The Clinic is a community-led project whose core purpose is to encourage our school community to share hands-on learning together – children and families. We do this by offering the children lunch-time (12.45pm – 1.30pm) drop-in sessions. These happen as often as adults have time to run them. When a spare room is unavailable for Clinic use, sessions are operated during class time for year or syndicate groups.

History

The Clinic was established in May 2012 by four parents of children at Ngaio School. It was initially operated out of the school’s old dental clinic (hence the name!), which is nearest the Colway St entrance, and now called Room 18.

Topics

Topics are chosen based on the expertise in our community and in conjunction with requests from the children. Initially the four project team members and many of the Clinic volunteers had an expertise and interest in science and this is what many of the early sessions were based on. Over time the Clinic has branched out to also include craft, art, history, nutrition and cultural topics.

Sessions

The session’s focus is for the children to have “hands on fun” exposing children to different and unusual experiences with adults from their community. A few examples of what the children have done include: making electrical circuits that turned on lights and spun fans, dissecting and exploring the workings of a sheep heart by shooting water through the ventricles, using binocular and digital microscopes to investigate the components of beach sand samples, making healthy dips, experiencing Samoan culture, making a felt square using wool, drawing caveman art, and using a sewing machine.

Each session features a leader who runs the session along with the support of other parents. There is also always one person from the Clinic team allocated to each session who will work closely with the session leader prior to the session being run to ensure they have the resources and support they require. On the day they will oversee and provide additional support.

The children’s enthusiasm is amazing and after the session the adults often comment that they got just as much out of it as the children did!

More information

You can find more information regarding the Clinic on our Clinic Facebook page.

You can also see some of the amazing sessions The Clinic have held in the past on the Clinic blog.

We need your help

If you have a particular skill, interest or passion, come and share it at the Clinic. Alternatively, lots of general helpers are always needed on sessions (no experience required!). You may want to pop in just to have a look for 10 minutes one day while a session is on (they’re advertised on the school website calendar). Without the community’s support of parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents we would not be able to run the Clinic. The main constraint on how many sessions we offer is the adults – having session leaders come forward and getting enough adult helpers. The children are always asking for more sessions!

Contact us

The Clinic is currently looking for a new leader. Please email the school info@ngaio.school.nz if this interests you.