Inquiry is Alive!

By Sarah Perry, Year 4-6 Teacher

“What are we doing?”

“Why are they doing this?”

“Wow! This is fun!”

These are just some statements that I hear from my students at the start of any new inquiry. In the first few weeks of the term the students wonder what they are going to be learning about so we make an effort to plan activities and experiences that will ‘ignite’ their curiosity. They are supported to explore these wonderings and these provide the basis of our approach to the inquiry for our class. Once they are curious, the rest follows.

Inside the classroom I make sure students learn about our inquiry topic throughout the whole day; we read about it, our maths is related, and this helps the students to make connections between all curriculum areas. We don’t see learning as separate subjects that we do at certain times of the day. For example, in reading the students read texts that are linked to our inquiry and we might then follow that with some relevant writing. This makes connections between inquiry and their personal experiences as well.

Through our inquiry context we also learn skills to support thinking and analysing information and looking for connections between ideas and perspectives. We explicitly learn research skills when we visit Te Puna Ngoi, our school library, and then bring those back to apply to the learning we are doing in class.

Our inquiry wall is filled with photos and evidence of students' work throughout the term. It is important that our inquiry wall is a living wall and the students use it to share their learning with their peers and whanau. The students can see the progress from their wonderings, to their research and application of other ideas, right through to their outcome displayed on this wall.