| | | | | | IMPORTANT DATES Term 1 2024
Week 8
Life Education Trust with Harold the Giraffe here until 5th April
Wednesday 20th March - Author Visit for Years 3 to 6 - Steve Mushin - 1.30pm
Wednesday 20th March - Pod 1 at LWC to watch Katie Bee
Thursday 21st March - Tribe Afternoon - come in your tribe colours
Friday 22nd March - Paid Union Meeting for teachers 2-3pm. School remains open
Week 9
Monday 25th March - Otago Anniversary - School Closed
Wednesday 27th March - COPSSA Athletics (Years 5&6)
Friday 29th March - Good Friday - School Closed
Week 10
Monday 1st April - Easter Monday - School Closed
Tuesday 2nd April - Easter Tuesday - School Closed
Wednesday 3rd April - Top Bike (Year 6)
Friday 5th April - Life Education Trust with Harold the Giraffe last day
Friday 5th April - GRIP Student Leadership Training
Week 11
Tuesday 9th April - Junior Athletics (Y1 &Y2)
Thursday 11th April - WPS Fun Run - wear tribe colours
Friday 12th April - Pod 4 Assembly 2.15pm - Hall
Friday 12th April - Last Day of Term 1 - School finishes at 3pm
Term 2
Week 1
Monday 29th April - First Day of Term 2
Monday 29th April - School Photos
Tuesday 30th April - Thursday 2nd May - EPro8 Challenge
Week 2
Friday 10th May - Pod 3 Assembly 2.15pm - Hall
Week 3
Tuesday 14th May - Clued Up Kids Y5&Y6
IMPORTANT NOTICES Little Heart Day Thank you so much to everyone who supported Little Heart Day. We raised $708.00 for Heart Kids NZ. Photos: Ida has been a great champion for the cause. Room 5 enjoyed a great day raising money for Heart Kids NZ. |
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Board Update The Board met last evening and started the meeting with a brisk walk up to the new bike path that passes through the school grounds. Unfortunately upon arrival they were disappointed to see that there were many hazards and issues that still exist and need to be addressed. Wendy will communicate with the contractors to ensure that they make good on their promise of 'doing a good job and leaving the area looking better than it looked before'!
Kath then shone some light on the meeting when she presented her Health Curriculum Review explaining the purpose of the steps being taken and the outcome expected. She will be working on this throughout the year. Watch this space as there will be opportunities for community consultation along the way.
Wendy presented her comprehensive report which included commending our PTA on having a programme in place for events throughout the year. They are a great team and are currently collecting orders for 'Tribe' t-shirts which are proving to be very popular. Get your orders into the office before the end of term.
The Board were also led through a 'NZSTA Board Task Checklist' and it is pleasing to report that they are 100% on track with the tasks listed therein.
The Board would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter and safe holidays and the next Board Meeting is scheduled for Monday 20th May. |
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What's On It's a busy week this week with lots of different activities happening...and of course literacy and maths as always is at the core of each week. When the Ministry talks about an hour of writing, an hour of maths and an hour of reading this is spread across the week so some days could be more than an hour of writing and others involve more maths, but as usual we are focused on quality programmes with effective teaching practices in place to personalise learning for all children as much as we can.
Harold the Giraffe and Roshelle arrived on Monday morning with the mobile classroom. The next 3 weeks will see them focusing on healthy eating with all classes.
Pod 3 is in the garden as part of the Garden to Table rotations. Here are Danielle's recommendations for this week. I am thinking about following these for my home garden.
It's that time of the year in the garden where there will be lots of harvesting and using the produce in many different ways. We are also going to start to get the gardens ready for the winter which will mean clearing some of them and planting some green compost and layering them up with mulch, then we leave them to sit. The green compost is in the form of mustard, lupin and wheat, which are all nitrogen replenishing plants. We will cut them when they grow to about 20cm high and leave the cuttings on the garden to decompose as mulch.
While there are a few less vegetables in the garden it's a good chance to investigate the soil and check out the amount of bugs and worms making their home in it.
Today we have Rob Profitt-White and maths lead teachers from other UC schools join our lead teachers, on site for another PLD day in the teaching of mathematics. This is part of our 3rd year in a contract with Learner First. Rob is one of the main gurus the Ministry uses to support the changes in the Curriculum Refresh. The UC primary schools contracted him privately 2 years ago to deliver maths PLD in our schools as we were unable to access Ministry funded programmes (our schools are the wrong decile!). We have loved our 2 years working with Rob and his team and we can see benefits in the engagement, joy and computational thinking and problem solving in our students, and our teachers.
Today Rob assured us that our schools are well ahead of the ball. Shortly the Ministry of Education will be making big announcements about curriculum changes. We are already implementing the majority of the ideas, strategies and learning across the school that will be included in this announcement after our work with Rob over the 3 year period. We just need to stick to our knitting and keep consolidating and further developing what we are doing now.
This is one of the slides Rob used today with the Upper Clutha lead teachers which aptly summarises effective teaching and learning in maths. We will be holding some parent information sessions later in the year to familiarise you with what, and how, your children are learning and doing in their hour of maths each day.
This year the contract work focuses on the strands in maths (e.g. geometry, algebra, measurement, geometry, statistics and probability) and we will further refine the first iteration of our own WPS maths curriculum plan, monitoring, tracking and assessment strategies using the maths progressions (which we are still waiting for the MoE to finalise) and link this into a database for analysing and reporting on student progress and achievement, as well as future developments in our teaching.
Other events this week: Today there was an assembly to present the Athletics certificates. Pod 1 is heading to the Lake Wānaka Centre on Wednesday 10.00 - 11.00am to see the Katie Bee show and in the afternoon on Wednesday Years 3 - 6 will be attending a presentation by an author Steve Mushin (an inventor and author) who Melissa our librarian says is awesome. On Thursday 1.30 - 3.00pm we have our Term 1 Tribe Afternoon where Tribe Leaders are asked to step up and lead some activities to prove their abilities to be a Tribe Leader. Please encourage children to wear their Tribe colours as this day is usually one where they really bond together as a Tribe group. Remember Friday the 22nd is the PUM (Primary teachers paid union meetings). School is open for instruction. Lunch will be at noon on Friday and Subway orders are available and will be delivered at the earlier time. If you are picking up your child early to head away for a long weekend, as Monday 25th March is Otago Anniversary holiday, please pick them up from their classrooms BEFORE 1.30pm. After that they will need to be signed out from the office and you may have to head out into the playgrounds and fields to find them as we will be setting up lots of activities to be led by our senior students and teachers from 2.00 - 2.45pm.
Next week in brief: Years 5 & 6 will start practising for the EPro8 technology challenge Harold and Roshelle here all week Wednesday 27th March Central Otago Athletics Friday 29th until Tuesday 2nd April School is closed for instruction due to Easter. The first day back to school after this long weekend is Wednesday 3rd April. Wānaka Primary School Fun Run This is being held on Thursday 11th April. It is a Tribe Day event so please wear your tribe colours! We are inviting children to gather sponsorship for their Fun Run. Sponsors can pledge per lap or make a single payment. Children will run as many laps as they can within a set time.
As always we are fundraising for special projects which this year include - equipment for our makerspaces (these are currently being prebuilt off site and will be placed into their new home beside each pod once they are completed), Garden to Table/ Enviro and some more landscaping at the Pod 2/3 end of the school.
Start Time 10.00am Years 1 & 2 will run for 15 minutes around a 200m course Start Time 11.00am Years 3 & 4 will run for 20 minutes around a 300m course Start Time 11.45am Years 5 & 6 will run for 25 minutes around a 400m course We will remind children to only seek sponsorship from people they know...so watch out granny, grandpa and neighbours. |
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PALs Training On Monday, some of our PALs went to the Wānaka Rec Centre for a morning of games and leadership training.
They all engaged in a variety of activities to help with their PALs duties back at school, including adapting games to include everyone and behaviour management skills.
Another training session will be held later in the year.
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Pod 4 Lagoon Trip What a great day was had by Pod 4 on their Lagoon trip. Thanks to the parents who helped out with this trip, which is part of Pod 4's Deep Learning work this term. |
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Seasons for Growth Please click here for a brochure
We intend to run the Seasons for Growth programme in term 2.
Please use this link to register. |
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Positive Behaviour For Learning - PB4L PB4L School-Wide looks at behaviour and learning from a whole-of-school as well as an individual child perspective. The framework is based on international evidence and is helping New Zealand schools build a culture where positive behaviour and learning is a way of life. Each fortnight we focus on a school wide goal to encourage positive behaviours. The current goal is: 'We interact with others and their property in a positive way'. |
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Tribe T-Shirts Orders are still open for Tribe t-shirts until the end of term (12th April). Come in and have a look at the designs in the office and place your order or email through to the office. $30 per t-shirt. Sizes 6, 8, 10 & 12. The first batch will be ready in time for the cross county on 13th June. We have had lots of requests for a small design to be on the front as well as the back, so we are working on this - check out the newsletter next week for updated designs! Thanks for your support - the PTA crew. |
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Athletics Presentations
Y4 Boys Champion - Ben Morris
Y5 Boys Champion - James Sheppard
Y6 Boys Champion - Ed Hollows and Bruno Blampied
Y4 Girls Champion - Juliet Evans
Y5 Girls Champion - Mikayla Morgan
Y6 Girls Champion - Ally Moir
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Food Waste Action Week 18th – 24th March
This week is Food Waste Action Week with the theme: “Choose What You’ll Use”.
https://lovefoodhatewaste.co.nz/ |
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Library News Click the image below to view our wonderful Library Webapp.
Feel free to email Melissa at any time if you have any questions.
Digital and Audio Resources Borrow box is an amazing resource which you can have free access to for digital reading and audio resources for your children. Click on the image below to look at the amazing range. You need a QLDC library membership (which is free) to borrow.
BookHub BookHub is an relatively new NZ based website where you can search for books you want to buy online from NZ based booksellers rather than from overseas sites.
Obviously I support local booksellers as well but if you are an online shopper I fully support supporting NZ businesses before the likes of Amazon who charge exorbitant shipping fees. Click on the icon or this link : https://bookhub.co.nz/
Quote of the Week
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Mt Iron Roundabout Update The final leg of the Mount Iron Roundabout has been completed and the westbound lane of SH6 into Wānaka has re-opened. With the work still on track to be completed in April 2024, please click here for a project update and details of final works to be undertaken over the coming weeks. |
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An Evening with Steve Solomon - Master Carver |
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Pack Walks with Dr Dog - supporting SARDA |
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Colouring Contest - win tickets to Warbirds Over Wānaka
Click here for a copy to print |
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Public Meeting - Healthcare Services Healthcare in the Upper Clutha is under strain, especially after hours care. We need to let decision makers know this is of utmost concern to us.
The Community Board is facilitating a panel discussion with a range of medical experts. Please join us in this call to action.
To RSVP and pose a question to the panel please click here. |
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Free Online Zoom Session on Individualised Funding |
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Wai Wānaka - Lakefront Cleanup |
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Upper Clutha Hockey
The UC Hockey Club 2024 season registrations are now open!
(until Monday 25th March)
It was worth the wait, season fees have been reduced this year! There is also a 50% deduction in annual fees for coaches and managers of teams.
Click here to register
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Upper Clutha Rugby Registrations |
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| Delicious, nutritious and popular with kids, Subway delivers school lunches every Friday. Order online at subwayexpress.co.nz by 9am. |
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