St Joseph’s School
Farmer Time school story – St Joseph’s School
School details: St Joseph’s School, Grey Lynn
Name / location of matched farm: Farmer Ruby Mulinder
Age of class involved in pilot: Combination – Years 3 - 8
Type of farm: Beef and lamb finishing and sheep dairy
All about St Joseph’s
St Joseph's School in Grey Lynn is an inner-city Catholic school that was established in 1884. It provides an education for primary school children (boys to Year 6 and girls to Year 8).
Our school strength is our connections with each other and with our faith.
There is a very strong sense of family. Staff, students and whānau display a warmth and caring that comes from our small size, low staff turn-over and strong Christian values. Parents and grandparents are often past pupils of this school.
What made you get involved in Farmer Time?
Learning at St Joseph’s happens as a community of learners. This is why we were so excited to connect with the Farmer Time pilot and welcome a farmer into our classroom.
What have the highlights been so far?
Seeing the high levels of engagement and genuine interest by our students has been a big highlight.
We sparked up a great connection with Ms Ruby and learnt so much! Our students were very inquisitive and had loads of questions for Ms Ruby which she would happily answer each week.
What tips would you offer to other teachers who are involved (or are interested in becoming involved) in Farmer Time?
Using Google maps and showing the children the exact location of the farm (and zooming in to see the property) was a good way to start Farmer Time off – this allowed the kids to properly visualize the farm.
Have a general plan but be prepared to be flexible with the topics to work with your Farmer session to session - be guided by the children’s interests for content ideas.
To kick off Farmer Time we learnt how to paint and do acrostic poetry:
A big thank you to Ruby!
As a teacher, I personally learnt so much myself from Ms. Ruby and would like to say a HUGE thank you to her!
