Addington Green Team: Farewell to Mrs Teear

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Farewell to Mrs Teear

This afternoon Amanda Teear was farewelled at a full school assembly. Mrs Teear had taught at Addington for almost 7 years and said that they were the best teaching years of her life!

Te Tipuranga, Whanau Kowhai, Room 10, and the Green Team all paid tribute to the wonderful contributions she had made to life at Addington school. It was through Mrs Teear's original efforts to get funding that the Green Team has been able to get up off the ground and achieve so much to date. Ms Heath thanked Mrs Teear for being such a great teaching practitioner, collegue and friend.

We will all miss her sense of fun and fantastic contributions to teaching at our school and wish her all the very best for the future.

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About the Green Team

In the beginning….

The Green Team began at Addington School during 2008, with the aim of reducing waste throughout the school. The initial focus was on recycling of paper waste within each classroom.

Over the past two years, the Green Team has taken on the collection of materials for the compost, and the creation of four busy compost heaps. In addition three large raised vegetable beds have been built, filled with soil and our own compost, and produced a delightful supply of fresh vegetable treats for Green team members, and the whole school (eg Radish-o-Rama ( See Addington Article for some of those fun harvests)

We have developed a special friendship with the Strickland St Gardens who regularly come and help us out with advice, and who host us at their gardens for special demonstrations and celebrations.

The Green team also raised seedlings for the Addington Fair, donated Christmas potatoes to the City Mission, and to the Strickland St Gardens.

The excitement and passion of the children on the Green Team has so far driven the direction and projects taken on by this group. The group itself has grown in size over the past year, with more and more children wanting to be involved in activities.

Officially there are two representatives from each class to take on the compost and recycling collection, and then further members who participate during various activities. At last count, over one third of the children at school actively participate in the Green team over the course of a month. Involvement includes weeding (Rose or Vegetable gardens), sowing seeds, planting vegetables and flowers, Autumn leaf collection, walnut collection, compost collection, compost heap maintenance and turning, and harvest!!

Cooking our produce has been an unexpected spin off, with children trying their hand at preparing various dishes and sauces, using our own produce. We intend to add a recipe page to our blog.
The future….

Completing the vegetable garden mural (on Mr Sinclair’s caretaker shed) is high on our list for this year, however bad weather has slowed the process. The children have a design which is creeping its way across the wall, during fine Friday afternoons.

The Green Team have plans to make the Vegetable Garden area another learning space, complete with seating and fruit trees. This way children can watch and participate in a complete growing season. Lots of opportunities to initiate learning.

Other plans include further development of the Rose garden, areas around each classroom, and the office block.

We are keen to further develop our composting collection (foodscraps) with more detailed data on volumes collected, and volumes of compost made. Lots of ways to incorporate “measurement”!

The worm farm is also waiting in the wings, ready to be set up and maintained.

We have heaps to do……… so its time to get cracking!!