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Deborah Penk, Principal
Acorn Academy
EDUCATION THE ‘ACORN WAY’
Acorn Academy is a small
private homeschool based in West Auckland.
The group of children that I teach become like an extended family as
they learn and play together.
It all started (of course!)
with home education I wanted to provide for my own children. I was dissatisfied with the increased
‘dumbing down’ that was happening in the state education system, and had
noticed a big drop in quality since the primary school days of my oldest two
children (who began school in 1983 and 1985 respectively). I was frustrated at the broad social agenda
which seemed to be replacing much of the academic curriculum, and I was alarmed
at the standards of child behaviour which seemed now to pass as normal
including disrespect for teachers, bullying of fellow pupils, and the
ever-present and insidious peer pressure for children to conform to dubious
values, often highly materialistic and usually undesirable in some way.
Put all together, I felt
moved to provide a model of education which would meet the real needs of
children.
In my view, these involve:
*clear, systematic teaching
of basic skills, particularly in literacy and numeracy
*developing a friendly but
respectful attitude to teachers
*being treated as an
individual for the assessment of learning needs, so that the educational
programme fits the child
*being able to act as a
member of a group in order to share ideas and complete team tasks
*developing independent work
habits and study skills
*learning about the world in
every sense - through formal study, an interest in current affairs, wide reading,
and observation and reflection on the lives of others
*getting to know your
strengths and weaknesses so both can be targeted to achieve higher goals
In my experience, no child
who is prepared to work on the basis of these guidelines can fail to achieve
their full potential.
Acorn Academy provides the
opportunity for all these things to happen.
Quite simply, it is education of the highest quality for primary-aged
children. Acceleration and enrichment is
no problem - the qualifications and experience of myself and my specialist
teachers mean that if a ten year old is ready for fifth form maths, he/she can
do it here. The same applies to other
subjects, so Acorn Academy is particularly suitable for gifted children.
But it’s not just academics -
we go out on a constantly varied range of field trips to enhance our
‘classroom’ studies. We participate in
community events such as Music Festivals, Art Exhibitions and Book
Quizzes. We enter for the Australian
Maths, English and Science Competitions.
We have an annual concert to showcase individual and group performance -
linked to a theme underlining our year’s studies.
A ‘last word’ from a
delighted parent: ‘My child loves your Social Studies - he finds the experience
of being taken through all the major milestones of World History is absolutely
awesome. I know that being at Acorn
Academy has changed his life. He will
never look back!’