St Leonards School
Te Kura Tuatahi o Te Umukuratawhiti
Welcome to our school
The small school where every child counts!
Many advantages come with being a small school especially when it comes to leading the way.
Our size makes it easy to adopt new and innovative programmes and ideas across the entire school, allowing our teachers to be as creative and innovative as our pupils!
Here are some of the programmes, initiatives and regular events that happen at St Leonards School which help grow and extend your child beyond the classroom walls and open them up to different ways of thinking.
connect to your environment and create change for a sustainable world at a
green-gold Enviroschool
We are proud to be one of four green-gold Enviroschools in Dunedin. This means that environmental sustainability is part of all our decisions and everything we do.
Enquiry and action is led mainly by our children who have a strong sense of connection to the environment and know they can effect change for a sustainable world.
The worms love to munch on all the leftover food scraps from lunches and cooking.
worm farm
Our school chickens, Tui & Turtle, eat scraps, give us eggs and are great stress-busters and animal companions for children
chickens
Organic matter from the garden & school grounds is composted.
compost
We have our own school vegetable and herb garden and a school orchard
garden
We are part of the Paper for Trees programme which gives us native trees to plant for our recycling
Paper for trees
We changed all the taps on our handbasins to create a huge reduction in water use at the school.
water use
We have started a new project to plant more native species in the school grounds, including trees & plants attractive to native species.
native replanting
Our school went from having a skip on site too putting out a rubbish bin every second week.
We also were the first school in Dunedin to run a waste-free fair!
waste reduction
We have established our own lizard rockery and are planting species attractive to native birds.
native habitats
We have a beehive in the orchard which can be observed from Ruma Rimu. Every year we sell our own honey!
bee hive
Children are encouraged to turn off switches.
Our next school-wide project will be too look at how we can further reduce our energy use.
energy use
We recycle, re-use and re-purpose as much as possible at our school.
Children & parents are encouraged not to use single-use plastic like Gladwrap in lunchboxes.
recycling
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I love all the nature at St Leonards School. Everything is so free and open, and there is so much space to run around in.
Katie (10)
question, problem solve and communicate with the hands-on learning that comes with . . .
STEAM
science, technology, engineering, arts, maths
STEAM brings together the connections and relationships between science, technology, engineering, maths and the arts with hands-on learning.
Kiwis, as a nation, pride themselves on our number-8 wire mentality, but developing such a mentality is not a foregone conclusion of our education system.
STEAM learning is all about how to create, question, problem solve and come up with innovative ideas. The goal is to equip children with skills and knowledge to thrive in the 21st century.
STEAM learning leads children to
express innovative & creative ideas
think outside the box
hands-on learning
be curious about the world
work together
take ownership of learning
be kind & thoughtful to others and be nominated for the weekly
Bucket Filler Award
Everybody looks forward to Monday morning when the weekly Bucket Filler Award is presented.
The Bucket Filler Award is how we recognise and celebrate children who show empathy and are kind and thoughtful to others.
Every week children can nominate others who have been kind to them or that they have noticed being kind to others.
You will be surprised at how much children notice - those who help others who are hurt, those who make sure everybody is included in their games and those who know how to be a good friend!
an opportunity for year 4, 5 and 6 pupils to grow their confidence and independence
school camp
Every year we run a three-day, two night camp for our year 4, 5 and 6's.
For some of them it's the highlight of the year!
Our destination switches each year between Tirohanga and Waihola.
A wide range of activities from horse riding to cooking their own meal in the wild challenge children to try new things and stretch boundaries.
find out more about your child's learning and what's been happening at school with our termly . . .
school assemblies
We changed the way we ran school assemblies when we realised the traditional model of holding assemblies at the end of the week during school hours didn't work for many parents.
It's really important to us that you are able to attend school assemblies so we now host them once a term in the evening.