Capturing our creative endeavour over a two week period

Walking around our kura campus this past couple of weeks, I had no difficulty capturing examples of creativity in student work. This post is more of a 'point in time' look at some of this wonderful work. Enjoy scrolling!!!!!

Sandstone carving - and as it progresses, some of this work is now looking pretty amazing. Look at the detail, and the form!!!

This wonderful work from junior students in their arts kete.

'Sales posters' up for a vote for 'best advert' in the staff room.

Yarny has been doing some amazingly creative drawing in his Art class. He gifted this beautiful piece to me and the school. Up close the fine detail is incredible, this photo doesn't do it justice.

Some more examples of Yarny's drawing.

And then this piece of work, a set of racks, all assembled/welded by hand .. a very creative piece of work as he 'problem solved' and learned the skills necessary to get angles correct.

And as part of our current Arts kete, a group of students opted to tackle some origami. This is Basty. Take a look at his wonderful pieces -  a 'Godzilla', and a dragon. The Commitment, Achievement, and Resilience, required to complete work this detailed work is outstanding. It develops creativity, and many other component parts of the front end of our curriculum.

And finally a few photos from our term 3 NCEA performance evening...

Finally this past week was 'maths Week', with lots of creative stuff happening amongst students and staff, as Juliet (HOD) declared it 'cre8ive maths' week. My own contribution was a maths limerick a day, like this one:

We see creativity abounding in our environment, creativity that in part comes naturally from the activities of our staff, and that in part comes from our focus on 'Learn Create Share' as our underlying pedagogy. mAnd you know what?  There's more than this happening everywhere.

You could say that most schools have this stuff going on, and you may well be right. What I will say of Hornby High School is that it happens across the curriculum because we are 'deliberate and intentional' about it (I frequently borrow that phrase from Gary Roberts, the fab Principal of Hornby Primary School), and we are as deliberate and intentional about it as we are because we have a coherent and consistent pedagogy that is well espoused, and increasingly widely understood amongst staff and students, all tied together with our vision as 'he puna auaha, a centre of creative excellence'.

It leads to engaged students, students whose sense of wellbeing is enhanced, and so students who are better prepared to then engage in the hard mahi around their reading, their writing, their maths, and their wider back end of the curriculum learning across the eight essential learning areas. When you add to that the focus on creativity in amongst the hard mahi of learning, and you are onto a winner.

Are we serious about this creativity thing? As my daughter used to say when in her teens, '"Damned straight" we are...