Greg’s Buddy Experience

Earlier this year Greg Best signed up to be a buddy to one of the Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers, Robyn Anderson. Robyn is one of six teachers the Spark Foundation is supporting this year to help push the boundaries of e-learning.

Throughout the year Greg's been visiting the kids in Robyn's class and shared his thoughts on how he's found the experience with us.

Q: Why did you choose to get involved with the Manaiakalani programme?

A: I got involved because I truly believe that children are all of our futures, and sadly some kids are not as fortunate as others in terms of having access to the support and resources they need to thrive. The Manaiakalani programme is helping to support children in (predominantly) decile 1 schools so they don't fall behind in this ever evolving digital age – something I'm very keen to help with!

Q: As a buddy, what's your role?

A: I have been out to the classroom at Panmure Bridge Primary School a couple of times (in two hour blocks, in order to avoid using all my Spark volunteer time in one day!). This way I am able to squeeze in multiple visits to see how the kids are progressing. It also helps build some familiarity so I'm not just a one off visitor to them.  

At my initial visit, the children gave me small showcase of their learning to date and how they are adopting digital technology into their daily school curriculum. At my second visit, we reviewed some of their learning progress and I helped them make a shared lunch with their teacher based around healthy food choices.

I have also been helping my buddy teacher Robyn outside of the office with peer reviewing some of her Manaiakalani work, structuring presentations, ideas and concepts whenever she needs an extra set of eyes.

Q: What's stood out to you about the innovative teachers and this approach to learning?

What impressed me most is their willingness to try something new using technology. What's cool is how they utilise the children by getting them involved in defining how they actually learn. It's all a very collaborative approach where everyone's views are considered and everyone is able to give their thoughts.

Q: Would you recommend this to others at Spark?

Absolutely! Until you actually go and visit these schools, and see the children working with technology in such a collaborative manner, you really can't appreciate how education is evolving in New Zealand (and how important Spark's role is in making this happen).

Seeing Manaiakalani in action will open your mind to new ways of working and, like myself, you'll probably take away certain aspects of this to help your own children/nephews/nieces develop their learning at home.

If you work at Spark and would like more information about how you can get involved in one of the Auckland, Christchurch, West Coast (South Island) or Northland schools, get in touch with the Foundation: sparkfoundation@spark.co.nz