Sunday, April 29, 2012

Art Unveiling

A magnificent piece of art was unveiled during a ceremony at school on Friday. The art work was gifted to Amesbury School by all the companies involved in building the school. The work, by artist and sculptor Jeff Thomson, is made of corrugated iron. The outline shape is New Zealand but it is made of many small parts in the shape of meccano pieces printed with illustrations of flora and fauna of New Zealand. It was interesting to talk to Jeff afterwards about how he creates his works. The printing, similar to screen printing of T-shirts, is done onto flat pieces of metal that are then corrugated and assembled. It took Jeff a long time to make the individual 'meccano' pieces but only two days to assemble the whole 'country.' If you would like to see more pictures of Jeff's art come and look at the display in the library.


Part of the ceremony included the boys performing the haka for the first time.
They were fantastic - loud and enthusiastic.


Thursday, April 26, 2012

Spread Joy

"Joy for learning ... joyful living"  These words are part of the Amesbury School philosophy and a group of Koru students have been carrying out an inquiry into what this means. They thought about what joy looks like, sounds like and feels like, in their lives at school and outside of school.  Then they thought of ways they can spread joy at Amesbury School and help others feel joyful.

The video below demonstrates some of their ideas including:
helping others learn
playing fun games with others
inviting others to join in games
playing sports with friends
sharing equipment 
looking after our environment
helping to tidy up
being a caring friend





Music by Mike Strickland