Update 11

29th July 2021

Kia ora & welcome to Term 3

Tēnā Koutou Katoa,

We hope you had a great break and enjoyed some time with your family and friends. It was wonderful to kick off the new term with our Pōwhiri held on Monday morning, and to say nau mai haere mai, to all of our new learners and whānau. We are so proud of the learners who had the courage to stand up and give whaikōrero (speeches) in te reo Māori, and our Kapa Haka group for their beautiful waiata (songs).

Our learning focus for term 3 is the concept of Community - the Hub teams will share more information on the learning design through the Year Level comms shortly.

We will be sharing the learning from the term at a school wide event. Pop 28 September into your calendar now - this will be an event not to miss.

Ngā mihi nui,

Sarah and The Stonefields School Team

Why Teacher Only Days?

In 2019 the teacher pay and conditions were negotiated. An outcome of the new negotiations was to include include 8 Teacher Only days over the 3 years in the new collective agreement. These days are focused on providing staff with time to:

Refresh and deepen their knowledge and practice around the local curriculum
Strengthen their understanding of the use of assessment tools for learning and teaching;
Respond to the recommendations of the education work programme in the Curriculum, Progress and Achievement (CPA) Report; (Note: the CPA Report is available here)
Familiarise themselves with the curriculum work changes

This time together has been invaluable, support staff and teaching staff have spent the time designing learning for the following term. Our last TOD on Friday 25th June, focussed on sharing practices to support learners with additional learning needs and designing rich and engaging learning opportunities connected to our concept of community.

Our next TOD is Monday 13th September. We will be focussing on our Science learning design.

Knowledge Builders | Tupu Mātauranga

We have a new initiative coming up later this term to support our Community Concept of 'Bringing our Best Together'. We have heard that parents want to support at home however are often unsure of how best to do that. We are keen to partner with you to accelerate foundational knowledge learning in the basics. Each child will be given a level appropriate pack of cards - sight-words, spelling words, times tables or division facts. Each one will come with some ideas about how you might use the pack in fun ways at home with your child. Teachers will also be reinforcing the learning at School.

Once your child has achieved a pack and has gained 'automaticity' - that means to recall the times tables straight away, or saying the sight word without a long pause - they can then return the pack to School and exchange it for the next one. We will be tracking progress to look at the impact of this initiative.

Our research shows that with engaged parents, children make significant progress. We want to put that to the test and see how we can work together with you to build this (level appropriate) key basic knowledge. Remember your Mum or Dad barking the times tables at you while driving in the car when you were growing up? Little and often really does work.

Keep an eye out for more on this in our next communications update! In the meantime, check out this TED Talk - "How every child can thrive by five" - by 7-year old Molly Wright, one of the youngest people ever to give a TED talk.

School Assemblies

We are starting school assemblies again this term! Now that we have fortnightly Stonefields School TV for learners with key messages, we have had a bit of a rethink about the purpose of School assemblies. These gatherings are to acknowledge significant achievements e.g. leadership badges, to unite and sing together and showcase the learning happening in the hubs. Due to the roll increase we can no longer comfortably sit the whole School. The School assemblies will be organised as follows;

Monday 16th August, 2.10 - 2.50pm: Junior Assembly
Friday 20th August, 2.10 - 2.50pm: Senior Assembly
Monday 6th September, 2.10 - 2.50pm: Hubs 1, 5, 7, 9, 11 & 15
Friday 10th September, 2.10 - 2.50pm: Hubs 2, 4, 8, 10, 12 & 14

Hubs will continue to meet have across hub assemblies to celebrate and acknowledge learners achievements with certificates.

Community Hub | Te Pātaka Ako

You can find a full schedule of all of our upcoming events in the Community Hub - Te Te Pātaka Ako here

William Pike | Resilience

We are thrilled to share that William Pike will be joining us later in the term for an inspirational talk on resilience. William Pike is a Kiwi explorer, sought-after inspirational speaker and a role model to youth. As the director of nationwide youth development programme, the William Pike Challenge, William talks the talk and walks the walk.

William inspires, motivates and shocks audiences with his collection of remarkable stories including surviving a freak Mount Ruapehu eruption. His stories are wrapped with relatable messages that challenge audiences to step outside their comfort zone to be explorers in their world. Be prepared to relive his gripping, tear jerking, and hilarious journey on the edge of your seat.

We anticipate that this event will be in high demand, so please RSVP here to let us know you're coming along on Wednesday 8th September, 7-8.30pm.

Adult Kapa Haka

Adult Kapa Haka will kick off again on Tuesday next week (week 2). Sessions will run fortnightly during term time, Tuesdays from 5.30pm.

Workshop: Junior Numeracy

Tuesday 3 August, 2-2.45pm. Upskilling parents on how to support children with numeracy at home. Suitable for parents of learners in years 0-2.

Workshop: Junior Literacy

Thursday 12 August, 9-10am. Upskilling parents on how to support children with numeracy at home. Suitable for parents of learners in years 0-2.

Second Hand Uniform Shop

The second hand uniform shop will be run tomorrow, Friday July 30th, from 2.30-3.15pm out of Te Pātaka Ako (Community Hub)

Student-led Initiatives

Hot Chocolate Fundraiser (AIMS Games)

Kia Ora Stonefields whanau,

Our lovely intermediate students are hosting a hot chocolate fundraiser for their upcoming AIMS games. Every Monday from the 2nd to the 16th of August before school starting at 8am. Make sure your kids bring a $2 coin and an extra 50c for marshmallows. All hot chocolates contain dairy, gluten, and sugar. Your support will be appreciated.

Nga mihi Nui

Year 8 learners

Keep NZ Beautiful - Young Reporters Enviro Journalism Competition

Some of the learners in Year 7/8 have been thinking like journalists as they prepare their photos and writing for a competition. A lot of research and planning has gone into their work, and they each have a message to share regarding the environment! Click here to check out their work.

Upcoming Events

Second Hand Uniform Shop | Friday, 30th July | 2.30-3.15 | Te Pātaka Ako
Parent Tour | Wednesday, 11th August | 9.30-10.30
Junior School Assembly | Monday, 16th August | 2.10-2.50pm
Senior School Assembly | Friday, 20th August | 2.10-2.50pm

Sport

Eastern Suburbs Community Football @ Stonefields School

Wed 28th July - 29th September 2021
3:15 - 4:15pm
$150

This club takes place outside.
Any sessions that are cancelled due to the weather will take place in Term 4.

The registration form can be found on our sports website here.

Our Sports Website is your first port of call for all information about whole school sport and inter-school sports events. This is updated regularly.

Sports Website

Library

Scholastic Book Club

If you would like to purchase books for your children from the Scholastic Book Club, orders for 2021 issue no. 5 are now open.

The ordering process is completely paper-less, and the current brochure is available to view here.

If you are new to the Scholastic Book Club, you can find out more about the Book Club here and before placing an order, you will need to register using the LOOP website. You may then place your order via the Loop website, or by using one of Scholastic's apps. Please make sure you have your child's hub number handy and remember there is no need to return anything to school as all orders are processed online through the Scholastic LOOP system. If you would prefer to view the catalogue in paper form, your child may collect one of these from the school library, which is open during school lunchtimes.

Book Club orders close on Friday 13th August. If you have any questions or problems placing your order, please email anna.malan@stonefields.school.nz

2021 Term Dates

Term 2 | Monday, 3rd May - Friday, 9th July

Term 3 | Monday, 26th July - Friday, 1st October

Term 4 | Monday, 18th October - Wednesday, 15th December

2021 Teacher Only Days

Monday, 13th September

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