Dunedin teachers got a rare chance to gain tips on how to teach a popular primary education programme from the programme authors yesterday.
"Discovery Time", written by former Porirua teachers Gay Hay and Brenda Martin, is a 90-minute, hands-on, activity-based programme which gives children the chance to learn through discovery.
The programme is used widely in Otago schools, including eight primary schools in the Dunedin West Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) cluster - Mornington, Brockville, St Marys (Kaikorai), St Francis Xavier, Balaclava, High Street, Bradford and St Joseph's Cathedral Schools.
Mrs Hay said that, during her teaching years, she found it was difficult for many 5-year-olds to move from a child-centred, activity-based, early childhood programme to a more academically focused, teacher-directed school programme.
"In addition, there were a number of students arriving at 5 who had no pre-school experience at all. Some students, struggling with this transition had been referred to the RTLB service."
So she and Mrs Martin decided to do something about it.
They spent yesterday morning observing Dunedin teachers give their pupils a focus for the day, targeting a specific aspect of the five key competency areas as defined by the New Zealand curriculum: thinking; relating to others; managing self; using language, texts and symbols; and participating and contributing.
Mrs Hay said she was "stunned" by the quality of teaching using the programme.
"I'm hugely excited about what's happening in schools here. We were blown away by some of the things that were happening. It's stunning to watch."
