What a year we've had at our Southland NZSL Immersion Day School!

It was a dispiriting start to the year when we began our NZSL Immersion Day School back online. We were determined to stay committed to the kaupapa though, and continue to support our learners' valuable connections with their peers. We soon found our way and helped students to Zoom in from their schools. We loved this opportunity to remain connected and enjoyed some fun online learning.

When Term 2 arrived, we were delighted to be able to come together in person again at our NZSL Immersion Day School home, Wallacetown School. Attending our Day School at Wallacetown also allows us to be part of their learning community. We love opportunities to play, build connections with Wallacetown School learners, and share in collaborative learning opportunities.

Our learners continued to amaze us with the constant resilience shown through the ups and downs of the year. In term 4, we felt some sense of stability and normality - it feels great!

Our year has been filled with fun and engaging learning opportunities. During our reading sessions, we focused on shared reading, allowing us to share our knowledge and support each other. During writing, we had fun exploring various types of poetry, descriptive and report writing. As teachers, we love this literacy time as we can share our love of books and language with our learners.

Afternoons have been filled with various topics, including: ANZAC Day, Ko Wai Au?, wellbeing through Te Whare Tapa Wha, Disasters, Matariki, Recycling, Māori legends and bullying. We love exploring new ideas and enjoy our tuakana-teina approach to teaching and learning, ensuring that we value and utilise everyone's strengths.

Something new and exciting for our learners at the hub has been the chance to connect via Zoom with learners from Oamaru and Christchurch. Our learners connected and made new friends with learners of a similar age, allowing them to use their NZSL skills to communicate with other Deaf people.

Of course, at the heart of our NZSL Immersion Hui is NZSL. Seeing our learners become more confident in NZSL and create their own goals to explore and achieve has been great. We've had fun learning NZSL through immersion, a bilingual approach to learning and also through poems, games, books and singing.

We're excited for 2023 and all the learning opportunities we can bring to support our Deaf and Hard of Hearing learners.