Great learning encourages great rewards!

With the upcoming National Census on 7th March 2023, Stats NZ sent through some resources to help teach the students about the Census. In Social Sciences, we decided to use the material with all junior classes to help inform them about what the census is, why it is completed and how it can help communities, iwi, businesses, councils, and the government plan and decide on priority funding etc. Some students learnt a little about the cost of living, budgeting and prioritising family spending too. 

Their favourite activities were ‘clothing’ their child and allocating funds across New Zealand.

Students had $100 to buy the outfit of their choice if they kept in their budget. Priorities and choices were varied and led to a number of interesting conversations. However, most managed it, some even had money left over ‘for themselves’! Problems arose when ‘their child’ needed noise cancelling headphones for a medical condition… and then they needed good footwear for a chance to play for the national basketball team! Some students were quite enterprising with their decisions!!!! 

The next challenge, for some, was to allocate funds around Aotearoa. Although we were watching the plight of the North Island and Cyclone Gabrielle at the time, most students obviously wanted to give more to the coast… when we pointed out the West Coast were the second smallest area for population (next to the Channel Islands) they were shocked. But still wanted to give us the most money 

Each junior class created their own mini census and designed graphs to display the results. We took photos and sent them in to Stats NZ to enter their competition.

 Around 1500 teachers/schools registered to download the 2023 Census Teachers’ Toolkit resources. We found out on Monday this week that we won 4 x $100 stationary vouchers, one for each class. Great learning encourages great rewards!