Dear parents,

This term seems to have gone very quickly.  Who would believe that it is getting to the end of week seven and that teachers are beginning the report writing process.

Last week, Jarrod Lamshed and I spent time in Sydney attending a series of workshops being run by EduBuild. This was in preparation for the design of our new building that we anticipate may happen in 2020. We know that at some stage we will be approached by whoever the appointed architects are, and invited to provide input into the learning design. This is usually a small window of opportunity for us to have input.

These workshops allowed us to spend time with people who are considered to be the world experts in design of educational learning areas, such as Prakash Nair and Stephen Heppel.  We successfully established relationships with a number of people who will be great assets when it comes to the time to provide input.

We believe that we have an opportunity to create a building that will support a wide range of learning pedagogies and be a world class learning environment for many years to come. Last week we had the opportunity to delve into the latest research and to begin looking at how we can incorporate that into a design brief. What we are seeking to do, is to create a series of flexible learning spaces that can be used by all students from reception to year six.

The building will often be referred to as a STEM or STEAM building, where the ARTS aspects provides the opportunity to incorporate creativity into learning.  We learnt that if we were in FIJI, the “A” would stand for agriculture.  This gives an idea just how diverse STAEM can be around the world.

I look forward to the time when I am able to provide more concrete information about our new building phase.

Regards,

Steve Freeman
Principal