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A campfire, chicken coop and vegetable garden may not seem like typical classroom equipment, but they are just some features of a new outdoor learning area at Horizon School in Goodall Road, Snells Beach.
The learning space covers just under a hectare of sloping ground on the lower side of the school, with views to the Mahurangi River.
Its official opening was celebrated at the end of the school term last year, where Lifeway Trust founders Trevor and Jan Yaxley were the special guests.
The couple purchased the 33-hectare site where the school is situated in the late 1980s and have played an integral part in its development. They say they were motivated to set up a centre for young people to honour the memory of their son David, who was killed in a motor vehicle accident in the Dome in 1986, when he was just 16.
Speaking at the opening, Trevor told the assembled school that the vision he and Jan had back then was now standing before them.
“You were our vision and it is wonderful to see it fulfilled,” he said.
Since starting work on the outdoor learning area last winter, the school community has already planted 2000 trees, with more to come.
Yaxley recalled undertaking a similar planting programme 20 years earlier at the bottom of the site, turning a former farm dump into a stand of native trees.
Principal Helen Pearson said the outdoor classroom was in an embryonic stage.
“It was just an overgrown empty space when we started,” she said. “The transformation has been amazing.”
She said fruit trees and bee and bug hotels were on the ‘next to do’ list.
“There is also a plan to install a timeline of painted tiles depicting NZ’s history, which the students will be able to walk around.”
Principal seeks new horizons for herself
When Horizon School in Snells Beach re-opens for the new school year this month, principal Helen Pearson won’t be at the helm.
After 12 years at the school, and around 30 years in education, Pearson is taking some time to travel and then reassess the next stage of her career.
Pearson was the founding principal of KingsWay School, on the Hibiscus Coast, before moving to the Mahurangi Christian School in Snells Beach in 2011. She oversaw the transition of the school to Horizon in 2015.
When she arrived, there were only five classrooms and 34 primary school students. Now there are 257 students on the roll, ranging from Year 0 to 12 this year, and many of the areas that previously accommodated adult education courses and Huhu studio have been repurposed for the school’s use.
“Snells Beach is a wonderful community and the growth of the school has been both exciting and challenging,” Pearson says.
She says she particularly enjoyed seeing the change from a traditional education focus, where subjects were taught in silos, to a contemporary model which is learner-centred and interwoven across learning years.
She says her job was made easier by the quality and dedication of staff at the school.
“The Horizon philosophy is very much about providing a nurturing environment for the child as a whole.”
Pearson’s replacement is Tina Utting, of Christchurch.
