Aha!

One of the greatest thrills about being in school and working with children are the "aha" moments, the eureka moments - the penny dropping - the real cognitive connection when the learning that takes place in school is understood and acted upon in a new context.

This is more than just knowledge, knowing about something. It is deeper than that, where children join the dots of their learning to strengthen the neuron pathways to make them faster and more secure.

This year there have been many "aha" moments and I would like to share a few. What is special about the first two is that they happened at home and were not set as home learning, but took place spontaneously with the parents. The first from a little girl in Grade 1 who during her unit of inquiry, work on sculpture, took it upon herself to research Antony Gormley a well-known British sculptor. Her research was not the end of her home learning as she took this a stage further and used his inspiration to create natural sculptures in the garden with her mother's help in Gormleyesque style!

A second home learning connection was an anecdotal story a mother wrote to us telling us how the Kindergarten unit of inquiry, how we organize ourselves, has helped her child take responsibility for their own things at home. This little boy went home and sorted all the office supplies and told his mother "he was organizing" and he kept at the task for 30 minutes! This is a real and meaningful connection between home and school learning.

The "aha" moment also presented itself for every Kindergarten student in September starting the Suzuki violin or cello for the very first time.

The "aha" moments are very real and happen every day. It is sometimes just stopping, recognizing and valuing them. They are happening every day and we just need to look for them.

By Helen O'Donoghue, Southbank Hampstead Principal