Tumuaki/Principal News

The sun came out yesterday and it was so exciting. It seems like forever since I felt the warmth of the sun on my face. Spring is coming. Our thoughts are with friends and families in Nelson who have suffered so much over the past weeks. We’ve been there haven't we, so we have an idea of how stressful the floods have been for them?

Brain Busters 

It was brilliant to watch our ex pupils on Brain Busters. Josie Jamieson, Cosette Major (the cousies), Molly Harrison and Tessa Lloyd-Mann made us proud as they competed against each other for first place. Cosette took home the prize money with the promise to take the others to McDs for a treat.

Healthy Lunches and Water Only

The senior children are undertaking  a maths, science and social studies unit around healthy lunches. The price of fresh fruit and veges has had an impact on family budgets and busy parents get caught up in lunches versus getting to work on time.

We have noticed a lot of sweet treats and snack foods filling the lunch boxes. Sometimes this does include lollies. Hungry children  need protein otherwise their tummies are rumbling within a short space of time. Cheese and crackers, sandwiches and some fruit do a better job of feeding the brain. The snacks come with a lot of packaging and these add to the littering problems in the school at times, and the need for rubbish disposal.

We are a water only school and we will monitor this again. Any flavoured drinks, sports drinks or flavoured milk will be returned home for weekend treats.

Please help us to meet the requirements for schools to model and monitor healthy eating habits in our tamariki. 

We do have a breakfast club at school every morning so we can help out if the family budget is getting stretched thin. It would be our pleasure to invite your children to the breakfast cafe from 8.30 onwards each morning.

See you at school, on time, every day.

The best chance your child has of achieving success is to attend school on time, every day. We miss children who are away and get worried when we get no answer to our phone calls. Please, please, please answer your phone if you get a call from school. It might be an emergency (heaven forbid). We spend hours every day tracking down missing children. School attendance is a habit that adults teach their children. We love your tamariki and it matters a great deal to us that they are present every day, unless they are ill. Let's really work on this together. We are here to help.

Performing Arts

The children are having lots of fun with Creatives In Schools. Learning about drama, dance and creative arts will culminate in a whole school performance next term.

Over the next few weeks some children will be going to a Literacy Competition at Somerfield (evening 1 Sept) and the production at CSKI (Wednesday 7).

All students are invited to wear their best disco dress to the outdoor disco and sausage sizzle on Friday 2 September. Attendance is a gold coin. Please support this with your coin donation, as our fabulous Friends and Whānau use this as a fundraiser to get the extras for the children.

On the same day, Middleton Grange is sending a dance troupe to perform for the children and to hold workshops on different genre of dance. We have some talented children here who will be very keen to try new routines.

 The whole school is attending the CSO performance at the Town Hall (9 Sept).

We had some local lads in over the weekend who were on the roof and causing damage. There were 6 boys altogether including 2 very small boys, 2 about 10 and 2 aged around 12/13. They have no idea of the costs of the damage that they cause. They used one of the cameras to leverage themselves up onto the roof. If you recognise them from the photos we sent on Skool Loop please let us know.

The sun really is shining today and it does lift your heart.

Take care of each other.

Best regards

Marriene
Tumuaki

PALS

Every Wednesday and Friday the PALs (Physical Activity Leaders) have been organising games at lunch times for the juniors, middles and seniors. They select these games with the age group of the students in mind and run them independently. Over the last week Toa and Greta have played Dodgeball Medic (with the middles) and Poppy and Aleeyah have played Rob the Nest (with the juniors). 

MANA AKE TUNING INTO KIDS PARENTING PROGRAMME  - 6 week programme - free

An evidence based prgramme designed to teach parents and caregivers:

•  Awareness and regulation of your own emotions and awareness of your children's emotions
• Skills to enable children to use language to manage their emotions and to problem solve