Pirinoa kids learn in “our place”

Clive Paton hosted the whole of Pirinoa School on his regenerating farm in the Aorangi Ranges. He talked to the children about the story of changing the land from forest to farm to forest again.

By Principal Richard Goodyear 

Imagine if your classroom as a child contained historic cemeteries, pa sites, lakes, wetlands, streams, rivers and forests. A lighthouse, a marae, ancient and modern gardens. Farms of all types and sizes. Dozens of fascinating people, old and young, who are experts, who have achieved great things in their lives, and with stories to tell about the places they love. And an entire mountain range with a rare climbing plant that your school is named after.

Pirinoa School sits at the centre of all this and we are leaving the school grounds more and more to explore this vibrant learning space.

To have a classroom this big, this vibrant, we need to flip the idea of what a classroom is and what a curriculum might be.

Every single site is packed with learning opportunities. We need to think ‘let’s learn about people and places instead of simply learning subjects’. Because the learning that we need to do in schools is bigger than just the subject areas. The kids need knowledge, understanding and skills that are relevant to them and are sparked by what’s around them. By their place. And when we get it right it spurs a whole lot of motivation for reading, writing and maths. What we call the foundational subjects.

This is the idea behind the ‘local curriculum’ that we are developing at Pirinoa School, and many schools are embracing all through the country.

Reading accounts of early settlers, memorising a moteatea about the places significant to mana whenua, calculating the flow of a river in metres/second, creating a model back at school of a pa site during a historic battle.

I guarantee everyone reading this article could come up with dozens of ideas for high quality learning activities that could be spurred by a focus on the people and places of the South Wairarapa. And maybe find it easier than coming up for ideas about how to teach writing, reading and maths in isolation.

It’s early days with this idea, but momentum is building. There are lots of challenges. We have to figure out how best to run field trips that capture all the above opportunities but that are worth the time, money and risk planning required to make them happen. And to be able to capitalise on the trips and visits with the work we do back at home base. How best to thank and acknowledge the people who give up time for us. How to make sure we are contributing to our place and not just sapping goodness from it.

And we don’t want to forget about the ultimate learning space of all: Pirinoa School itself, where we are developing gardens, planning wetlands, trapping predators, playing sports, climbing trees, building huts, and using our indoor spaces to have concentrated bursts of reading, writing, maths and all the other good stuff that needs to be indoors.

It’s well established that we do lots of trips at our school. And they are trips with a purpose. Water testing the local river anyone? Learning the history of the area by viewing the tukutuku at Kohunui marae? Studying the local geology by journeying from the bottom of the Remutaka to the coast with our tame geologist Chris to illuminate the very rocks we stand on every day? These are but a few of the experiences our students have had recently. 

We aim to have many more in coming years including finding that elusive pirinoa plant in the wild.