Corinna School

Corinna School in Porirua is a health promoting school and sees the years 7 & 8 smokefree/auahi kore teaching resource as an effective way of equipping students with the ability to sift information, analyse issues and make informed decisions about being smokefree/auahi kore.  Caro Begg from Corinna School says that the resource is helping to build student resilience, which is key to empowering students to make good choices.

Caro found the inquiry-based learning activities lend themselves to hot seating and this is a great way to get students talking about the questions raised in the stories.  “The stories have challenged their thinking and I hope this will transfer into other areas of their lives where they have to make difficult choices.”

One of the stories is about Old Mitch, who asks a boy called Ngākau to buy his smokes, although Ngākau doesn’t want to do this.  Caro’s students raised questions about whether Ngākau and other whānau members should have helped Old Mitch give up smoking.

“It was interesting that the students used the word ‘bystander.’  We try to give students the message that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.  The students have obviously made a connection between the messages we’re trying to give them and this particular learning situation.”

Students at Corinna also had great fun working out much money Old Mitch was spending on smokes and how much he could save by quitting.  Caro says using the resource to contextualise the maths was a real opportunity.  “Maths is about real life and this resource made it real to them.”

The students talked about peer pressure and also the influence of older people, like Old Mitch in the story.  “A lot of our kids have an extended family, where everybody in the community is an auntie or uncle, and these relationships will affect some of the decisions students make.  These decisions are not simple and they’re complicated by feelings of love, responsibility and duty.”

Caro stresses her goal isn’t to preach to the students or their families about not smoking. She says the learning intention was to work out the story’s message and develop students’ literacy, as well as the skills they need to become informed citizens.