Pohatu+Patiki

How Is Our School Unique? Technology: Pohatu Patiki is a Maori Based school; we have encouraged other races such as Asian and European to join us as one big community in our primary/Intermediate school. Our way of learning mainly consists of visual learning and involving as much use of technology as we can. Some of the ways that we have made sure that this will happen is by using Smart boards. These are one example of visual and technology learning at the same time and the set up of the classrooms play a massive part in this. For our senior classes we have made a triangular shape in the middle of the classrooms using smart boards so that the whole class can see what the teacher is doing on his or her laptop. Every teacher will have an apple Mac Laptop and these will be fast and sufficient, there will also be a program called synchronise installed on each laptop. This program will allow the teacher to see what each student group is doing on their laptops. The school will be supplied with tablet laptops and there will be enough laptops for in one per two people throughout the whole school, these two will be able to plug easily into the smart boards The tablets will also have webcams in them so if there is someone that they need to speak to they can simply go into Skype and call/video cam them (the webcams will only be used for projects/assignments). The most sufficient way of getting internet is wireless so the school will be able to get wireless. But don’t worry there will be security passwords to allow the laptop that you are using to connect to the schools wireless. Just like Dio every kid will have their own username and password to log in to the school server and will be able to access the information relevant to the need of that child. Also each teacher will be supplied with an IPod touch and these will be used for showing the class work and methods on their laptops or smart boards.  Design: The design of our school has mainly been based around the learning that will be done at this school. __Classrooms__-We have made our class room shapes all square; each class also has a wall-sized ranch slider. We have incorporated ranch sliders into our design because we believe that there needs to be a sense of being open in a classroom instead of being in a blocked off room. (Like a cell). The teacher will be able to open it up and join with other classes and shut it again when the teacher decides to be alone with his or hers class. We also found through research that children work better when they are surrounded in fresh air. In every classroom there will be at least one smart board and a mat so the kids can change learning environments and start a fresh. There will be desks formed in groups to encourage interactive learning and communicating with other students. Most of our School has been designed as an eco friendly school. One example is we only have one main light in each classroom and they will have sensors on them ,so if there is no movement in the classroom or office within a particular time period the lights will automatically turn off. The classes will also have one feature colour wall ,this colour will be of the first teacher in that classes choice. Within our school we have a __Hall__- Which includes a kitchen and toilets. The Hall has a set of bleachers at the back and removable seating at the front/middle, there is also a projector screen that comes down from the roof. The hall will be used for productions, socials/discos, sometimes for PE if it is raining or if the area that kids are looking at is doing gymnastics there might be big functions held here but functions will mainly be held in the Admin Functions Room, __Library__- originally we were not going to include a library in our final design because we thought we could just scan and put all of the books on the internet, but then our English teacher explained to us that it is often nice to go somewhere different for a period or so and a complete change of environment is always relaxing for the students and teachers. There will be plenty of cautions and you will not be allowed to be shoes in the library and it will be kept as a quiet clean environment to learn and chill out in. Our library is reasonibily small compeered to other schools but this is because we have many books online for the children to read as well. __Admin__- includes the Principle and Deputy Principles offices, a school office a staffroom, a __Learning Support Centre__- this centre will be there for all the children’s use if they need it. The kids can go there for help with spelling, reading, math’s practically everything, also in this centre there will be “aua” (advanced) classes and these are for kids who have potential and need to be pushed when they are learning. In this centre the children will be guided towards thinking about problems that the world faces today and they will be also thinking “outside the square” like What might happen in the future and so on (Like the Da Vinci classes at Dio). In that same block we also have __A pod__- a room for the older kids to go and shear their ideas with one and other for projects ect. We have all agreed that the school will be based on and around technology which means that we have had to make changes to the design of the buildings e.g. have a technology/art room in between each classroom and also the number of power plugs around the classroom has differed because we had to consider the number of tablets and how many charges might be used at one time. We have a __resource room__- for all the paper, DVDs, Photocopiers, scanners ect. We also have a __PE shed__- that will have all the physical equipment for PE such as Cones, balls and other bits and pieces. __Car parks__- There will be one car park to every two teachers. Each car Park has a number and these will be allocated to teachers. This will encourage teachers to either car pull or walk to work. There will also be disable parking inside the school but all other parent parking will have to be outside the school. __Field__- There will be a rugby field, long jump pit, sand pit for the juniors and two playgrounds one smaller one for the juniors and slightly bigger one for the seniors. __Courtyard__- there is going to be 2 basketball courts and one netball court. The reason we only have one netball court is because the ANC netball courts are with a 5 minute walk from the school its self. Another thing that we don’t have is a __pool__ this is because we have looked on the maps of the area and found that there is a swim school (Swimtastic) within a 7min walk from the school, this would encourage walking as a part of our fitness program. __Entrances-__ We have two walking entrances which will both be shut at night (for security reasons) and an entrance to get to the car park. __Shade-__ Outside almost every building there will be shade cover and the school will be supplied with weaved mats for the kids to sit on at lunch and morning tea, these mats will be able to be rolled up and place in the class room that it’s in front of. (Just for the night and then the students can help the teacher take it back out in the morning.) __Security__- all of the schools gates will be shut at night and there is a 1 ½ meter fence around the outside of the whole school.