Our Special Sculpture

A special sculpture is beginning to take shape in our Resilience Garden.

The sculpture was designed using ideas put forward from students in every class in the school. 
Local artist, Shaugn Briggs, met with some student representatives to discuss the ideas we had come up with and look at the drawings each class had submitted.

He also discussed some of the safety aspects and design elements that have to be taken into account, like not having a design that is top heavy or with a thin piece of stone holding it together that might get broken.

From all these ideas the final design was decided upon. 

The design represents helping hands, Rise Up Christchurch and the koru heart represents the bond we have developed with each other and the aroha and support we have been given by others and endeavour to give each other.

Shaugn went to a quarry near Oamaru and selected the right piece of Oamaru stone for our special sculpture. He then organised for it to be delivered to our school.

Once in place, Shaugn secured the stone and drew the design onto it.

Over the last two weeks, many students from classes throughout the school have had turns at shaping, carving, smoothing and sanding the sculpture.

It has been hard, dusty work, but also lots of fun to see the sculpture taking shape in our Resilience Garden.

              

 

 

 

 

The sculpture is really starting to take shape.

  

One Year On ...

Since the devastating earthquake at 12:51pm on February 22nd, 2011 we have received help and support from many people and have learnt to be resilient and strong.


We commemorated this day at school by creating mosaics for our school Resilience Garden that is being established and will grow over the next few months.

First the tiles had to be broken into smaller pieces

Next the pieces of tile were glued to a base tile

Adding tile pieces to create a 'Helping Hand' mosaic

Everyone in the school got a turn to help create one of the tiles for our new Resilience Garden. We created 20 'Helping Hands' tiles to represent all the many different people, schools and organisations from around Aotearoa who helped us in lots of different ways.

We also created 6 large tiles representing different things - a large heart representing the aroha shown to us; a picture of the Cathedral to remember this iconic building that crumbled in the February quake; a large koru fern representing new beginnings; a sun to represent the bright future that lies ahead of us; two hands reaching out in front of a mound of earth with a seedling beginning to grow to represent the help and support we have to help us rebuild our lives; and lastly the Rise Up Christchurch symbol to represent our resilience, strength and determination to be strong and move on with our lives.

The large heart mosaic, ready for grouting

The tiles will be placed throughout the garden.

At 12:51pm we all gathered together to remember those who passed away or were injured or had their homes damaged. We observed a minute's silence.

Matua Te Rau & Mr Boyd planted the first tree in our Resilience Garden

Matua Te Rau said a karakia


Later on in the afternoon some kotiro from R2 made a giant heart in the sandpit.