Warrington School was awarded a Special
Award at the NZ Open Source Awards in Wellington last week. This was
in recognition for the school promoting Open Culture. Our award was
for the “Ubuntu room”, a place where Open Source in NZ schools
began in 2006. Computers were installed with the Ubuntu operating
system, this was so successful that more computers were sourced for
the school, families and wider community. Ubuntu and open source
software now runs all our computers at Warrington. Our open culture
initiatives also include the innovative use of WikiEducator for
school documentation, a Creative Commons policy allowing teachers to
share their intellectual property and our community radio station,
Blueskin Bay FM. 
Last week's camps had wonderful weather, superb environments, food, water and fire. The
perfect ingredients for some outdoor education magic. It sounded
like the Waianakarua camp was a huge success with paella
at the river and exploration of the elephant rocks making me quite
jealous. The annual trip to Rabbit Island saw camp fire cuisine taken to new heights. Years of
weeding has begun to make a difference with small natives in
abundance around the camp-site. 
With the arrival of some summer weather
we are encouraging students to cover up with sunhats and the wearing
of appropriate clothing for playing outdoors. Some children are also
taking further responsibility by bringing sunblock.
Senior students have been busy building
a trolley as part of their technology project. Isaac and June have
been testing the design and both agree that the trolley should be
horse-powered rather than human powered. More trolleys are in the
planning stage for an end of year time trail derby.
A community garden is now established in the paddock with potatoes planted and plans for further plantings of beans and pumpkins.
