Students and staff from Ruawai College with the Enviroschool certificate. Back row: Jacque Knight, Rick Stolwerk, Susan Karels; front: Raeleen Harré (principal), Tahlia Johnson, Carla Fraser.
Students and staff from Ruawai College with the Enviroschool certificate. Back row: Jacque Knight, Rick Stolwerk, Susan Karels; front: Raeleen Harré (principal), Tahlia Johnson, Carla Fraser.
Students show they care for the environment Ruawai College has been recognised as environmental warriors for its work caring for the local environment.
The school was awarded the Bronze Enviroschools Award recently in recognition of its commitment to becoming more sustainable.
School teacher Marsha Bellamy says students have fully immersed themselves in the Enviroschools project-based learning and philosophy.
"In 2017 our students completed a number of environmental projects, including studying the history of our local area, planting our school waterways, rubbish clean-up of our local wharf and collecting and propagating seeds from native plants.
"The students all worked extremely hard, and were successful in gaining the Enviroschool Bronze certificate."
Marsha says the school's aim is to one day earn the Gold certificate.
The North's Enviroschools programme is funded by and operated through the Northland Regional Council, with support from the Toimata Foundation.
In Northland, more than 90 schools and five kindergartens are on the pathway towards creating sustainable communities.
They are all working at their own pace to achieve a range of sustainability actions. Along the way, some Enviroschools choose to reflect at the Bronze, Silver and Green-Gold stages of experience, understanding and practice.
Kaipara school kids have a go on the water Schools that are part of the Northland WaterSafe programme got to put their survival skills they've been learning to the test in a recent Have A Go beach day.
St Joseph's School pupils gear up in dive suits for the Have A Go Day at Kai Iwi Lakes.
Students from five schools from the Kaipara and Whangarei districts experienced activities around boat safety, survival skills, snorkelling and sailing.
"We all recognise how vital it is to help children explore water safety and learn these important skills, which will help enable them to safely enjoy this country's waterways and explore various aquatic activities," said Louise Collings, WaterSafe lead for Sport Northland.
"The students who attended these days take away great memories along with the knowledge of how to keep safer in, on and around water."
St Joseph's School teacher Marissa Vermeulen says pupils from rooms 4 and 5 attended the Have A Go Day at Kai Iwi Lakes and had a blast.
"We all came back to school buzzing. The kids had a great time while they also learned some really valuable life skills around water safety.
"We loved the fact that kids worked in small groups with the instructors - which meant they learned these skills really well."
Pupil Sam Glover said it was his first time at the Have A Go Day.
"I loved it and they made water safety learning fun. I hope we get to do it again next year."
The day was supported by a private trust.
"Without whom, it would not be possible for a lot of these students to experience deep and open water activities in a safe environment, and have the opportunity to take part in the beach day," said Miss Collings.
Throat swabbing in schools comes to the Kaipara Te Ha Oranga the Ngati Whatua iwi hauora (health) service provider hopes to eradicate rheumatic fever from the lives of children in the Kaipara district.
They aim to do this by delivering a school-based throat swabbing programme which will service children from 14 schools in the region.
Te Ha Oranga registered nurse Kirsten Mason encourages parents who haven't signed up to do so.
"Because I know it's going to pick up a lot more cases of strep throat and likely prevent cases of rheumatic fever."
Programme lead Delwynne Sheppard says there have been three cases of rheumatic fever in the Kaipara region within the past two years, "and we have responded to this with the implementation of a school-based throat swabbing programme to be delivered by Te Ha Oranga".
The Northland school-based throat swabbing programme was first implemented in six schools in Whangaroa in 2002 in response to a higher number of tamariki in this area developing acute rheumatic fever compared with other areas in Northland. It has since expanded and been implemented across most regions in Northland.
Delwynne says that since the programme was launched there has been a significant decline in the rates of rheumatic fever with Northland having historically had very high rates of the disease.
"In 2013 there were 19 cases of tamariki who developed rheumatic fever, in 2016 this was reduced to just four cases.
"We attribute this to the school-based throat swabbing programme along with national and local communication campaigns raising awareness of sore throats matter, and also the Healthy Housing programme."
• Email Rose - if you have news that you would like to share with Northern Advocate readers. Rose.stirling@gmail.com.
