Mr Sedcole and Mrs Archibald visited 4 Modern Learning Environment schools in Auckland. The main focus of these schools was to provide an environment where the student becomes the leader of learning rather than teacher driven. It’s about finding the right mix between Traditional and Modern approaches. Teacher knowledge, planning and structure will always be important but if this is not manufactured in the world of the student why would they want to learn about it? Learning needs to be relevant and something the student can relate to. We can then sneak in skills and strategies the students need to learn. We want the learning to be driven by the student. Modern Learning Classroom Environments provide different learning spaces for different learning situations. Rather than just sitting at a desk all day they might be working at the brainstorming table or presenting a play in the ‘Presentation Room’. It is all very sensible

There are still teachers who are setting assignments on Africa in NZ schools. My thoughts are that unless the students came from Africa, or the reason for studying about Africa was because it related to a local issue is that the teacher is wasting the students time. There are still plenty of teachers doing this boring waste of time approach. At Mangonui School we will not be wasting students time but be trying to provide a enviornment where students are in control of their learning, can talk about it, know where they are and know where they are going.