Alice Orr

Teacher, The Hive (Rātā)

Diploma of Teaching in Early Childhood Education

Alice grew up in Dunedin and also trained as an Early Childhood Teacher in Dunedin.

While she was growing up, she always had holidays in Arrowtown or Queenstown in her grandparents holiday homes, until her parents build a holiday home in Kelvin heights.

She can remember spending her time making huts in Jayden park and sliding down grassy banks and spending time at the lake and river while on these holidays.  What Alice likes about Queenstown and Arrowtown is the ever changing seasons and the natural beauty Queenstown offers. In her spare time she enjoys various outdoor activities such as walking, biking the tracks around the area, snow skiing and paddle boarding.   

 When it comes to teaching children she is inspired by some of the Reggio Emilia teaching pedagogy.  After being apart of a study tour in 2010 to see the Reggio Emilia schools in Italy, the key points that she learnt and motivated her in her teaching practice is that teachers listen carefully to children and collaboratively research and learn together.  That children possess a hundred languages: hundred ways of thinking, expressing and understanding.  That the hundred languages are a metaphor for the extraordinary potential of children, their knowledge-building and creative processes.