Feeding Curious Minds
Haileybury Pangea students are about to become even more curious…
From learning about international relations and taking part in simulated United Nations debates to creating a new start-up business and exploring digital technologies and coding – the Curious Minds program at Haileybury is never boring.
Curious Minds offers a wide range of innovative and challenging extra-curricular opportunities to students from Prep to Year 12, and a growing number of those opportunities are now available to Haileybury Pangea students.
Damien Meunier, Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, says Curious Minds helps students develop ‘transferable’ skills such as co-operation, communication, teamwork and leadership and it also strengthens presentation skills. All of these are vital skills for both now and after students finish their schooling.
“Each program has some very specific skills,” says Damien.
“For example, $20 Boss is very much about developing enterprise skills, resourcefulness and financial literacy while our Model UN and Debating programs are about critical and creative thinking, the organisation of thoughts and clear communication. Meanwhile, our Digitech Explorers program builds digital literacy, creativity and problem solving”Damien Meunier, Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a key pillar of Haileybury Pangea and the $20 Boss program gives students hands-on experience in starting and running their own market-style social enterprise with only a $20 investment.
Previously, students have created customised merchandise such as tie-dye clothing, handmade crafts including resin keychains and bookmarks, eco-friendly products like beeswax candles, pet treats and toys, and various snack or desserts including prawn crackers and milkshakes.
Haileybury Pangea teacher, Chris McCullough, teaches Humanities, English and Maths across Years 5 to 8 and he tutors Years 10 to 12. He also coordinates the Debating and Model UN programs for Haileybury Pangea. The Debating Program runs fortnightly during Term 3.
“The Debating program will help students build skills so they can enter external debating competitions next year. The sessions will be mostly run online but we are exploring options for inter-campus and in-person experiences wherever possible for our Pangea debaters,” says Chris.
The Model UN is an international program that teaches students about government relations and global decision-making. Students represent different countries and take part in sessions where they debate UN resolutions, work out amendments and vote. Fortnightly Model UN sessions with Haileybury Pangea students will build towards an on-campus Model UN Resolution Day.
“At Pangea, we are passionate about creating active global citizens and this program is a wonderful pathway to that”Chris McCullough, Humanities, English & Maths Teacher Haileybury Pangea
Building on interest in the technology space, this term students can also be part of the Digitech Explorers program. The STEM-based program for Years 5 to 12 will run fortnightly on Thursday after school and has been designed to engage and inspire students in the world of digital technologies, coding and developing technology-based solutions to everyday problems.
Damien hopes the Curious Minds programs for Haileybury Pangea students will continue to expand.
“I’m currently exploring how existing programs, such as Chess and eSports, can work in the online environment,” he says.
“The challenge is that many organisations that run these external competitions are not as prepared or well-equipped to work in the virtual space, but the advantage of Haileybury having multiple campuses and being so big is that we can run many of these events internally. As Haileybury Pangea grows, we hope to grow the programs we offer.”
Find out more about Haileybury Pangea's extensive range of extra-curricular programs here.
