Gallipoli

BANG…   

“Look out!”

We run across the cold soft ground, dodging bullets. My heart pounds out of my chest, while people drop dead around us.

“We better go back!”

Suddenly my life-long friend drops dead. I run back. Blood, sweat and tears fall down my ice cold cheeks. I jump back into the trench. I feel like going home, but I know I must go on.

All of a sudden a horrible stench flouts up. I vomit. It just makes it worst. I can’t take it any more. My stomach rumbles. It sounds like a earthquake.

By Hannah

The light flashes. Red. Red. Green. The ship’s door opens. In two seconds I hear gunfire. The guy in the front is shot. Luckily I was at the back. I had to trample over him.

Suddenly I look at the bombers flying overhead. “Boom!” A grenade is thrown  I see a grenade is thrown again. I am right by. It deafens  me! I wipe the mud on my face. Red blood fills the beach and the water. We make progress. At 5pm we take over their trenches.

I see a head get blown off.  I don’t really want to get up and shoot but I have to.

By Reuben

Exploring ANZAC

This week in team Pohutukawa we have been exploring the importance behind celebrating ANZAC day and why we must pay our respects to those who gave their lives to protect our country many years ago. Hub 21/22 have been busy conducting an inquiry on World War 1 and have even been building their very own trenches in the classroom! In hub 14/15 we have been looking at some of the famous poetry and letters written about the soldiers' experiences on the battlefield and recreated our own. Below is one of the poems our students wrote. Enjoy!

Pointless

Have you ever wondered, for what purpose is the war?

The fighting, the killing, there should be no more!

Nothing good comes out of it, on both sides people die!

Do you really think you’re doing a favour by killing without knowing why?

If we made a compromise the ANZACs would be your friends,

but instead you choose to fight so this war must come to an end!

This stupid war is pointless, there’s no reason we should fight!

We both just want to be back home in our beds all  tucked up tight.

You realise we have family back home, looking up at the starlit sky,

hoping that when we went to war it wasn't their last goodbye.

We know you have family like us and probably lots of friends,

so for them and for us, lets put down our guns, and both of us make amends.

Written by Sadie

Term 1 Learning Celebration

Team Pohutukawa has had an incredible afternoon sharing some of the awesome things we have all been working on and learning about from hub 14/15's radio show on Plains FM to hub 21/22's Starfleet Academy. Check out these fun photos of us celebrating how much in team Pohutukawa we LOVE learning, we LOVE challenge and most importantly we get there TOGETHER!

At Beckenham School we get there together!

In maths we undertook a statistical investigation on how children feel about learning in hubs rather than single cells. We used a google form to survey the children in Hub 14/15.

The information we gathered from these fifty students, shows their opinion on learning in the modern collaborative learning space, or the old formal classrooms, which are also known as single cells.

 

The first question we asked was: Where do you prefer to hang your bag?

When we were back in separate classes there was space in between the rooms to hang our bags. But when the walls got knocked down there was no room so the bags went on hooks outside.

Our investigation of this question shows that 60 percent of the hub likes their bag inside and only 40 percent of the hub likes their bag outside.

We asked kaia her opinion on bags.

She prefered it when we hung them inside.

Kaia prefered them inside because if you had yogurt in your lunch it goes slimy and yucky  when it gets warm.

The second question  we asked was how do you like to do your literacy?

Beckenham school has developed a new way to do literacy. This new way is called self directed learning.

Self directed learning in literacy looks a bit like this: At the beginning of the week we are given tasks which we need to complete by the end of Friday. We do this independently and self manage our time.

We have discovered that three quarters of the hub prefers self directed literacy over non self directed literacy.

Another question we asked was: How do prefer to be taught? By one teacher or two teachers?

It was interesting to find that 60% of the hub prefers having two teachers, and only 40 % prefers one teacher.

Another question we asked was Where do you like to work. The options were: outside, the learning cafe and the focus factory. Twenty three people prefered to work outside, six people prefered the focus factory and nineteen people prefered the learning cafe.

Also we asked how do you prefer to do P.E as a hub or in a single cell. Four fifths of the hub like to play P.E as a hub and only one fifth of the hub likes to play P.E as a single cell.

By Daisy and Rosie