GEOGRAPHY The Geography Department has worked through another successful year of making Christ’s College students more aware of the cultural and natural environments that surround them. This year, Josh Kim implemented new curriculum ideas and innovations into the classroom. This has been met with resounding success and, as a result, class numbers at Year 11 have reached unheard of heights. This year, we experimented with a new short trimester model, incorporating a seamless Geography, History, and Systems and Justice
NCEA, are signalling a (in our humble view) welcome return to an insistence on a good basic standard of reading and writing in our students. We have used this national move to drive a departmental shift towards the explicit instruction of the technical skills of writing and reading, which is being delivered alongside rich courses in contemporary and canonical literature. Some may view this as a return to the past – and in the return to a rigorous standard of literacy for all, this is true – but our approach is also thoroughly modern. Gone are the days of students completing endless streams of de-contextualised grammar worksheets. Our boys’ language learning is happening in context and for purpose, where they learn about the writing skills of masters of the craft, and then emulate these language conventions to achieve their own intentions. The second edition of our ‘English and Media Soiree’ went ahead, once again celebrating the creativity and inspiration of exponents of literary creativity and media engagement. The attending parents and students viewed recorded excerpts from livestreams of investigative journalists and listened to students’ satirical podcasts. They viewed short films that reimagined Christ’s College as a totalitarian dystopia and read renditions of a near future inhabited by monsters that confronted us with both the sacred and the profane. Each piece was followed by a short Q&A session with the student creator which produced some of the greatest highlights of the evening. Watching as students engaged in sophisticated explorations of their work and its literary and social merits was a delight for all. Special mention must go to Ericsson Yee for his masterful performance – by heart – of an original dramatic monologue which he composed in the otherwise inimitable style of Robert Browning. This piece is perhaps one of the most perfect examples of our aforementioned new approach to writing. Now in its second year, the introduction of NCEA Media Studies is fast becoming a sought-after course for students at Christ’s College. As a
subject, Media Studies can sometimes struggle to find a home in secondary school settings in New Zealand, often sitting on the periphery of technology or social sciences. We are proud to be offering a media programme to College boys that sits alongside our English provision. To our mind, this is the best of both worlds. It allows our English classrooms to focus, as mentioned, on English language and literature, while also offering students the opportunity to create and respond to visual and aural media texts in a context that is equally as rigorous and rich. There have been some particularly outstanding podcast series produced by our senior media students which have found an additional audience by being broadcast on a local radio station. The through-line for our media programmes, which begin with ‘The Newsroom’ as part of the College Diploma, is a focus on journalism – which culminates in Year 13 students making documentary films on their subject of choice. With the support of a group of Maˉori students and their families, we have begun in earnest our work to bring better representation of our Maˉori aˉkonga (learners) in the subject of English through engagement with Te Aˉo Maˉori (The Maˉori World View), Matauranga Maˉori (Maˉori ways of knowing and learning), and Tikanga Maˉori (Maˉori protocols). We are very much at the beginning of this part of our journey and there is much mahi to be done, but we have a clear map, have charted our first leg of the course, and are fortunate to have some very generous and active partners supporting us to get there in the form of our Maˉori whanau. This year, the English Department has sailed in open water with a clear sense of its destination and fine heart in the crew. We are ready to enjoy the challenges ahead and are very proud of the course we have laid down in 2023 that has brought us to our present excellent waypoint.
course. As a result, teachers remained with their classes
throughout the year. The boys have been taught a range of geographic skills, including map interpretation and graphing techniques. The topics include migration and the contentious issues that inevitably accompany the movement of people; and analysing contemporary geographic issues that feature in the media, both locally and globally. During the last week of February, the boys spent a day in Lyttelton, gathering information to construct computer-based land- use maps of the town, as well as completing a land use research assignment. The crucial real-world skill is heavily in demand in the community. We started the new Year 9 course with a brief introduction to Christ’s College and Christchurch. We are trying to get the boys to understand the notion of where they stand or tuˉrangawaewae. To help them with this understanding, we took the classes down to Waka on Avon or Ko Taˉne, where they experienced the excitement of paddling a hand-crafted waka down the Avon River, and learnt about the importance of the waka to Maˉori culture. As well, they learnt about early stories from Canterbury's Ngaˉi Tahu iwi and the earliest European settlers, and the positive things they achieved building the city of Christchurch together. The Core classes were introduced to a broad spectrum of extreme natural events, ranging from coastal erosion
Chris Waugh HoD English
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