and Whanaungatanga (We are family!).  Harriet says that our Principal doesn't mind dancing at School Assembly and has a great sense of humour.  Heath thinks that we are special because we get awesome teachers every year! 

3.  What is something you have enjoyed learning about this year?  In Terms 3 and 4 our concept has been Kaitiakitanga and we've been learning about our endangered animals, especially the Kea.  We went on a LEARNZ Virtual Field Trip to the Southern Alps and checked out their habitat.  We sent Deano our ambassador on the trip on our behalf, and he loved it!  We also learnt about sharks and how misunderstood they are.  Our visiting experts, Kathryn and Nick from Friends for Sharks, say they are actually very cuddly!  Mrs Barrett didn't agree, but she doesn't even like spiders!  Jarod said that he loves everything about this year.

4.  What do you most like about living in Rotorua?  Most of our friends and family live here so we're right at home.  Tia loves the geothermal hot pools and walking.  The scenery is very cool as Kya is from Australia and it's very different over there with not that much green.  The mountain biking tracks in our forest are amazing and Bradley, Heath and Taleesyn spend lots of time on their bikes.

5.  What do you most like doing on your computers/iPads/devices at school to help your learning?  Briana loves Sumdog because it helps with her maths, and Baxter loves to use our devices for researching the topics we learn about in class.  We also use technology as part of our Daily 5 programme to listen to stories from around the world.  We are all learning to use Google Apps as part of our learning and can email work to our teacher.  Very cool! We pretty much use all of our devices all day for something!

6.  Is there anything else you'd like to share about yourself, your learning, your class or your school?   We have a friendly class and we really appreciate each other.  Mrs Barrett has a sense of humour and we laugh a lot so our day goes quickly!

This is Room 23 at Westbrook School signing out.  Have a great day!