Week 7 NEWSLETTER

Helper’s Morning Tea

Today at DPS we celebrated all the wonderful adults who have helped out in one way or other this year. Coming on trips, contributing to FODPS, listening to children read and helping at events. Schools are complex things...big networks of people linked together all with a single purpose...to make this time for the kids at DPS the very best it can be. I thank you all for your efforts, it is these efforts that lead to the awesome things our DPS Kids are capable of.

Social Media

Timely to write about this again after a couple of out of school incidents. Our school position is that children do not have access to social media at school, but it isn’t our job to police what goes on at home. Technology is everywhere, unavoidable. Modern social lives exist digitally now, as well as ‘old school’ face to face interactions. The danger is when someone acts in a way online that they wouldn’t in a face to face situation. Kids who have access to technology often have access to Apps/Social Media that they shouldn’t...virtually every platform has a 13 year old age restriction, or parent consent, or parent supervision requirement. However...a simple click, and they are in. The apps have these restrictions as they can access some pretty inappropriate content, have access to people in an unrestricted way, and allow conversations to happen online away from parent eyes.

At school, the learners have no access to these things (facebook, snapchat, instagram, tik tok etc), but we are aware that at home, some do. While this isn’t school business, if issues arise outside of school that come into our gates, we will address these.

My message here is more about raising awareness...do you know what social media platforms your child is active on, the terms and conditions of these (some allow extensive access to kids contacts, images, conversations...) how they are acting, and what content they are interacting with? This NZ site has excellent advice and is worth looking at.

A few weeks ago I wrote about ‘The Social Dilemma’, an excellent documentary on Netflix. The documentary is worth watching, and following that...starting a conversation as the adults at home, about what we think is right for our whānau. It really struck home to me at the end when the industry insiders spoke about themselves and their families...and that many of them, despite being in the industry, refuse to let their own families use these apps or have strong limits on what they can access.

Food for thought.

A New Vision

We’ve been working this year on re-visioning the school, re-setting our direction and thinking about what is most important to us as a learning community. We’ve heard from the staff, the voice of the children and from our parent community.

We’ve come up with a trinity of words that capture what we want as a learning community going forward; Nurture, Explore, Create. These words are rich, cover important parts of our school (like relationships, like play & making) and describe the type of learning we desire as well as the type of young people we look to develop.

Currently the vision statement that captures this is:

Together we Nurture, Explore, and Create a better future

In our work with Mark Osborne to realise this vision, he shared the characteristics of an effective vision with us

• Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like

• Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of all who have a stake in the organisation

• Feasible: Comprises realistic, attainable goals

• Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making

• Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions

• Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be exchanged in the corridor and successfully explained in seconds.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this draft vision...what do you think, does this resonate with you, do you think it meets the criteria above? Flick me any thoughts to: principal@douglaspark.school.nz

Important Dates

Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th December - Learning Conversations.

Friday 11th December - Final Celebration Time (10am start) and we finish for the year at 12.30pm.

This year we have the 2 spaces available on the Douglas Park School Board of Trustees. We have 3 candidates who have put their name forward and now you get to have your say. Voting papers will be coming to you via post and need to be returned to school by 4pm on Friday 4th December. There will be a ballot box in the office foyer or you can post it to us. If posting, please try to post it as early as possible as New Zealand Post has reduced postal delivery days in some areas. If you need any more information, please contact Hayley Sinton - hayleysinton@douglaspark.school.nz

Have a read of the candidate statements below.

My Tooth

My tooth fell out. I put my tooth under the pillow and the tooth fairy came to put five dollars under my pillow.

Luka Anderson-Roe

Splash! My cat got splashed with the water balloon. When my cat got splashed with the water balloon, my cat ran to her hiding space. She wagged her tail and that meant she was angry.

Emma Payne

I was walking through a magic forest. I found a tiny door. I tiptoed in the doorand there were some teeny tiny monsters and I did not know if it was my enemy. I snuck around the room.

Henry Gardiner

Splash! The water is freezing cold. I have to get wrapped up in my towel. My tail is stripey and pink. It’s soft. We drove a long way to the beach.

Ella Hemi

A big truck came to school.

Cadey-Lou Gillies

Me and my Mum are going under the sprinkler. I was scared.

Chloe Ashworth

I am going to the indoor pool. I jumped off the diving board.

Lachlan Thornburrow

I am going to the zoo. I saw some animals.I saw a cheetah in the zoo. I had to run away. Arrrrh

Rivva Keehn

I am playing with my sister and my dog. We played fetch.I chased my dog to get the toy. We had fun.

Shania McKenzie

The iguana is running like a bullet because the sankes are chasing him. He ran so fast that the snakes couldn’t get him.

Erika Hapi

My bed is ginormous. It’s as comfy as.

Odin Bennett

I am catching the spy. He can’t see me.

Knox Henry

I am really happy because it is nearly my birthday. Kieran is going to buy me a unicorn floaty.

Olivia Bilton

A lot of great helpers made short work of a large delivery of bark for the playground!