Have you seen how great our shade house looks? Wonder how it happened?

Over the holidays, a kind parent trimmed the trees behind the Kiwi block but wasn’t able to move it all because of their size.  When classes returned some of the Year 5/6 boys were asked if they could move the branches to an area where they could be chopped smaller and removed later.

After moving the branches, the boys were asked what ideas they had that would give back to the school community.   So many interesting suggestions - a path and stairs from Kiwi block to field, a mudslide, removing moss and leaves, steps from field to bottom block, developing the Tui block playground, getting goals for the field.  They also suggested helping Mr Starkey (Caretaker) as they could see how the job he was doing around the school was improving how it looked.  The boys were then asked if they wanted to be involved in taking these ideas further.

With all these great ideas to help improve our school community the boys discussed, ranked and then chose three projects they felt could be completed by the end of term. 

Projects –

1. Do up the shade house.

2. Lines on kiwi block court.

3. Clearing leaves and branches around the school.

Over the next few weeks the boys researched the projects using the internet, decided to focus on the shade house becoming a key landmark in our school and developed a procedure showing what they needed and the steps they needed to follow. 

The boys realised that they had a big problem ….. “How to you paint a shade house without paint?” and suggested contacting paint companies.  A letter was sent on their behalf and Bunnings kindly donated 10 litres of paint.

Time to make a nicer looking shade house – the sound of busy boys - Brushing off years of dirt, sanding back old paints, scratching off bird droppings and the rustle of newspaper. 

Six brushes, twelve boys what do you do to get a job done ………. Teamwork. They boys broke the shade house into sections and off to work they went.   Some found it easy, some found it hard, some even worked through their whole lunch break but all gave their best……... and look now a great looking shade house.

And all this came from just moving a few branches.