First Inquiry Session Recount

For this half of Term 2, three times a week, all the students of Team 5 will return to their home classes for Inquiry. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we only meet in the afternoon block but on Friday instead of Zeal Zone, we are in our home classes for Inquiry for the whole morning till lunchtime. The topic for this term is Tinkering Tools and Toys so we are learning about what we can do to make Pt England School better. For the first half of Term 2, we were learning about WW1 so these rotations are new to Team 5.

During the first Friday of Inquiry, we had the challenge to choose things around the school that we want to add, adjust or take away. Our first step was to get into groups of about 5 or 6. We would be in those groups for the rest of the term because we have points that are given out every session and group presentations. I got into a group with my friends before we started our first round of pictionary and charades.

After every round we would stop and talk about the word that we just acted/drew for our group. We talked about how they work and how people would do that job in the old days. For example, a dryer, everyone knows that if you put wet clothes into the dryer, they will come come out dry, but what did people used before dryers were invented? That activity made us think about what life would have been like in the 1800s and what would life be like in 2100s? If the world has changed so much since then, how much will it change in the next century?

After morning tea, groups were sent out with I-Pads to look around the school at things that could be made better. It ranged from leveling the concrete on the hard courts to planting more gardens. When we returned to the classroom, we put all our ideas into our group presentation and explained why we wanted to change them. We had lots of ideas but we finally picked our top 4 and put them into the final ideas slide.

At the end of the day, we had time to share our group’s final ideas and why we wanted them with the class. There was still more to do on the presentation but we would have time next week. I really enjoyed this session of Inquiry and I really look forward to the next one. I enjoyed learning in a group and in a fun way. Friday’s lesson made me stop and think about our school, what are the things that we could make better and is there some way we can fix it? I hope our students can do something about the things that could become better.