Our Language of Learning
The Sunnyhills GEMS were trialled in 2018 as a foundation for teaching, learning and behaviour at Sunnyhills. The GEMS recognise and empower the front section of the New Zealand Curriculum and Tataiako as they are designed to introduce, support, develop, celebrate and explicitly explore the concepts of the Key Competencies and the Cultural Competencies in a way that makes sense to our students, our staff and the wider school community. This diagram is how we see the Key Competencies and the Cultural Competencies weaving together and underpinning our GEMS
We believe that in order to achieve Growth as learners, and as people, the other three GEMS (Empathy, Mana and Self-Belief) must be understood and developed to support our learners and our learning community holistically.
In class, our learners will be using their Learning Powers (dispositions/competencies) that enable them to be better learners. The Learning Powers “I statements” are drawn directly from our Sunnyhills Vision. They are the foundation for our Language of Learning, where students work towards developing their Learning Powers and these will be recognised at celebration assemblies and in our parental reporting from 2019.
In association with our Learning Powers we use the Learning Pit as a tool to support and guide students in the development of critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinking. You can see the Learning Pit has our GEMS embedded in the mountain, so learners can dig deep within themselves and apply the GEMS (Learning Powers) to help them move forward. The Learning Pit can help learners identify it is okay to have a learning dip (challenge) and use this poster (left) as a visual strategy to help them get out of the pit, to be resilient, and don’t give up. The Learning Pit encourages learners to willingly step outside their comfort zone. As the Learning Pit is designed to help students think and talk about their learning. It can help develop a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). At Sunnyhills, we have already introduced the concept of developing a growth mindset and each part of our GEMS requires a mindset that encourages learners to be their very best in all settings.
The last part of our Language of Learning is the Sunnyhills Learning Pathway. Although this process may have been traditionally used to describe “Inquiry Learning” or topic studies we believe no matter what the learning context or curriculum, we believe learning takes this pathway. Inquiry is a process that can find a home within a specific discipline but can also help students think across disciplines
This pathway is a four step process for our learners:
