Week 6 NEWSLETTER

The major change is to Rata and Kahikatea who traditionally have been made up of Year 3/4 (Rata) and Year 5/6 (Kahikatea). The two teams will be made in a level way, balanced across all areas of school life. They will be running programmes to suit Years 4 - 6 and will include all the normal experiences that a child in Rata or Kahikatea would have experienced. As always, children are taught at their level of ability...so the needs of your child will be met no matter what teaching team they are in.

We will send home a note towards the end of the term, confirming your child's homeclass teacher for 2020, and the members of that teaching team.

Inquiry Sharing

We are in the middle of students sharing their Inquiry Learning at the moment and the learning on show is pretty stunning. ‘Make it Better’ has been our school wide theme and has really allowed the creative and critical thinking core beliefs to come into action. Redesigning traditional games, improving playgrounds or making an awareness campaign for an issue...quite diverse ideas coming out. The sharing is the culmination of a lot of work by both students and staff and our way of developing some key things;

• Learning needs a real, tangible outcome...we don’t want learners who just ‘know stuff’, we want them to be action takers and ‘do something’ with the knowledge they have learnt.
• Having an audience makes the learning real.
• We want children who can improve their world, who can make their communities better places to be.
• Sharing means teaching others what you have learnt. We want to develop children who are confident, capable lifelong learners.

Some photos below, and a heap more on our school Facebook page

Service Day

Speaking of cool events...last week we held another successful Service Day. These days are becoming something of a highlight for all members of our learning community, really giving a platform to the school belief that we want to help develop great kids to make great communities. I love seeing children hard at work, doing something for others...we had people out to local ECE’s, delivering thank you notes to our school neighbours, thank you’s to our staff and cleaning up the Millennium Reserve plus a wide range of other activities (I even got my car washed, stoked!). If you have any ideas that we could tackle in future Service Days let us know!

Once there lived a tooth fairy. This magic tooth fairy’s clothes were sparkling blue, her wings were see through like glass, and she was carrying a brown, flower shaped stick magic wand. She flew into the kids windows and got their special teeth and gave a coin, a toy and then left!

Charlotte Monaghan

In a world of sunny ness, it was so hot that most people chose to stay inside, it was that hot. But there was this weird creature called Dumbo. He as always outside, even on the hottest days. There was one day that absolutely no one was outside but Dumbo. No one to play with but himself and his bike. So he decided to go on a trip over the hills and bumpy road to look for some new friends. There was one sharp rock that made a ...... ‘BOOM!!’ His tyre popped and he was zooming through the air and landed with a thump!

Aurora Stalker

Hi, my name is Ruby and guess what? Me and Nevayah are having a play date. I am excited to play with Nevayah. She is my BFF. She is the best friend ever. She is nice.

Ruby Johnson

HONK! The sound of the air horn alerted me to get in my spot, and get ready to start playing. I got my hockey stick ready to hit the ball, I glanced over at the other team who were talking. I fell into my thoughts, I believed I could do it and I imagined my guinea pigs. I would win this game for them! I zoomed back into reality as the game started. I sprinted across the turf at rocket speed , cutting this time down, within 15 minutes, we had scored 2 goals already. We were winning before my eyes, my open eyes, we had won the game!

Rylee Williams

Oh no, I can see a spooky house I am going to see if it is haunted. It was frightening and it was very cold. I felt very lonely. There are trees and bush and it looks very gloomy. It is so misty and eerie.

Jazmyn Kindelan