Robyn Irving from Enviroschools came and talked to our Enviroschool committee about what we need to be doing to gain
Green Gold status. She described the journey as being like the Waikato River,
all the ideas and actions are continually moving and progressing…we had to place different labels onto the river to show where we thought we were in our journey, here is a photo of our awa and our ideas about where we are in our journey.
This was a good exercise to get us thinking about the process of being an enviro school and where our goal and vision lies.
The labels had words such as :
'committed to the journey
initial steps
empowered
courageous
exploring
laying foundations'
Words like 'initial steps' we placed at the beginning of our journey (our awa) but words such as 'exploring, empowered, and courageous' we felt should be found all the way through to different levels. We want to be feeling empowered and courageous in different amounts at different times.
On the enviro schools website it states 'The journey starts small, it ebbs and flows, sometimes quietly moving, sometimes racing along. (http://www.enviroschools.org.nz/how-enviroschools-works) . This is exactly how it feels to be working as an enviro school and the pace of progress depends on many factors; environmental - such as the season and the weather; professional - such as what is happening in classes, assessment and report writing time or a school show.
