We had to move the Cross Country from the beach to the block as the surf was too vigorous to be safe on Friday. Thank you to all the whānau that came to support, and to Lloyd who helped out at the finish line, a very difficult task. All our tamariki showed our values of manaaki, pākiki, whakapono and hiranga during this, as they had been prepared to run on the beach too! What a supportive crowd they were, cheering for everyone who tried their very best. 

The top finishers in the competitive races qualify to go to Easter Zones next week. Information will come home for these tamariki individually on HERO. Tino pai tamariki. (See photos below)

Pink Shirt day on Friday is an opportunity to take part and help to stamp out bullying by celebrating diversity and promoting kindness and inclusion. Everyone is encouraged to wear something pink and bring a gold coin donation that will go back to the Mental Health Foundation who will use it for a number of initiatives designed to eliminate bullying including the creation of a new wellbeing programme for teenagers to be rolled out free across all secondary schools in Aotearoa. funds raised also support the free resources around bullying prevention, and funds are invested in workshops run by InsideOUT to help schools be more inclusive to rainbow youth. 

Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora!Speak Up, Stand Together, Stop Bullying! 

This term our curriculum focus is Science. We are using local pūrākau as our 'jumping off point' to help make connections with who we are and what we already know.  Kaiako will be designing learning that integrates Science with all other learning areas. Science has 'The Nature of Science' as its overarching and unifying strand with 'The Living World', 'Planet Earth and Beyond', The Material World' and 'The Physical World' strands providing contexts for learning. 

We are required to regularly consult with the community about our Health and Physical Education programme. Please complete the survey through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HealthPE. It will take about 5 minutes to go through and answer the following nine questions and multi-choice answers. Your involvement in providing us with your feedback and views will help us in making informed decisions on a very important element of educating all of our tamariki. 

If you want more information about the NZ Health and PE curriculum you can click on here:

https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Health-and-physical-education/Learning-area-structure  

The newsletter is published every two weeks on Tuesdays.  It will be available on HERO and on our website.  In each newsletter some kupu will be shared with you to help with all of our understanding... kai- eat/food, wai - water, kapu - cup, periti- plate, huarākau - fruit, huawhenua- vegetables, mīti - meat.

Next week we have visitors from Furnham University USA who are coming in to see how we learn and teach. Last week we had kaiako from Churton Park School come in to see how we work collaboratively as they start out on their collaborative journey. Some of the gems they shared with us was the sense of curiosity pākiki of the students and their engagement in learning through play, the level of learner agency and how it develops throughout the school and the 'feel' our school - welcoming and happy. It is so exciting to be able to welcome kaiako from all over Wellington and the world and to share ideas. 

The Lyall Bay Community Church have done a great job of priming the pool changing sheds for us last weekend. Thank you so much for offering your time and organising this for us. Ka pai. 

We have had a few cases of COVID in our community over the past few weeks, please keep your tamariki home of they show any symptoms and test to check. Measles is another one to be on the look out for. See the information further on in the newsletter.  

Ngā mihi nui

Melanie