Last year a team of Curran Public School year 5 and 6 students invented an education package that won them the Future Problem Solvers competition in Australia.
That feat earned them a trip to the USA to compete against teams from 23 countries.
Curran PS finished third in the world, a very good result by any measure.
But now they will get the chance to go one better, having once again won the 2016 Australian competition by improving on their original idea.
Last year they created a package for parents of children about to start school.
The packages contain everything a toddler needs to start learning basic literacy and numeracy skills.
This year the 12 students in the team have won the competition by creating a series of briefings for parents to ensure the educational packages are used as effectively as possible.
“The kids identified that yes, having a great resource is really useful to have in the home,’’ says Emma Stirling, assistant principal and coach of the team.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“But it’s one thing to have a resource; knowing how to use that resource is a whole new skill set, so they decided that what was needed was showing the parents how to use it effectively,’’ Ms Stirling said.[/social_quote]
The team devised a schedule of information sessions for parents in the school’s community centre over a number of weeks.
At these sessions they explained what’s in the packages and how to best use it all to make sure a child starts school with basic numeracy and literacy skills.
Miss Stirling introduces me to Amy, mother of Marni, 4, who will be starting kindergarten next year full of confidence because of the award winning educational package.
“It was really helpful for Marni, she liked writing her name and made shapes with the play dough,’’ says Amy.
“I am really happy that she will have these skills when she goes to kindy next year.’’
Ms Stirling says parents have been bringing in their goal books from the packages which say ‘I can write my name, I can read these words, I can use the play dough to make a letter, I can play maths bingo’.
“The kids are really excited because they are achieving their goals, which is fantastic to hear before they are even starting kindergarten.
“They’re excited about learning and that’s what you want, kids to be excited about learning,’’ Ms Stirling said.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“We actually had 112 parents, grandparents and aunties and uncles all turn up to our celebration afternoon where they received the packages.’’[/social_quote]
Having won the national competition in Melbourne, the Curran PS team is now busy fundraising to pay for their trip to Wisconsin, USA, where the world finals will be held next June.
Kirrinda Ballangarry, Micah Cross, Salome Fifita, Hannah Sivas, Amer Kanawaty and Jaylynna Fa’afiu are the year 5 members of the Curran PS Future Problem Solvers team in 2016. The year 6 team members are Naomi Uepa, Alishah Mohammed, Adalyah Swann, Aakash Dilip, Jonah Fa’afiu and Nani Crichton.
And while they obviously want to put in a good performance in America and maybe improve on their third spot last year, they are also very keen to ensure the popular educational package continues to be provided to Curran PS parents long into the future.
“We want it to be long term, we don’t want it to be a one off thing,’’ says Ms Stirling.
If you’d like to help these smart little cookies from Curran Public School, visit their schools plus crowdfunding link here – and please be generous.
