Newsletter
Week 3 NEWSLETTER
from the principal
It’s the most important 20 minutes of the day!
Our Duffy Book orders are in! Before the end of the term all of our DPS Kids will receive two (free) Duffy Books! A great addition to your book supply at home, and a chance for us to promote the benefits of reading most days at home. This includes you reading to them.
Research shows that reading aloud to your child is one of the most important things you can do to prepare your child for reading and learning. Reading to your child:
Nurtures a love of reading of good quality literature
Strengthens bonds with your child
Develops oral language through discussion
Builds background knowledge and understanding through factual texts
Expands their vocabulary
Helps them learn more about interests and hobbies
This is a great article from Reading Rockets about Reading to your child and why reading aloud to children from an early age is so important, and how to make it a motivating and meaningful experience. On HERO some of the teachers are sharing home learning ideas based around what is happening in class, or the BSLA/Phonics instruction with your child’s group. An example here and another one here and one here.
I don’t know if I fully believe the claims around testing in the image below…but I agree with the idea behind the image: The more you read, the more words you are exposed to, the more opportunities you have to practice and chances are…this will positively impact on your ability to read. The key message…it may be the most important 20 minutes of the day!
Office Building Work
This project is still ongoing…but really starting to take shape! We’ve reached the stage of the project when the finishing trades are starting. Plasterer is here currently, with the painters looking to start next week. We are hopeful to be in the new space before the end of the term, but until then the Office is still down in the Room 7 space.
Cross Country
Practice is well underway for this event, and it is great to see the kids challenge themselves. I write this every year…and I still believe it. Cross Country isn’t about running as much as it is about developing perseverance, and rising to a challenge. No matter how fast you are, how far you can run…training can get you quicker, or enable you to run further. And the beauty of it…the challenge is universal. I’m yet to meet anyone who can run, push themselves and not be physically and mentally challenged by the effort it takes. Legs get sore, that voice starts in your head (just slow down, walk a bit…) so the real learning in cross country is about pushing yourself, and being able to push past the challenges.
We look forward to inviting whānau to the cross country…Friday 26th May…It will be great to have you, and great to see our DPS Kids rise to their own challenge during their run.
Attendance
Over the last fortnight there have been another round of media reports on attendance figures for New Zealand schools. The Ministry defines ‘regular’ attendance as children who attend 90% of the time. This works out to missing 1 day a fortnight from school. The figures splashed over the media of 50% is related to attending regularly (half of NZ kids attend regularly). This doesn’t mean that schools have half their kids missing daily…but it does mean a huge chunk of children aren’t at school daily, and are missing more than 1 day a fortnight. The big target the Ministry has over the next few years is to get 90% of children attending regularly…a lofty goal. Last term we had 65% of our DPS Kids attending regularly…which on the surface doesn’t sound great…but it is much much higher than both the national average, and the average for schools in the Wellington region. Another 25% of our children sit just below that (in the 80-90% range)...and they are in there for a variety of legitimate reasons, largely illness. So why am I sharing this? I don’t believe we have a serious attendance issue at school, and I don’t want children coming to school sick just so we can get our % figures up higher. But…the Ministry do have a point, consistent routines and mileage is a big component of learning, where the neurological pathways in our brains require repetitive exposure to strengthen and cement learning and develop mastery. We also develop these neural pathways for resilience, perseverance, and discipline. Everyone knows that a good sports team or musician requires regular practice, so we need to apply the same principles to our educational pathway at school. Please help to ensure that your child has the best opportunity for success by making sure he/she is in school every day.
Why is it so important to attend school every day?
Learning is a progressive activity; each day’s lessons build upon those of the previous day(s).
Reading the material and completing work independently does not compensate for the loss of insight gained during class discussions or the loss of competency acquired through explanation or supervised activities/tasks.
Teachers use discussions, demonstrations, experiments and participation, as part of the daily learning activities, and these cannot be made up by those who are absent.
Writing - Mr v's writing class (working with Mrs Blue)
What's happening at DPS?
Ukulele group
We are wanting to offer our senior students the opportunity to learn and participate in a musical group by starting a ukulele group on Monday lunchtimes. We would like to make this group open to any student who would like to participate whether they have an instrument or not. So we were wondering if anyone in our community have any spare, unused ukuleles gathering dust at home that they might like to donate to our group.
If you can help with this please bring any instruments in to the office. Anything you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Cross Country
Save the date! Our school Cross Country will be held on Friday 26th May. We would love to see you there to support our runners!
Sport
fodps news
Lucky Book Club Orders…here is some information so you can plan out your orders over the year. When each edition arrives - students are offered the magazine but taking one home is not compulsory! We encourage parents to enstall the LOOP app on their devices to make ordering easy. Please have your orders submitted by the closing date to avoid postage costs to yourselves.
Any problems please contact Gemma McPhail at gemmamcphail@douglaspark.school.nz or you can find me in room Kōwhai. Or you can talk to Meryl in the office and she may be able to help you.
Order Subway online or at the office for delivery to school friday
Every Friday we have Subway lunches delivered to school. If you would like to order your child a subway lunch, the easiest way is to order online. Please make sure you put your child's class (teachers name) on the order as it makes it much easier to sort our end. Subway can also be ordered by filling out a form at the school office before school on a Friday.
Community notices
To receive this awesome gift, click on this link, print the voucher and bring it to Staglands when you visit, on either 13th or 14th May OR tell our ticket office staff you are a "STAG RAG MUM"
Offer Conditions:
*Valid this Mother's Day weekend on the 13th or 14th May.
*Must visit with your child, 16 years or under to qualify.
*Not available with any other offer.
