The Amesbury School GTT (Garden to Table) awards encourage curiosity, engagement, and joy for learning in our ākonga. Read on to find out more.

For the past several years we have run the Garden to Table (GTT) programme in our year 4-6 hub, and ākonga (students) have gained so much valuable learning and many fantastic skills. We have always been keen to see how we can extend this great initiative across the whole school, and our GTT award system is a way to do this.

The GTT awards are a series of challenges across eight areas:

• Grow and Harvest

• Prepare and Share

• Environment and Sustainability

• Community

• Artistic Expression

• Science

• Technology

• Cultural Diversity

There are four badges in each area that ākonga can earn - bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Each of the eight areas has a series of tasks that ākonga can do at home and at school, and each task earns ākonga points. To earn a bronze badge you need 25 points, a silver badge is worth 40 points, a gold badge is worth 50 points, and ākonga need to earn a whopping 70 points to earn themselves a mighty platinum badge.

Each term, every tuakana teina group (a Koru whānau group buddied with a Pōhutukawa whānau group) will focus on one of the eight areas. During weekly tuakana teina time on Fridays, and also during whānau time, they will work on completing tasks to earn themselves points towards a badge. This GTT Awards Scheme shows you the tasks across the eight areas. The yellow and blue activities can be completed at school, and can earn ākonga enough points to achieve some of the badges. However, to earn the top prizes, ākonga will also need to complete some of the home tasks, too - these are coloured green on the sheet.

Call to action - what to do now

• Ask your tamariki which of the eight areas their tuakana teina group is working on at school this term. Alternatively, check out the sheet that will have been sent home with your tamariki.

• Have a look at the green 'home' activities they can do as part of this learning area.

• Once your tamariki has completed a task, send the evidence into school to their whānau teacher. This may be an artefact (something they have created), a photo, or a description of what they did (online evidence via email is fine)

• Most of all, get creating and have fun!

If you have any pātai (questions) about this, please ask your child's whānau teacher and they will be happy to help you.

Have fun and we can't wait to see the fabulous learning that will come out of this.

Ngā mihi,

the Amesbury team