The Middle School

That's an overstatement as there are only three of them. However the aim is to focus on basic research skills, extending their comprehension, and use IT in a meaningful way.
Once again tthe sealing of the final stage of the road created the opportunity. The question that arose was- why would anyone come to Matau?
After discussion I suggested they could produce a pamphlet that would encourage tourists to come here and basically left it at that. They came up with a list of questions themselves and also the idea of interviewing two people that had recently arrived in the valley. They also decided to collect some pamphlets from the information centre to check them out.
They completed the research very quickly but it was nearly all based on oral and visual language. They didn't even need to read the pamphlets, just look at what was in them.
Next they planned out what would be in the pamphlet and very quickly produced the cover page using Works. Due to sickness and other interuptions the second page has been held up. The only skills I have had to teach so far have involved saving files on the scanner.
This group have been very pleasing in terms of working without help from me and working together as a team. In fact I feel I have underestimated them. I think the trick at this level will be to find problems that are sufficiently complex to challenge them and at the same time stay within their reading levels.