We hope you have all had a fun, refreshing and safe holiday! It seems to have flied by so quickly and we are already into the last term of the year.
This email will cover what's happening, events for the term and any hub reminders.
Welcome
We welcome Caitlyn, Riley and Shruthi tomorrow, and Jayden on Wednesday. During the term we have 6 more new entrants starting. This has us beginning the term with 68 children.
Teachers:
Demelza - full time in hub
Michael - full time in hub
Jeanelle - full time except every second Friday
Angela - teaching literacy in the first block and maths in the last block. Leadership release in the middle block.
Urs - teaching inquiry in our hub in the middle block
Beginning of Day Routines
As children come to school they need to hang their bags up, take their shoes off, bring their reading bags in and sign in on the touch screen. Children need to be at school by 8:50am so they have time to do this themselves and to greet their friends in the morning. Focused learning groups begin straight away at 9am.
End of Day Routines
We will have children packed up with shoes and jackets by 3pm ready to go home. To assist us please wait quietly when you come into the hub and leave space in the hallway for us to move around easily. Tidying up, packing up and giving notices to 68 children is much easier without noise in the background. We appreciate your help with this. Harakeke children to wait in the kowhai shared space please.
Inquiry
Our inquiry this term is ‘Living Joyfully with Diversity’. Within this theme we will be exploring different cultures and celebrations around the world. We will begin by exploring Kiwiana - common items or icons of Kiwi culture. We will then explore what life in New Zealand means for us as individuals; looking at our own family and history, and how this translates to life for us in New Zealand. We will share this with each other in the hub and look at the different cultures in our school. Students will then get the opportunity to choose an area of world culture to explore in more depth - possibly exploring their own culture or family background, or discovering more about another culture or a particular aspect of word culture that interests them. Our overall objectives within this inquiry involve creating a shared understanding of what culture means, understanding that there are many different cultures within our school and community, and understanding, accepting and celebrating the diversity that this brings. We are working towards this shared understanding manifesting itself in positive behaviour towards each other.
You can help with this at home by talking with your child/ren at home about their family history - where their family is from, languages, cultures, celebrations and religions within their family, family traditions or aspects that are important to your family. For students to begin to understand and accept different cultures, they first need a good understanding of their own family culture and history.
Literacy
Children will be using their matrices and assessment data to sign up to workshops appropriate to their individual needs. We will be focusing on report writing and integrating this into our inquiry learning.
Maths
This term focuses on Multiplication and Division. Basic facts and place value programmes will continue to run along side this.
moveMprove
There is no swimming this term, however we have signed up for a moveMprove programme. This is run by the same people who do our swimming lessons - Easyswim. The children will already be familiar with the instructors. Every Friday for the first eight weeks the instructors come to the hall and set up all their PE equipment. Children will be in 2 groups in the afternoon and will each be rotating through a number of PE/fitness/movement and strength activities. It combines many development skills the children of this age need and will be catered to their needs. You are welcome to come and have a look any Friday afternoon.
Events
Amesbury Athletics Day Monday 21 October Newtown Park 10am onwards Parents welcome
Labour Day - School Closed Monday 28 October No school
School Disco Friday 1 November School Hall Organise by Year 5/6 students, fundraising for
school camp
Amesbury Swimming Sports Thursday 8 November Tawa Pool 11am-1pm Parents welcome
Community Evening Thursday 14 November School Hall 5:45-7:15pm
End of Year Musical Celebration Monday 2 December School Hall 5:30-7pm This is in place of our learning celebration
Koru Overnight Camp Thursday 12 December El Rancho - Waikanae Parents needed - no limits to number of parents
School Report Wednesday 18 December National Standard Reports emailed No parent conferences this term
Last Day of School Wednesday 18 December
Camp
We will be taking all our Year 0-2 children on an overnight camp at El Rancho in Waikanae. This is not compulsory. We will have events such as swimming, beach, horse riding, flying fox, obstacle courses and more. There will be activities that the children choose from and sign up to - at different costs. The price is approximately $50 per child plus any extra costs depending on which activities children sign up to. Some are free and activities like horse riding cost. There is plenty of beds in bunk rooms so there is no limit to parents. However, it is unsuitable to bring other siblings. We will be sending out more information about this very shortly. We will also put the details on the website on a "School Camps" page under the "Our Information" tab.
Last Day of School Celebrations
On our last day - Wednesday 18 December, we will be meeting as a hub first. At 9:45am we will be having a prize giving ceremony in the hall and then travelling on buses to H2O extreme swimming pool in Upper Hutt. The children can go on the hydroslide and in the wave pool and we will be having our picnic lunch there. The school day will finish at 2pm. We will have children back to school by then. Parents are welcome to come to the prize giving and out to the pool with us. On the day let us know if you will be taking your child home with you in the car rather than them returning to school. There will be no cost for this.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact myself or your child's whanau teacher.
michael@amesbury.school.nz demelza@amesbury.school.nz jeanelle.ymker@amesbury.
We look forward to all the fun events this term and continuing working with you and your families.
Michael, Demelza, Jeanelle and Angela
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