Week 1 NEWSLETTER

from the principal

Welcome Back! Term 3 is upon us, and it has been an excellent start here at Douglas Park. The weather has been decent, and it has been lovely to hear the laughter/see the smiles as the children reconnected with each other. The same can be said for staff…the staff room has been buzzing as well. A big mihi to our new students…8 on day 1 of the term, and more starting next week. And lastly welcome to Rose who has started as a teacher aide in Kōwhai!

In the holiday break 4 of us were very lucky to attend the Apple Education Summit in Sydney. As an Apple Distinguished School these opportunities are now available to us, and Apple brought around 200 educators together from across Australia and New Zealand for 3 days of powerful learning.

While they are a big tech company, they do pour a massive amount of money into education…and their thinking around what education ‘can be’ is excellent. Hearing them speak about how technology can overcome accessibility issues, the future of spatial computing (I say ‘future’ but the Vision Pro was released in Australia while we were over there), Artificial Intelligence and the place of Innovation was very inspiring. I loved that their guiding question for the conference was “How do we empower all learners today, and prepare them for tomorrow?” - that future focus part, close to our ‘Better Future’.

But what really caught my attention was their view that learning needs to capture students' “Heads, Hearts and Hands”. This really aligns with our thinking here at school and the way we have high expectations of children academically, we actively work on developing ‘good people’, and all of our learning environments give children the daily chance to be creative with their hands.

The conference was very affirming of our direction, and of the capability of the staff and children here at school. It has also provided us with some challenges to consider as we build towards our Better Future.

More Staff Learning

Helen and Megan were down in Ōtautahi Christchurch for the first two days of term, completing their Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) Facilitator training. BSLA is a structured literacy approach to the teaching of reading in Years 1 - 3. We have been on the BSLA journey for two years now, and it is great that these two have stepped up to become facilitators. This means they are right at the cutting edge of this knowledge, and can further support our staff development at school.

Building Work

Work is progressing well in the hall. The old ceiling has been pulled down and removed, with the new insulation and gib being installed over the holidays. The trim has been installed this week, and next the plasterers are about to begin their mahi.

This does mean that the hall is still out of action, so we will be delaying our termly Mihi Whakatau to welcome new students, whānau and staff for a couple of weeks. At this stage we are aiming for Friday Week 3 (August 9th), but we will update you as work progresses.

UNIFORM REMINDER:

We have a compulsory school uniform and this can be purchased through NZ Uniforms (3 Albert Street, Masterton). Second hand uniform is on sale at school and available to view by appointment. Call the office to make a time.

Students must wear their DPS polo shirt and black uniform bottoms. Any items worn under the DPS uniform that can be visible, need to be black.

Shoes and socks must be black also. We appreciate your ongoing support with ensuring that your child is wearing the correct and tidy uniform to school.

Writing - Whakaoriori literary book quiz

Last term, we went to the Whakaoriori literary book quiz run by the Whakaoriori Kahui Ako.

We had to read six books, three picture books and three novels. The six books we read were all by New Zealand authors. DPS had two teams, one from Rātā and one from Kahikatea, it was only open to Year 5 and 6 students. We read all the books independently and we had practice each week with Mrs Jolliffe. We practised in our teams with questions about the books.

At the quiz there were six rounds and we had ten questions about each book.

We had lots of fun, Isaac and Ari both won prizes in the quick question section between rounds. After the quiz we had morning tea while the judges added up all the scores. DPS Kahikatea came third in the Year 5/6 division.

‘Nine Girls’ by Stacy Gregg was my favourite book because it was a very heartfelt book with lots of emotions and interesting themes. Fern

My favourite book was ‘Nine Girls’ by Stacy Gregg because It had interesting twists and turns that you would not expect. Briella

‘Dragon Hunters’ by James Russell was my favourite book because it had a lot of rhyme in it and it was really funny to read. Isaac

My favourite book was ‘Spark Hunter’ because I love nature and storms and it had both in it. It was also mysterious. Ari

‘Whale Pot Bay’ by Des Hunt was my favourite book, because I really like that it had an interesting plot twist to the story and how very close they were to losing the whale to the hunters. Mahalia

My favourite book was ‘Spark Hunter’ by Sonya Hunter because it was very interesting and intense and that made me want to read more. Daniella

‘Nine Girls’ by Stacy Gregg was my favourite book because they were searching for treasure. The ending was surprising. Riley

My favourite book was also ‘Nine Girls’ by Stacy Gregg because it was very descriptive and it painted a picture in my head. Kora