Senior News
By Bridget McDowall | Posted: Thursday June 30, 2022
Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa
Upcoming Events
Friday the 8th July-Last day of Term 2
Term 3: Keeping Ourselves Safe-Ross Greer
Monday 1st August-Swapna Hadlow-Visiting Author
1st-5th August-Book Fair-8:30-9:00 am
Friday 5th August-Book Week dress-up day. The theme is 'Paws for Books"
Education Perfect x ODT Extra Spelling Bee
On Thursday the 7th of July some of our students competed in this year's EP x ODT Extra! Tāpiri Spelling Bee! 165 teams across New Zealand competed in the Year 5-6 event. Students completed 10 rounds over a 45-minute period. The questions required students to understand spelling patterns and language rules.
We were very competitive in such a big group and our top team placed 4th! Congratulations Ella, Lia and Holly from Room 9!
Matariki Celebration
Thank you for supporting our first school community Matariki Celebration. We had an amazing day celebrating and sharing kai.
We celebrated by coming together in whānau groups to complete a range of activities about Matariki. Our senior students helped the younger students to complete activities.
The Kapa Haka group, led by Danya performed in the afternoon. We sang the school song and ended our day with the Matariki Macarena.
Online Safety
Do you know what your children are accessing and sending to others online?
We have recently been made aware of some negative interactions happening between students online in the home setting. Please check out Netsafe for some useful tips and regularly check your child’s device.
https://www.netsafe.org.nz/advice/parenting/
PALS
Our PALS attended a training session at the Edgar Centre with other schools from across Otago. Sport Otago coaches gave our PALS tips and techniques on how to prepare, set up and run activities with groups of children at school. This was a valuable and informative session for our PALS.
Thank you to the parents who transported students to and from the event.
Life Education Bus
Over the last two weeks, we have had class visits to the Life Education bus. We have been learning about the brain and its function, and we are discovering why and how our brains control our bodies. Students explored resilience and developed possible strategies to bounce back from difficulties or setbacks in a positive and successful way and apply these in future situations.
Jumping June
Last Thursday we met with our buddy classes to celebrate Jumping June. Jumping June has been a one-month skipping event that encourages children to keep fit and raise funds for the Heart Foundation. It has been amazing seeing the classes get outside and learn some new skipping skills and tricks. We can’t wait to see this continue throughout the year.
PBL
All the teachers have been so impressed with how the students really have stepped up to become guardians to help Papatūānuku breathe this term. We have managed to learn many new things including understanding Māori mythology, parts of a plant and how they work together, pollination and pollinators and when it is best to grow and harvest different plants. Most classes are now on to designing planter boxes for the new school garden to restore what has been taken away. We hope you are enjoying following along with this learning at home and maybe even learning something new along the way.
Balmacewen Visit
This week some students from Balmacewen Intermediate visited to share their Project-based learning. The students shared their understanding of sea life that can be found in tidal pools. The projects were presented in a variety of ways including digital projects, interactive games, informational books and hands-on tasks. We thoroughly enjoyed this experience and it helped us extend our thinking for our own PBL projects.
Ngā Mihi
Thank you to our Senior Team teachers Mark, Anya and Rosarah for a fabulous term. So many wonderful experiences are happening across our four classrooms.
Hopefully, you have all managed to visit us during the term.
Ngā mihi to our school community for supporting our students and our school. We appreciate all of the things that you do to make our team a great place to learn.
Have a restful and exciting holiday.
He kokona whare he kitia, he kokona ngakau te kitea.
We have seen the contribution, we know it comes from the heart.
Image Gallery
