Term 2 | Week 5 | 2022

Rāapa 1 Pīpiri 

Tālofa lava! 

This year marks 12 years since Samoan Language Week has been celebrated in Aotearoa New Zealand. 2022 is also a significant year for the Samoan community, being the 60th anniversary of Samoa Independence. Samoa has a unique historical relationship with New Zealand. It is the only nation that New Zealand has a Treaty of Friendship. The Treaty of Friendship between Samoa and New Zealand is about a commitment to partnership, friendship and a mutual endeavour to obtain for Tagata Samoa fuller opportunities for social progress. To stay connected visit the official Gagana Samoa i Aotearoa Facebook page.

Our students have been enjoying their specialist health lessons through Life Education over the past couple of weeks. These lessons compliment their current classroom health concepts being taught in class.

Students from Kowhai have been learning about body systems (such as the digestive system) and exploring how they keep us alive and healthy. Students from Pohutukawa have been learning how to keep themselves safe in various settings and exploring Hauora and the aspects of Te Whare Tapa Wha. Whanau Harakeke have been exploring the qualities of friendship as well as possible strategies on how to bounce back from difficulties or set backs in a positive way. As the term progresses they will also learn about how important it is to think about how we communicate with others online. 

We are progressing well with our inquiries across the school as we delve into the new Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories curriculum and this week it was an exciting moment to have one of our first full whanau EOTC trips in a very long time! 

This month (June 24th) Matariki will be recognised as a new national day of holiday celebration for Aotearoa. As we lead up to Matariki we will contine to learn about Maramataka and the deep connections that looking after the land and planting has in our environment of Puke Atua in the Waitakere Ranges. 

Next Tuesday (teacher only day), staff continue their professional development with structured literacy. 

A structured literacy approach is helping our teachers to  provide; 

explicit, systematic, and sequential teaching of literacy at multiple levels phonemes, letter–sound relationships, syllable patterns, morphemes, vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and text structure as well as cumulative practice and ongoing review, a high level of student-teacher interaction, carefully chosen decodable texts and prompt, corrective feedback. 

We continue to track and support all of our learners and look forward to learning conversations scheduled for the last Thursday of Term 2. You will receive a full comprehensive written mid-year progress report followed by the opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher to share and celebrate progress! More information will follow closer to the time. 

Enjoy the long weekend coming up and stay safe! 

Tōfā soifua

Nardz Stephenson

Principal