Green Gold Award Achieved

We are excited to announce the awarding of the Enviroschools Green Gold Award to Bay of Islands International Academy by the Northern Regional Councils Enviroschools team. Following the successful reflection day described below by coordinating teacher Jenna Grant, the school went on to celebrate its success two weeks later.

Covid restrictions were not going to hamper Bay of Islands International Academy’s Green - Gold status reflection day. With a smaller group than planned the day began with a powhiri in the stunning and spiritual outdoor marae, Te Waonui ā Tane, nestled in the school pollination gardens. The waiata filled the hearts of all present and set a tone of appreciation.

The reflection group were students from years 2 - 8 and not all were part of the enviro team, we felt this was appropriate to show a balanced view of the schools culture. Morag facilitated the day with Zoe, Susan Karels and Poppy, our Board of Trustees chair. The day was in keeping with our school's culture and was “organic” with the students at the heart of all the activities.

It was a breath of fresh air to hear students talking of the journey their kura has been on to become more sustainable and future focussed.

“When I came to this school there was loads of rubbish, then when I came back from Ireland there was none.”

Some evidence that was shared included;

• A vegetable garden that runs as a business selling produce to community and local shops
• Ngahere kura - a forest school program for year 5 and 6 students in a nearby bush area
• Outdoor loose parts play area for younger students
• Students being a part of the strategic planning process
• Room 5 writing to the government and signing a bill to support a marine reserve
• Visits to project island song
• Our locally famous trapping team working hard to eradicate pests on the peninsula
• Only Rain Down the Drain painting project
• And one of our very own students being awarded to Blake Young Leaders award

The reflection process showed our progress from silver status where we set goals to spread the kaupapa across the school and into the wider community. As we put our evidence next to the guiding principles we realised that this was very much achieved. All classes plan units of inquiry with a sustainable future in mind. The year long unit of inquiry has an environmental focus so the curriculum is accessed year round and with many different perspectives. So many of our projects have reached outside school and are valuably connected to the wider community.

Due to uncertainty over covid restrictions we chose to collate our evidence in a website (just in case), with a bit more work and our status update to add we hope to share this with our wider community.

Being an IB school we are more than familiar with the inquiry cycle and the ongoing reflective process. From here we will recognise what we have and then look to the future about what we can continue working on.

Looking ahead, we aim to continue our “sharing the planet” and “how the world works” units that inquire into environmental concepts and allow students from across the school to think about local and global issues and solutions. This year some students have been selected to input into our school’s strategic plan. Having surveyed our community we have identified an opportunity to enhance our outdoor space.

We couldn’t be more proud of the hard work the students have put in and their inspiring passion to create a more sustainable future. The tears at the reflection day show just how important Enviroschools is to our students. We are looking forward to seeing what the next few years hold for us. Yeah for green gold status!