Student engagement and enjoyment are important factors which influence students' learning. But what engages students and what kinds of activities help to make learning more enjoyable?

To find out, I asked students in Years 5 & 6 what subjects they enjoyed the most and why.

• PBL is my favourite subject because I like the types of tasks. They are all different and have lots of different things to learn like Maths, Science and History. PBL is so much fun too! (Ariana, Year 5)
• I really like PBL because we get to work together in groups and work all throughout the ‘Hub’. We get to mix with different friends to work on our projects. At the moment we are researching and designing a product for our business to sell at Hub Market. (Krishna, Year 5)
• Daily 5 is my favourite because you get to pick your own book in ‘Read to Self’. I also enjoy writing stories and choosing what I write in ‘work on writing’ time. (Alicia, Year 5)
• It’s hard to pick, but I like Maths and PBL the best. In PBL you get to experiment with your thinking and try lots of fun stuff. I loved our Gold Rush excursion where we got to go back in time. I loved in Maths that we learnt about angles to control a Sphero (robot). It made it way more fun than just bookwork. (Boon, Year 5)
• This is my first year at this school and it’s the first time I have done PBL. PBL is my favourite because it is more than just remembering facts. You get to do lots of subjects in one and be creative. I really look forward to it. (Sophia, Year 5)
• Maths is my favourite subject because you get to sometimes work independently. I liked using the Spheros for the Sphero Olympics. (Archie, Year 5)
• Maths is my favourite because I learn new things all the time. I like doing the collaborative tasks because you can help build your friend’s knowledge and then I can also learn new things from them. In independent tasks, you get to show what you know by solving problems. (Vishav, Year 6)
• PBL is the best subject because it is always really interesting. At the moment we are learning all about natural disasters, which is amazing. I like that what we are learning is broken into gateways so that we can show what we know in lots of different ways. (Madeline, Year 6)
• Maths is great because it lets you grapple with different ideas and problem solve by using what you learn in class to solve real problems. For example, we just used our Maths to help us design an emergency relief centre for Moreton regional council, to respond to natural disasters. (Lily, Year 6)

- Bianca Ravi, Director of Learning