30 July 2021

Kia ora, whanau

Let me take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to Term 3. For me this week represents my first week as principal of Evans Bay Intermediate School. I consider myself very privileged to join this school and its community. Over the past year and a half I have been working at West Park School in Johnsonville as the deputy principal and SENCO. Prior to that I spent six years as deputy principal at South Wellington Intermediate School and it is fantastic to be a part of an intermediate once again.

I was very fortunate to be welcomed by staff and students with a powhiri in the last week of last term. The fact I was able to share this with my whanau, as well as those who had been most influential in my career to date made it a very special memory and one I will cherish for a long time to come. Through the whole school being a part of the powhiri I was able to form an immediate connection and sense of belonging to EBIS. This is what I hope for all our students, a sense of connection to this school that for two years will play an important role in their everyday life.

It is also important that there are strong connections formed between home and school. It was fantastic to see so many of you here on Wednesday and Thursday for the meetings with the teachers. For the staff the opportunity to engage with you and share the learning that has been taking place and the progress that has been made was hugely rewarding. If you were unable to attend these meetings or if you want to follow up with the teachers they are always pleased to communicate with parents and caregivers.

One way that families have been supporting the school is through the Whittaker’s Chocolate fundraiser. We know that it is not just our students but their families as well who have invested a huge amount of time and effort into selling chocolates, and for this we are extremely grateful. This fundraiser has one more week to run so we ask for a final push to see if we can sell every box and every bar of chocolate before the August 6th deadline.

Of course the primary role of a school is for teaching and learning to take place.

On Wednesday I was fortunate enough to learn from some of the students about their Science Fair projects. I was hugely impressed with the variety of topics that they had tackled and the calibre of the research and experiments indicate that the scientific community will be in good hands for many years to come. Thank you to Amanda Hood for the teaching and guidance she has put in helping our young scientists to unlock the mysteries of the world (and beyond).

Following on from the auditions at the end of last term the term ahead is shaping as a very busy one for those students involved in the production which is taking place in the final week of the term. The script has been written by our own James Ruscoe and he is already hard at work with the cast to ensure that this year’s show will be one to remember.

Above is just a sample of the learning taking place at EBIS this term, there is of course lots more happening. Over the coming weeks I will be highlighting more and more of it as it is worth celebrating some of the fantastic opportunities your children receive.

Of course none of this would be possible without the dedication of the staff and I am in awe of the level of commitment of each and everyone of them. The students of Evans Bay Intermediate are lucky to work with teachers of this calibre. I am also lucky to have had the support of Jayne Taylor and Wikus Swarnepoel during my transition into the school. I am sure that over the coming weeks I will continue to lean on them for help, but I also know I couldn’t have two better people to turn to.

Over the coming weeks I look forward to opportunities to meet more members of the community either at school or at some of the events that our students will be participating in.

Kia pai tō rā whakatā

Howard

Whittakers Chocolate Fundraiser

A huge thank you to all who have helped us with the project. We have one week left as the final date for payments is Friday 6 August. Winners will be announced on Monday 9 August.

At this stage the biggest focus is to get all the payments in as soon as possible. We also ask parents to pay via kindo (if possible). Suzanne Hendry who is responsible for the school finances is not at work for the next month due to medical reasons. Sorting out the large amounts of cash without her can be a daunting task.

However, the most important is to get all the money in and celebrate the success of the students who did so well with the selling of the chocolates.

Wikus Sawnepoel

Rawhiti Bulletin News

Inquiry - Jennifer, Eve and Matilda

Last term we presented our Inquiry presentations to the school. Each class had to choose one group to represent their class, then we sat as a school and watched all the pre made videos. The design brief was to create a Wellbeing space here at EBIS. We had a budget to work with and to complete this we had to learn lots of different skills. These ranged from area and perimeter of irregular shapes in maths to working out budgets to drawing designs on a digital platform.

The last week of school was really nerve racking as I (Jen) was away for the days leading up to it so we worked on it online together. Something unique about our design is all our plants were native, except for some of the iris’. Like native jasmine, white clematis, pohuehue, kiokio. I am so proud that our design was one of the winning ones and I am looking forward to seeing what aspects will be used when the wellbeing space is built.

By Jennifer, Eve and Matilda

Mandarin - Ethel & Paige

I think it’s really cool that we get to learn another language and learn about an amazing culture it’s a cool idea to have Korean in your first year and mandarin in the next it’s awesome to know something about a few different cultures

We learnt how to say my name and how to write and say our ages. We learnt how to write New Zealand and how to greet people and that a word that sounds the exact same can mean many different things. Mandarin in my opinion is a lot harder to write than Korean but I enjoyed what we learnt and I’m excited to learn heaps more!

Paige

Library

At Evans Bay Intermediate we are so lucky to have a large library packed with books! Students can grab a library pass and hang out in the library. In the library we have some new board games and puzzles so it’s not just reading!

If you want to donate books to our library please drop them off to the office or contact rchave@ebis.school.nz

Dudley Shield - Ross

Last term we finished our Dudley Shield games. Dudley shield is an in school class competition where we play a knockout game. The game we had was ‘Double Whammy’. Double Whammy is like ‘rounders’ but you have two games going on at the same time and you also get to choose how you will strike the ball, you can kick it, hit it with a tennis racquet or cricket bat, or even use a floorball bat to hit the ball.

As the term progresses and classes play against each other, it gets down to the last two classes! These were Rm 8 and Rm 10. It was a great game and Room 10 is now the champions! On the last day of term we placed the shield under the ‘Tonga’ team’s name. This term the game we are playing for Dudley Shield is ‘Prison Ball’, watch out Room 10 you’re the class to beat!

Selling Chocolates - Freya

This year as a school fundraiser we were given the task of selling chocolates. The funds went towards getting a new driveway and getting a shade sail over the basketball court. It finishes at the end of week 2 1st prize is $1000 2nd is $500 3rd is $250 4th is $100 and 5th is $50. I decided to go to the Sunday market. I set up a stall and started selling. I was put way out of my comfort zone. I had to talk to strangers, giving them recommendations and convincing them to buy a chocolate. One of my biggest sales was when someone bought 10 with a fifty dollar note luckily we had enough change. I think it made me braver and more confident.