
E-sports
Innovative learning at Rotorua Primary
E-Sports explained
Welcome to the world of competitive gaming
E-sports is a worldwide phenomenon and is quickly becoming the largest sporting industry in the world.
The concept is simple yet effective. Game companies create games that require time and skill to master then host multi-million dollar tournaments to find the best of the best.
What E-sports offers our taonga
As with all of our learning, Rotorua Primary looks to be innovative, and we believe this is the perfect time to establish an E-sports Academy to allow our students to be part of this growing world wide phenomenon and to build on our already successful global learning pedagogy (School Tours, AquaBots Championships, I'olani School exchange)
Amazingly inclusive, adaptive and progressive our E-sports Academy supports engagement in learning for many of our taonga. It allows children who don't identify with more traditional sporting codes to experience and grow through teamwork, problem solving and thinking - all things that we value in our community and competencies that are in our New Zealand curriculum.
E-sports Academy is an innovative way to reach those taonga who need to access education a little bit differently and follows a strong strengths based learning philosophy with a very future focussed perspective - growing the skills and strengths that employers look for.
E-sports Academy
Collaboration and concept
In collaboration with our partner school I'olani School in Hawaii we have already established our E-sports Academy in accordance with the NASEF (North American Scholastic E-sports Federation) gaming ecosystem.
This allows our E-sports learning to sit confidently and effectively within the learning objectives of the New Zealand curriculum, specifically the key competencies of managing self, participating and contributing and relating to others.

An invitation to learn through gaming
Our E-sports Academy is currently offered by invitation only to our taonga in years 5,6,7 and 8. We look closely at whether the learning offered within the Academy will be appropriate and effective for the individual learner and also apply additional criteria in the curriculum areas of literacy and numeracy. This allows the growth of learning to be integrated throughout their school journey with us.
Enabling students to become self directed learnings through the Academy, all taonga must be able to articulate where their learning is, where they need to be and how to achieve that goal.
21st century skills
The creating of the E-sports Academy closely aligns and strongly aligns with our school mission:
"Our children will be empowered to become LIFELONG LEARNERS through collaborative quality education which strengthens their individual and cultural needs within a safe environment"
Innovatively supporting our children to use:
e-team consent



Tournaments
We recently held our Rocket League 3v3 Interschool Tournament. Taonga from Rotorua Primary, Malfroy, Rotokawa and Whakarewarewa schools competed to be the best team in a day long tournament that was streamed online for families to watch.
We host tournaments each term with a different game focus each time.