| | | | | | IMPORTANT DATES
Term 3
Week 1
Dance Week
Wednesday 19th July - Parent Conferences for Rms 2, 7, 8, 13, 21 and 27
Week 2
Dance Week
Tuesday 25th July - Parent Information Evening on Writing - 7pm - Hall
Thursday 27th July - Pods 1, 3 and 7 Dance Performance 2.00pm - 2.50pm - Hall
Friday 28th July - NZ Playhouse Theatre Performance - Treasure Island
Friday 28th July - Pods 2, 6 and 8 Dance Performance 2.00pm - 2.50pm - Hall
Week 3
Wednesday 2nd August - Author Deano's Performance - 1.45pm
Friday 4th August - PTA Quiz Evening
Week 4
Monday 7th August - Board of Trustees Meeting - 5pm - Staffroom
Wednesday 9th August - Supporting Children with Anxiety - 7pm - Hall - info below
Thursday 10th August - Day 1 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 11th August - Tribe Afternoon
Week 5
Thursday 17th August - Day 2 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 18th August - Pod 3 Assembly - 2:15pm - Hall
Week 6
Thursday 24th August - Day 3 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Week 7
Tuesday 29th August - WPS Cross Country
Thursday 31st August - Day 4 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 1st September - Fathers Day Breakfast
Friday 1st September - Pod 8 Assembly - 2:15pm - Hall IMPORTANT NOTICES
Bus Standing Orders
Please confirm or update your bus standing order for Term 3 by contacting the office.
Parent Conferences Parent Conferences are Tuesday 18th July and Wednesday 19th July between 3:15 - 5.00pm for Rooms 2, 7, 13, 21 and 29.
PTA Quiz Evening Please get a team together and support this fundraiser - it will be a great fun night out. The PTA have organised some fantastic prizes now all is what is needed is your support. |
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Supporting Children with Anxiety |
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Snow Day Procedure If snow occurs overnight, a decision regarding school closure, or a delayed start, will be made in the morning – we will notify you by the following methods: Our school website – home page Bulk email Our School App If the school closes during the day due to snow, we will notify you via the methods above – please refrain from phoning the office. Buses will not run. Children can be collected and signed out from their classrooms where they will remain under the supervision of a teacher. If you are personally unable to collect your child, then other arrangements should be made for collection.
If a parent wishes to have someone that is recorded as an emergency contact collect their child, the pick up person should go to the classroom, provide identification (if not known to the teacher) and sign the child out.
Now is a good time to consider your emergency contacts – and ensure that the office has recorded the details of at least two people, living locally, who you trust to collect your child if the school closes due to snow. |
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Welcome Back to Term 3 Everyone A warm welcome to our 24 enrolments, particularly the 7 new entrants who started with teacher Ben Foster in Pod 2 yesterday. These 5 year olds looked so smart, and really cute in their school uniforms, as did Ben of course as he moves into a fulltime position in Pod 2 for the rest of the year. Welcome to Caroline Heathorn who is doing 2 days of teacher release this term for Kelly in Pod 6 on Thursdays and in Pod 2 on Tuesdays.
Welcome back to Mel Hewson who has returned part time from her maternity leave and is working every Friday as Megan's release teacher in Pod 4. Children ran into school yesterday, laughing, shouting and screaming pleased to be back with their mates and of course to get back into their learning as well, I hope. Welcome back to you all out there as well. The last couple of weeks of term 2 saw a lot of staff and student bugs hitting the school. Let's hope the holidays and the sunny days so far this term have rid us of those. Writing Workshop for Parents - Next Week Dr. MURRAY GADD 7-8pm TUESDAY 25th JULY
in our school hall
Dr Murray Gadd New Zealand's renowned guru in the teaching of writing to children has kindly agreed to hold a parent information session about children's writing and this is being held NEXT WEEK, Tuesday 25th July, at 7pm in our school hall. The session will be approximately 1.5 hours, Dr Gadd has said he will talk for no more than an hour and then parents can ask questions or can hang around and chat to him if they wish.
He will cover the following: The importance of writing/being a good writer for our children What our children need to be able to do as writers What we do at school to help students become good writers What parents can do at home to support the school-based work Murray spent a couple of months this year acting as a consultant on the teaching of writing in Scandinavia so is well known internationally as well as nationally as the go to person for educationalists and next Tuesday to our WPS parents as well. We hope this session is well supported by parents as Murray is doing this as part of the wonderful work he is doing with our students and teachers. Writing was the one curriculum area that was most adversely affected by Lockdowns and is the poorest performing foundational literacy out of the three, the other 2 being reading literacy and maths. Come along and see how you can help your child with their writing skills. Boys are most at risk in New Zealand at not performing at an age appropriate level in writing and this is an area where Dr Gadd has done a lot of research and is quite the expert. Our teachers are having an afterschool session with Murray on Monday 24th July, explicitly looking at strategies for teaching boys to write. We would love to have you join us next Tuesday. Let's see if we can get heaps of you there, as this is important even in the digital age! And Murray will tell you why. The Board of Trustees 'Strategic Direction Questionnaire' is Hitting your Inbox Tomorrow We would love to have everyone complete this questionnaire/survey as it gives us crucial information about where you, the parents, see the priorities for education for your own children at Wānaka Primary School. It won't take you long, around 10 questions to respond to. We usually only have 20% complete these, but we need more than this to give us a clear picture of what our parents see as important school learning. So to add a bit of a reward (I really mean bribe) to undertake this survey for us we will put everyone who completes the survey into a draw for a prize of a donated chrome book, Tribe points for your children's Tribe, and a brand new copy of the NZ Curriculum. This last one is my bit of levity - it would most likely put you off filling in our questionnaire. This survey will be emailed out to you tomorrow and will close off 10 days later on Friday 28th July. We will keep prompting you to complete this as we really need your input. Let's boogie...Let's dance - Hooray it's DANCE WEEK and it's back bigger then ever Mark, from Dance Curriculum is back and already pods know the first part of a brand new dance. We have Mark with us for two weeks this time so he can work in more depth with our children and so the performance of the dances will take place next week with Pod 1,3 and 7 performing on Thursday 27th July at 2 - 2.50pm and Pods 2, 6, and 8 performing on Friday 28th July at 2 - 2.50pm. We usually have every parent come along to these performances so make sure you make a note of the correct date and time and mark it in your diary.
Look at these fabulous children from Pod 6 strutting their stuff: Year 5 and 6 Pantomime Script readings started today for our Year 5 and 6 pantomime, called Star Warts, which will be performed in term 4. We will hold script readings for a couple of weeks and then allocate parts to those who turn up. These readings take place most lunchtimes with either Jennie and/or Wendy so encourage your child to come along if you think they would be interested in taking part. Highfield Visit A group of teachers from Highfields School in New South Wales, Australia, are visiting WPS this Thursday. They are spending a week in New Zealand, visiting schools in Christchurch and Wānaka. During their visit, they will be looking at our learning environment and how we use New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) in our classrooms.
Their focus is in the junior school area. Pod 2 and 4 (particularly Rooms 6, 15 and 16) have been working over Zoom with teachers from Wharenui school in Christchurch and Highfields, planning, sharing resources, and creating shared learning for all the children. The learning focus has been on native plants, animals, gardening, and the night sky, which relates to Pod 4’s recent studies around Matariki. This is a great opportunity for the students and staff, and we are looking forward to sharing knowledge and expertise with colleagues from across the ditch. Pod Focus for Deep Learning Pods are continuing with their Deep Learning and going deeper into different contexts. Below is a brief summary of what each Pod is focusing on, usually combining more than one learning area (such as science, the arts, social sciences, technology etc) in addition to the foundation literacies and PE and health. Pod 2 (NE/Yr1) are continuing to look at Citizenship. Their main focus is 'People Who Help' us in our community. Pod 4 (used to be Pod 3 - Yr 2) is focusing on communication this term. They will be looking at how to express feelings and communicate ideas through the Arts. Part of this will include using oral language for ‘Teach the teacher’ presentations, encouraging speaking and listening skills. Pod 1 (Yr 3/4) are continuing to make connections with themselves and our local environment, the main focus being 'Healthy Bodies and Minds'. How does our local physical environment draw people to Wānaka? And also making connections to healthy living. Pod 6 (Yr 3/4) after their creative arts focus last term, will move on to a more science-based theme this term, but still with an overarching creativity competency. Later in the term, they will begin looking at ngā rakau rongoā - traditional medicinal plants and traditional plant collecting. Pod 7 (Yr 5/6) are focusing on Science during Term 3. The students are familiarising themselves with the scientific method so they can present a science experiment of their own to the class. Pod 8 (Yr 5/6) is putting a science and performing arts focus on their Ko Wai Tatou this term. They are looking at music and dance from different cultures, and looking at our place within the universe. Property Developments - a continuing saga this year The interior painting of the admin block was completed over the holidays and you will see we have had a colour change. Thanks to Greg Booth, our colour consultant and to our painters, Carus. It smells and looks fresh.
The reclad of Pod 3 is well underway with Pod 5 near completion. Some of the lanterns (the structures with windows on top of our pods) were delayed due to a shortage of components and are being busily completed now. The recladding will definitely be finished by the end of term and hopefully the repainting of Pod 7's exterior as well. The irrigation and landscaping of gardens in the courtyard is well underway and looks so much neater and cared for, thanks to our landscapers Dave Spedding and Tyler Frenguelly. The Makerspaces are in their final design stage which seems to be full of red tape for the simplistic design we have resorted to, but hopefully this will be an affordable design. Pod 7 flooded on the first Friday of the holidays due to a ceiling sprinkler failure impacted by the frost we think. The fire brigade arrived as the alarms were activated and there was a serious amount of water flooding out of the teachers' office area in Pod 7. Luckily our wonderful carpet cleaners, Alpha Restoration, arrived promptly, sucked up excess water and then installed fans to dry out the ceiling cavity and the carpets. We have incurred a bit of damage with some of the joinery impacted but yet to show how much. The Ministry of Education property insurance kicks in to cover any work we need to do. Next job.... leaking roofing rectification At the end of term 2 our leaky roofs became more apparent with the rain, with drips and ceiling stains and flooding impacting on the hall, and some classrooms/toilet areas particularly. Problems with flashings seem to be the main cause of our leaky roofs. We have had leaks here and there over the last 13 years but they have certainly increased with all the extra, heavier rain we have been getting recently. A review of our roofs has been done and a reparation plan put in place. We are just waiting for final approval so we can get this work started. There is always something to do when you are a school principal even if it is not about teaching and learning!
Supporting Children with Anxiety Presentation
Anxiety in Children - Session for Parents Wednesday 9th August at the Wānaka Primary School Hall. Tickets for this valuable opportunity to listen to an expert on anxiety in children, and how you can support them, are now on sale at our school office. Get in fast as tickets are starting to go quickly. We have limited seats and as such door sales will be unlikely.
This anxiety presentation has been advertised in the media by Life Education Trust and has also been advertised in other schools' newsletters, so we are expecting a rush to purchase tickets in the next week or so - get yours now.
It is a live webinar with Cat Levine and there will be the possibility of questions at the end of the session if time allows. Here is the blurb that is being sent to the media by the Life Education Trust.
Life Education Heartland Otago Southland Presents: Nurturing Healthy Minds: Supporting Children with Anxiety
Life Education Trust Heartland Otago Southland is excited to announce the upcoming event, 'Nurturing Healthy Minds: Supporting Children with Anxiety,' taking place at Wānaka Primary School on Wednesday 9th August. This engaging and practical presentation is aimed at parents and caregivers, equipping them with valuable knowledge and strategies to support tamariki in managing anxiety. Life Education recognises the pressing issue of childhood anxiety amongst our tamariki and is taking proactive steps to address the issue - statistics reveal that anxiety significantly affects our tamariki, with an alarming 88% of local teachers identifying anxiety as an issue.
Worry and anxiety are common emotions experienced by tamariki, but when left unaddressed, they can affect their ability to enjoy and participate in life. As parents and caregivers, it is crucial for us to understand how to help our tamariki effectively manage their worries and recognise when and where to get help.
During this presentation, participants will have the opportunity to learn about the triggers of childhood anxiety, recognise the signs of anxiety, and gain practical insights on how to support tamariki in dealing with their worries and managing anxiety. The presentation will be delivered by Cat Levine, a highly regarded mental wellbeing educator, who brings 20 plus years of experience and expertise to guide parents and caregivers through this important topic.
Life Education NZ has collaborated with Anxiety NZ and Autism NZ to ensure that the content of this presentation is comprehensive and up-to-date. These reputable organisations have contributed their valuable insights to enhance the understanding of anxiety and its management.
Life Education Trust Heartland Otago Southland takes great pride in its longstanding and successful history of delivering the Healthy Harold programme to local primary and intermediate schools for the past 25 years. As the largest health education provider in schools, we have played a crucial role in promoting the well-being of tamariki throughout the region. We remain committed to empowering communities and making a positive difference in the lives of our tamariki. Join us in creating a nurturing environment that supports our tamariki to thrive and reach their full potential.
Event Details: Nurturing Healthy Minds: Supporting Children with Anxiety Date: Wednesday 9th August Time: 7pm Location: Wānaka Primary School Hall, 7 Ironside Drive, Wānaka. Cost: $5 per ticket (to cover presentation costs) For further information and registration, please contact: Wānaka Primary School Office: [email protected]
About Life Education Heartland Otago Southland: Life Education Heartland Otago Southland is a charitable trust dedicated to delivering the Healthy Harold programme across the heartland of Otago and Southland. Through our mobile classroom and community events, we aim to empower children, parents, caregivers, and communities to make informed decisions that positively impact children's lives. |
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2024 Mount Aspiring College Enrolments If your child will be attending Mount Aspiring College next year it is now time to confirm this by completing an enrolment form. Please click here to access the online enrolment form.
All online enrolments will be checked and MAC will get back to you if they have any questions. An acknowledgement will be sent to you in due course and further information regarding term dates etc will be emailed to you during Term 4.
For any queries please email [email protected]. |
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School Camps 2023 Confirmed Costs for Year 5 & 6 Camps
Payment details: Online to Wānaka Primary School Account No: 02-0673-0023784-001 OR Eftpos / cash at the office If there are challenges that would make payment for camps difficult, please come in and see, ring or email Wendy ([email protected]) or Lucy ([email protected]) as soon as possible. Payment can be made in instalments. More information will follow about each individual camp.
Please regularly check your emails. |
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Wānaka Primary Snow Sports Programme A reminder that registration for WPS Snow Sports Programme
CLOSES this FRIDAY, 21 July 2023.
If you are registering for the Snow Farm please contact the office by Friday as well.
Please ensure you have read all the information on the school website
and follow the link on this page to register your child(ren).
A reminder via text will happen every day this week.
Any queries can be emailed to Jason - [email protected] |
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PTA Kiwiana Quiz Get in quick to book your table of six. This could be a corporate table, a group of friends, or get a couple of tables together and compete against workmates!
Please pop into the office or call and reserve your table now. Also please feel free to contact Adele on [email protected] or through the facebook page.
Please have a team name ready when booking and use this as your reference when paying to the Wānaka Primary PTA account: 02-0673-0024330-00 |
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Scholastic Book Club GREAT NEWS Scholastic Loop Orders have arrived and will be distributed to the children this week. Scholastic apologises for the delays, it should all be back on schedule now.
Issue 5 Scholastic Loop Book Club catalogues are available from classrooms and there is a free book giveaway. If you wish to place an order, please follow the instructions on the inside back cover using Option 1 – Credit Card / LOOP. No cash / orders are accepted at school.
If your order is a gift, please tick the ‘GIFT’ option, otherwise all orders are handed out to the children. Orders will close at 9.00am Monday 31st July. |
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Library News
Click here to view our wonderful Library Webapp.
Feel free to email Melissa at any time if you have any questions.
Ebooks and Audio Books
The Wānaka Public Library has 2 fantastic Ebook Platforms which are highly recommended. All you need is a library membership which is free. Click on the image below to find out more and browse to see what is available:
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Contact for our local Public Health Nurse Pip McLean is our local Public Health Nurse - should you wish to get in contact with Pip her contact details are: 03 440 4309 or 0272 839 395 or email [email protected] |
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Wānaka Art Classes, Workshops and Events https://www.facebook.com/groups/1461301417972482
There are a lot of wonderful art classes, workshops, tuition and events in Wānaka. This new Facebook group is intended to be a one stop shop where you can see everything available for you at one glance.
If you're teaching art, crafts, dance, music, even sports, or anything along those lines, please pop along and list your offerings for all to see.
If you're interested in what is going on in the community, and might like to attend a class or event, this is for you too, join up at your leisure and keep up-to-date with the awesome things our community has access to. |
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Wānaka Warmth - MAC Enterprise
Primary School parents, are you worried about your kids keeping warm in Wānaka's harsh winter? Our pocket-sized wheat bags provide a convenient solution, portable warmth. Wānaka Warmth is a Level 1 enterprise group at Mount Aspiring College creating pocket-sized as well as our regular-sized wheat bags to keep you warm this winter and for many to come.
Pocket-sized wheat bags - $10, Regular-sized wheat bags - $25 If you are interested, please contact [email protected]. |
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MAC Fundraising for Exchange Trip to Spain |
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Fit Collective Athlete Development |
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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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