Newsletter

Week 8 NEWSLETTER

from the principal

Our Vision: Together we Nurture, Explore and Create for a Better Future

A great story to share today about a group of awesome adults living our vision, and giving our students real life role-models for what ‘service’ looks like. Some key parts of our Vision are ‘Together We’, and ‘Better Future’...we want our children to see, learn, and start to live in a way that uplifts the mana of everyone…that we help develop young people who care about others, and are willing to ‘give’ towards making things better for others.

Last week the FODPS pie fundraiser came to its conclusion…with close to 3000 (3000!) pies being picked up last Friday. As a part of this, as a way for this awesome group of adults to live our vision, they have donated 50 pies ($375 worth) to families in need in our community. Normally, the point of a fundraiser is to make as much money as possible, so by giving away some of their profit, their hard work…the FODPS team are showing our children ‘service’ in action…’Together We’, ‘Better Future’. Each week the children are taught about service and citizenship through our whānau classes, and we often use the ‘Good Sorts’ or ‘ASB Good as Gold’ clips as a way to illustrate this to the children. Now…now we can also reference our wonderful FODPS! Tino pai to mahi team! Special mention also to Eliza, Mila-Kay, Freddie, Sam, Thea, Juno, and Kaelan…awesome DPS Kids who were great helpers to the FODPS team as they distributed the 3000 pies! (Marleigh, Leila, and Kenzie…ex-DPS Kids…also helped!)

Speaking of Service

Speaking of service, next week will be another school service day. Our whānau classes have been working towards doing something, for someone else…as a way of giving back. A range of things are planned from rubbish pickup, appreciation notes for local services like the fire service, cards to thank our neighbours for being awesome, to ‘get well’ packages for the childrens ward at the hospital. Looking forward to seeing the kids in action for others next week!

Interschool Cross Country

50 DPS Kids headed off to Solway Showgrounds last week to represent our school at the interschool cross country event. Always another step up…competing against the very best runners from all of the other local schools and our children did us proud…some running even though they had been away from school recently with the illness going around! Daring to Dream! Thanks to the parent volunteers who came along, always much appreciated! Some great photos below in our sports section.

6 of our children have qualified for the Wellington Regional Cross Country event in a couple of weeks…the best runners from all of the Wellington Region. Epic work guys, and we wish you the very best of luck for this event.

  • Fern Tua-Davidson - 10th Place, Year 4 Girls

  • Cody Bedford Robinson - 2nd Place, Year 4 Boys

  • Reuben Harkness - 17th Place, Year 4 Boys

  • Charlotte Monaghan - 13th Place, Year 5 Girls

  • Heidi Sawkins - 19th Place, Year 6 Girls

  • Zeke Reid - 16th Place, Year 6 Boys.

Masterton Teacher Only Day

A great day for educators across Masterton last week…12 schools closing, 200+ educators gathered together to hear 5 excellent facilitators. The wero (challenge) was laid down around two key areas:

  • Doing better for our Māori learners. We learnt more about intergenerational trauma, and the historic, damaging parts of our education system (some of which were only removed in the 1980’s). But, we were left with great next steps to help address this, to become better Treaty partners and to recognise the unique talents of all our children.

  • Thinking about allowing children to find success outside of reading, writing and maths, and giving that as much mana. We heard stories of children who were deemed to be ‘unsuccessful’ at school, who have gone on to do great things…or to be great members of society. Always a challenging message as we know that being literate and numerate is important…but one that resonated well with the journey of DPS.

Mānawatia a Matariki - Matariki Evening

Matariki is upon us! Matariki heralds a time of remembrance, joy and peace. It is a time for communities to come together and celebrate…and we invite you to come together with us next week. Classes have been busy this week engaging in a variety of learning about Matariki, and next week for the first time in ages, some of our students get to perform in front of a loving crowd. I’m looking forward to seeing the MIS children perform…many ex-DPS Kids amongst the group, and also to hearing Rawiri Smith tell stories. The public holiday apōpō may be new, and the learning around Matariki as a community may be new…so a short video below to explain some of the beauty of Matariki

What's on at DPS?

Term 3 Sports - Miniball

Next term, hockey and netball continue.

We also offer Miniball for Year 3-6 students in Term 3 (this is usually held on a Wednesday afternoon but is yet to be confirmed). Start thinking about whether your child would like to commit to a team. More information will be out soon.

Cross Country

Well done to the team of 50+ students who represented DPS at the Interschool Cross Country last week. The students all dared to dream in their races and showed PRIDE throughout the day.

Congratulations to the students placed in the top 20 of their event and have therefore qualified to represent Wairarapa in the Wellington Regional Cross Country event happening on Tuesday 5th July.

Fern Tua-Davidson - 10th Place, Year 4 Girls

Cody Bedford Robinson - 2nd Place, Year 4 Boys

Reuben Harkness - 17th Place, Year 4 Boys

Charlotte Monaghan - 13th Place, Year 5 Girls

Heidi Sawkins - 19th Place, Year 6 Girls

Zeke Reid - 16th Place, Year 6 Boys.

Full results here

A huge thank you to the parent helpers who gave up their day to join us. Without their support we would not have been able to take the large team that we did.

Community notices