Grey Lynn
Background
Te Rae o Kawharu – Grey Lynn School – is a medium sized primary school located to the west of the city centre of Auckland City, New Zealand. It is in a high socio economic area that has experienced recent gentrification and housing intensification.
The school serves a community which has high educational expectations for its children, and which is actively involved in the range of opportunities the school organises to share student learning.
The New Zealand Ministry of Education recognises that learning environments should promote teacher and student collaboration. Teachers who know how to collaborate in ILE, accelerate their professional learning which is more likely to lead to improved student learning outcomes.
With our help staff have:
✔ Explored the Grey Lynn School vision and values and how they translate into the day-to-day observable behaviors for learning and teaching.
✔ Reviewed their current and intended next practice for learning and teaching in line with the PLS framework headings.
✔ Translated these outcomes into learning activities and behaviors for learning to inform the design approach.
✔ Reimagined the interior design of the collaborative learning zones within the school.
✔ Developed and tested the new organizational model needed to collaboratively deliver the required learning and teaching experience.
✔ Developed a strategy for change to develop and transition into the new learning spaces.
✔ Reviewed and evaluated the use of spaces.
Our process
Our blog followed the Planning Learning Spaces in Practice Team as we guided staff through our framework.
Year groups 1 and 2
This week we are back in Grey Lynn School to catch up with the year 1 and 2s to see how they are defining learning activities within their use of space. Transitioning into the use of more collaborative learning environments is a learning journey for students and all...
Learning Activity zones
I last updated you about Grey Lynn School in week 11, where we saw the ‘Activity Poster’ project come together. The posters have now made their way into the ‘Learning Hubs’ where both teachers and children have had a chance to use them to support their daily...
Identifying types of learning zones
In our last post from Grey Lynn School (NZ), the staff wanted to develop how they could clearly identify and convey what a learning activity involved and how it was going to be conducted in the specific zone within the learning space. Our New Zealand facilitator, Doug...
What are learning zones?
This week, our New Zealand co-ordinator, Doug Crutch, went to visit the staff and students at Grey Lynn to see how the school was progressing with their new way of learning. After being introduced to the PLS process and its take on zones and activities, the staff at...
Reflecting on the school’s vision
Making a reality of your vision It is rewarding to see as we are developing our PLS process in practice, how reflecting on the vision of a school, defining current and next practice are key design drivers for the design of new spaces in schools. This further supports...
The journey from single-cell spaces to open- plan collaborative spaces
Our Planning Learning Spaces in Practice project at Grey Lynn school, New Zealand, has continued to support the staff in re-thinking and further developing the critical links between pedagogy and space in their new collaborative learning environments. The staff and...
Grey Lynn embark on the PLS in Practice journey
The staff and students at Grey Lynn school in New Zealand have moved from single cell, teacher-directed group organisation into open collaborative spaces, in line with developing New Zealand government policy. This has left principal, Alicia Whata, with the challenge...