Week 6 newsletter for term 4!

We have a wonderful community here in Welcome Bay.  It is a richly diverse community, which is our greatest resource.  It is a rapidly growing and changing community, and one we can all contribute to becoming better all of the time, one we should be proud of.  This was highlighted during the weekend at the Steiner School fair, which is a wonderful annual event that brings our community together in such a positive way.  If you didn’t get there make sure to check it out next year, it is always a lovely occasion.

We have such a busy few weeks ahead before our term wraps up and this week is no different!  We have our Kapa haka Noho Marae on Tuesday and Wednesday, which provides an amazing opportunity for our children to make the final preparations for the Ra whakangahau event in week 7 held at St Mary’s School this year.  We always look forward to our Noho Marae as it is wonderful to see our tamariki make the most of the Marae environment and stand proud as they fine tune their performance.

We also have our Orange Day celebration for our Road Patrollers this Friday. This is an event run by the Police and provides an opportunity to thank our students for stepping up to take on the responsibility to be a road patroller for the year.  This means committing to this job all year rain, hail or shine.  Thanks kids for helping keep our kids safe in the mornings and afternoons.

As we rapidly head toward the end of the year we are extremely busy with a lot of end of year events, whilst also completing our students reports for the end of the year highlighting academic achievement and progress, as well as the other important aspects of a child’s life at school such as the arts, sports, social elements, cultural involvements, and general interest areas. A huge amount of time, effort, energy, and careful thought goes into this process including a wide range of assessment tasks to support achievement and progress decisions.  The reports will be sent home at the end of week 9 and we hope you enjoy the opportunity to talk through these with your child.

We are also looking at school structure and classes for 2017, a process that take a great deal of time, and careful thought. We take into account the needs of individual children and the way they relate to various teacher styles. We know which children work well together and those who do not. Each class is balanced as much as possible according to gender, age, ability, needs etc.  The collaborative model allows greater flexibility in terms of teacher student relationships with children having more than one opportunity to connect with a teacher who they can form a great learning relationship with for the year.  You will receive a letter at the end of the term with your child’s year level, Hub and teachers at the end of the term.  We will also provide opportunities for transitioning children prior to the end of the year to ease anxiety and support relationship development for the following year.

Junior Athletics day 🙂

Due to a number of clashes we have had to change the Junior athletics date to Tuesday 29th November.  This is another reminder to the note that was sent home last week, we are sorry for any inconveniences with the change of date.

Pool Key meeting

As mentioned previously, we have planned a meeting for all of those families wishing to utilise our school pool for the summer.  This meeting will be at 5pm on Wednesday 23rd November. It is the expectation of the Board of Trustees that if you would like a Pool Key you must attend this meeting.  Pool keys are leased out to our school community members for $55 each.

PTA News

Sausage Sizzle – Junior Athletics Days – Tuesday 29 November

Help Needed – Sausage Sizzles for Junior Athletics Days

PTA Meeting

Disco – Wednesday 30 November 2016 5:30-6:45pm

Remember to share with everyone you know about the newsletter format, we had a 50% open rate last week from 149 families and it would be great to grow this each week.  Remember you can access the newsletter via an email link or directly through our website via the “Our school information” drop down menu.

Have a great week.

Kindest regards,

Nik House – Principal