Issue No 6, 28th June 2022 - Owairoa Primary School
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to our Owairoa “family” • Emma-Lyn De Villiers • Bella Dsouza • Izra Fatima • Layne Schrafft • Alexandria-Jade Wolken • Viv Austin • William Brooks • Damian Sen • Mikayla Riley Dear Parents and Caregivers Term Two is progressing quickly, with only one and a half weeks of Semester One remaining. I hope you and your family enjoyed celebrating New Zealand’s first Matariki Public Holiday, which is the last of our long holiday weekends now until Labour weekend in October. Last Thursday was also the last of our scheduled Teacher Only Days for 2022. The Ministry of Education allocated 8 school days over 3 years (2020-2022) for professional learning. We postponed two of our earlier scheduled Teacher Only Days due to Covid, so these two were our final catchup of the required allocation. It has been fantastic to see our staff and students settled into our new 18 classroom block over the past two weeks, with everyone fully engaged in their learning and enjoying this amazing new learning space. Preparations have begun for our official opening of this exciting new facility, which has been scheduled for September. More details of this milestone event will come home closer to the time, as well as information on our upcoming open day, where our school community will be invited to come and tour our brand new learning centre. We have been grateful to see action with the removal of the portacoms from our school field last week, which provided a lot of excitement and learning conversations for our students each day, as the big trucks disassembled and removed these temporary classrooms. Once the buildings have been cleared, the field will be reinstated. In Term Three, for the safety and wellbeing of our staff and students, we still wish to continue to restrict Parents from coming inside any classrooms and cloakbay areas during the winter months. We will closely monitor this mitigating precaution as the winter season progresses and reassess this decision on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, we thank you for your support of this decision, to keep our staff and students’ health and wellbeing as our top priority. I look forward to seeing many of you at our Parent Teacher Student Conferences scheduled for this week.
Parent Teacher Student Conferences We are looking forward to welcoming you to our Parent Teacher Student Conferences on Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30th June this week, to discuss how students are progressing, share some student achievement data and set goals. The Semester One School Reports will be issued at the conferences. If you haven’t booked a session with your child’s Teacher already, please follow the link below. We look forward to meeting with you www.schoolinterviews.co.nz (School Code: m4edd) Winter Wellness As winter approaches, I hope families continue to look after their health and wellbeing. Influenza rates in New Zealand have been very low in the last two years due to lockdowns and border closures, which means we don’t have strong natural immunity to the new virus strains. We have seen an increase in cold, flu, measles, mumps and vomiting bugs circulating in recent weeks, so we thank you for your diligence in keeping your children at home when they are sick. These dreaded bugs also have an impact on Teacher attendance. The resilience and flexibility of some staff and students has been put to the test in the past few weeks, as classes have been split across year levels when we are unable to secure relief staff to cover classes. We realise it is not always convenient to keep your children at home, but we appreciate your ongoing support on this, as this is definitely helping to keep the spread of winter bugs to a minimum. We continue to strongly encourage our staff and students to wear masks when indoors, and ask that all adults coming on our school site also wear a mask for the safety of our staff and students. While we appreciate it can be difficult to balance competing views about mask wearing, wearing a mask helps to protect us all against Covid-19 and other winter illnesses, which appear to be more prevalent this year. Please discuss the importance of mask wearing with your children and encourage them to wear a mask to protect themselves and others. Please continue to advise the school via email absent@owairoa.school.nz if your child has tested positive to Covid-19 or if they are having to isolate as a household contact. We continue to share case number information on our school Covid Notification page www.owairoa.school.nz/recent-news/covid-notification
Board Matters Our Board of Trustees has been pleased to see more activity in and around the school this Term, as our school has regained more use of the campus after the completion of our building works a few weeks ago. It has been exciting to watch over 450 students move into their permanent classrooms in the new two storey 18 classroom block after this long-awaited build has finally been completed. We were lucky not to suffer the delays and indignities of having to wait for gib board as so many projects currently are. The upcoming tri-annual Board of Trustees Elections in September will give interested Parents the opportunity to be nominated to join the Owairoa Primary School Board of Trustees. Elected Board members work in partnership with our school management to ensure our staff are sufficiently resourced to enable all of our students to achieve their potential. As a Board and school, we are committed to continuing on our journey of growth and learning of all of the students in our care. We look forward to having our Owairoa community engaged in this process. Bruce Howard, Chairperson Owairoa Primary School Board of Trustees Contacting Teachers via Email Given our recent move into the new classroom block, we believe now is a good time to transition from using classroom email addresses to using teacher email addresses. This will help to alleviate any confusion for parents during times when school staff and room changes occur. From this time onwards, if you wish to contact a member of our teaching staff via email, you can now use their staff email address which is in the format firstname.lastname@owairoa.school.nz. The list of teacher email addresses has been updated on the school website. The classroom email addresses you are currently using e.g. roomxx@student.owairoa.school.nz will be phased out in the first week of Term 3. Teachers will continue to monitor both email addresses up until this time. Please remember our teaching staff are busy teaching their students during the day, so they will not be checking their emails during class time. Staff will endeavour to reply to your emails within 48 hours. The best way to get a time-sensitive message to your child or child’s teacher, is to contact the school office by phoning 09 538 0060 or email officemanager@owairoa.school.nz, and our Office staff will pass the message on in a timely manner.
A Pop-up Music Exploration Playground at Owairoa Bang, Clink, Clank, Pitter-patter, Clap! These were the sounds that ignited smiles and lots of curiosity from our Year 1 and 2 students as they participated in ‘Play to YOUR Beat’ - a programme by Conscious Kids. ‘Play to YOUR Beat’ is all about inspiring the inner beat and rhythm present within us all. Their workshop draws on links to the NZ curriculum, in particular the learning areas of science, maths, technology, social sciences, and music to develop problem-solving skills and resilience. The team came to our school with a plentiful range of instrument materials that were once destined for landfills. Pipes, pots, pans, spoons, marbles, plastic, and brooms were just some of the things used to create a pop-up music exploration playground for our students! In this playground of sound, students learnt to reuse and re- purpose materials and explored rhythm to create their own unique beats and songs. Some students made a beat to a story, some even made up their own bands! After creating music with the materials, our Owairoa composers had the opportunity to share their compositions with their peers. New Zealand’s future Musicians are here making creative beats and rhythms in the G-block classrooms at Owairoa Primary School.
Play To Your Beat Yesterday after morning tea, I went to Play To Your Beat programme. I was with my friends and my classroom. I was at G4. I went there because I was listening to sounds. I made a drum set. By Isla Ellingworth R12 Play To Your Beat Yesterday after morning tea we participated in the Play To Your Beat programme. We went with our friends, our teacher, Room 12 and Room 13. The class went to Room G4. All of us went to make sounds and play musical instruments. I made a drum set out of a plastic bottle, a pot and a pot lid. By Tanzeel Jimoh R12 Play To Your Beat Yesterday from eleven thirty to twelve thirty was Play To Your Beat. I went with my class. That was in Room G4. We went there to make sounds and play instruments. All of the children played instruments and games. By Katie Yin R12
‘Camp Owairoa’ When Mrs Green and her students got news that their move to the new block would be delayed slightly, they decided to turn it into a unique and memorable experience, spending their last three days in B2 as ‘Camp Owairoa’. They spent their learning time writing stories, creating comic strips, finishing their weekly Spelling Rules activities, and completing their Maths strand (measurement) by measuring the variety of sticks they collected for their toasted marshmallows. They even participated in Oral Language activities by telling stories around their campfire. While the last minute delay was not ideal, we are grateful to our creative teaching team, taking the challenge in their stride and continuing to offer quality learning for our students as always. We were pleased to receive some positive feedback from one of the Parents, who wrote: “I just wanted to contact the school to touch on the subject of the new block delays. Yes I agree it is not ideal but in my view - this is life! Nothing ever always goes a 100% to plan. It teaches kids that there are bumps in the road, there are delays and things don’t always go to plan. What is important is how we handle it and deal with a situation when plans get delayed or derailed. It’s important for kids to know that sure, this has not gone to plan so now we need to think outside the box. It’s a great life lesson. I want to commend Mrs Green for the way she personally has handled the situation in her class. She has been so wonderful, turning the classroom into a “camp” site with make believe fire and roasting marshmallows and turning this into a learning opportunity making it a maths exercise. How much fun! The main thing is, our kids are safe, our kids are happy, and our kids are in a unique situation along with the teachers. It’s not the end of the world having a week delay, and the trade-off is pretty amazing, a wonderful brand-new school block with state of the art facilities. How lucky and blessed are they? “
Samoan Language Week This years ‘Samoan Language Week’ (29 May - 4 June 2022) was the 12th anniversary of celebrating Samoan Language week in New Zealand and marked the 60th anniversary of Samoan independence. A range of activities and events were held throughout New Zealand to commemorate this special time for our Samoan community. Samoan Language Week was an awesome week for our Owairoa learners. They learnt basic Samoan phrases, listened to Samoan stories, learnt about the Samoan culture and created beautiful cultural art pieces. The focus for Samoan Language week this year was that of “sustainability” amongst the Samoan peoples. The concept includes Ecological sustainability, right through to Samoan Language sustainability. Room NB5 learnt about Siapo, also known as tapa. Siapo is one of the oldest Samoan cultural art forms. The learners sketched the patterns “Wavy lines and Trochus Shell”. They used a pencil to sketch the pattern, then went over the pencil with vivid and coloured the patterns in with pastels. The students thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Samoan culture, especially creating the Siapo art. Board of Trustees Election 2022 Our School Board of Trustees Elections will take place on Wednesday 7 September, when our school will undertake a parent election of five members for our School Board of Trustees. This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver community. We have employed Canterbury Education Services (CES) as our Returning Officer, to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with legislative change, our nomination form and full instruction on how to place your nomination into our own School’s Election website will be emailed to you if we have your email address in our database, or you will receive it by post if we don’t have your email in our database. Nomination papers will also be available at the school office. The school will send those on to CES for processing upon receipt from candidates. We invite existing and new prospective Board members to apply for a formal nomination, which will be called for in July. We look forward to your participation in this process
Celebrating Matariki Mānawa maiea te putanga o Matariki Celebrate the rising of Matariki Mānawa maiea te ariki o te rangi Celebrate the rising of the lord of the heavens Mānawa maiea te Mātahi o te tau Celebrate the rising of the New Year Matariki hunga nui Matariki, a time to come together Matariki ahunga nui Matariki, a time of bounty Matariki manako nui Matariki, a time of aspiration Matariki is a special occasion in the New Zealand calendar which marks the start of the Māori New Year. Matariki often coincides with the winter solstice, which brings us the shortest day of the year. Signified by the Matariki cluster of stars (the Pleiades or Seven Sisters) reappearing in our night sky, this is a time to reflect on the past year, celebrate the present, and plan for the year ahead. Matariki is a time for communities to come together and celebrate. The students across all levels of our school have been busy learning about the importance of Matariki, with much of this learning being done through stories, songs and art. Our students have enjoyed learning about the names of the stars in the cluster through a fun waiata called “Matariki Macarena”, reading myths and creating some fun Matariki themed artwork. This year marked the first ever year that we as a country celebrated Matariki, with a Public holiday last Friday 24th June.
School Uniform Price Increase We have been informed from our school uniform supplier, Argyle Schoolwear, that some uniform items will see a slight price increase, as from 1 July 2022. The Managing Director explained… “You will no doubt have read in the media or generally heard about the supply chain challenges and extended shipping timeframes, that continue to impact all New Zealand businesses. Over the past six months we needed to air freight significant quantities of stock from our offshore manufacturers to ensure we had adequate School uniform on hand, for all our customers” “Shipping costs are currently 5 times what they were two years ago, and shipping times are two to three times longer. Container shortages, limited or lack of vessels and all manner of Port delays continue to fuel this situation. Whenever we air freight a garment, we effectively sell it at a loss. For the past year our total airfreight bill was 10 times that of a year ago, a situation that is clearly not sustainable.” “I thank you for your understanding and for you continued support during these challenging times.” School Uniforms can be purchased online via the following link: www.owairoa.school.nz/parents/uniform/ Argyle Schoolwear currently have good stock levels for all of our school uniform items. Orders are processed and delivered within 2-3 days. Elliot Street Road Safety Keeping our students safe around our school is always a priority for us, especially during daily drop-offs and pick-ups when traffic congestion is significant. Our Road Patrol on Elliot Street is fully operational again, now that our Elliot Street gate to the school is no longer part of the construction zone. With this entrance to the school reopening, we ask that Parents use the school pedestrian crossing. Many people have reported that families are crossing directly opposite Bludell Park and not setting a good example of using the school road patrol. It is also a timely reminder for Parents to practice good road safety etiquette: • please do not stop on the yellow lines to drop off or pick up your children • avoid parking across driveways when dropping your child off or picking them up • it is safest for your child to get out of the vehicle on the footpath side, not the roadside • the official speed limit around schools is 40km from 8.20am – 9am Road rules around schools are designed are to keep our children, you and others protected. Please appreciate it is a community effort to help keep everyone safe.
Inter-School Chess Success Congratulations goes to two of our Owairoa Primary School students, Isaac Lobo and Vincent Zhang, who participated in the 2022 Interschool Chess Championship last week. Both students played very well during the tournament, resulting in our Owairoa team ranking 35th out of the 48 participating teams at this year’s event. Vincent won 4 of his 6 games, which is an outstanding result considering his age (Year 1). Isaac won all his 6 games and received a special certificate for winning top player on Board One. Special thanks to Mr and Mrs Lobo for their support and coaching of our team at the Chess Tournament. Winter Harvesting of our Owairoa Crops Fruit picking is back in season, and we have a bunch of keen and excited students wanting to help harvest the delicious fruit that we grow on-site. When the weather permits, we will be heading out to check on our trees, care for them and collect any fruit that is ready. We have been lucky enough to get out and harvest some fruit and distribute them to classes, the staff and the Patakakai this term. Please remember to help yourself to some freshly grown fruit when it is available in our Patakakai Community Pantry, located by the schools letterbox on Nelson Street. The correct way to harvest fruit: - check that the fruit is ripe on all sides (little to no green) - hold the stem of the plant near the fruit, hold the fruit and twist it until it pops off the plant with ease. Our fruit pickers are very keen to help keep our schools Green Gold Environmental status and will be experts at picking ripe and ready fruit in no time! Delicious!
Mentoring the Future Leaders of Aotearoa Our 2022 House Leaders had the opportunity to participate in a day long leadership mentoring programme called The 8 Great Habits. The sixteen learners were able to spend their day with Mr Garth Collings, a long-time Owairoa friend and mentor, for this special event before his well-deserved retirement. Mr Collings has had a long association with our school, serving on our Board of Trustees, being a Parent and now Grandparent of the school, and training our young leaders for a number of years. This programme has been formulated for our newly appointed House Leaders and Deputy House Leaders, which aims to coach the students for their new leadership roles at Owairoa. It guides them through hands on and engaging activities to help equip them with the skills to navigate their way through life. The Eight Great Habits Course equips our young leaders to: • get control of their lives • improve relationships with friends • make smarter decisions • get along with parents and caregivers • overcome bad habits • define values and what matters most to them • get more done in less time • increase self confidence • be happy • find balance between school, work, friends and everything else At the end of the day, students then use their new knowledge to make a speech to the rest of the House Leaders, as well as Mr McIntyre and Mrs Bull about what they learnt that day, the habit they need to work on, how the new learning will help them at school and home, along with developing a personal mission statement that they can refer to in the future. Owairoa Primary School wishes to extend our huge amount of gratitude for Mr Collings for all he has done for our school and for the House Leaders over the years and wish him a wonderful, relaxing retirement!
Launchpad Champions Launchpad is a not-for-profit organisation that presents a Christian Values Education programme at our school, under the name Launchpad Champions. Our Launchpad Champions programme is offered to Year 2 – Year 6 students for 30 minutes a week. The programme encourages students to make positive life choices and grow their sense of mana, self-worth and character. The programme is delivered in a fun and interactive manner. The Launchpad Champions programme teaches students things like: • What it means to be a good friend • Self-control • Being brave and doing the right thing • Respect • Making good choices • Doing your best and helping others • Forgiveness • Self-discipline and perseverance • Working together and partnerships We live in a multicultural nation with many different world-views. Every student, no matter their views, upbringing or religion, is welcome to join in the class. In our programmes, every child is affirmed and encouraged. Please email the school if you do not wish for your child to participate in the programme. Email your response to officemanager@owairoa.school.nz The first Launchpad Champion session will start on Wednesday 27th July.
Board of Trustees Spotlight Our school is fortunate to be governed by a very supportive Board of Trustees who are committed to ensuring that the best possible learning opportunities are available to the students of Owairoa Primary School, each of whom have given great service to our school over a number of years. Shaun Rice, Health and Safety / Policy Management My name is Shaun Rice and I am a parent and long-time supporter of the school. I grew up and had my schooling locally and have lived in the area for the best part of the last 40+ years. I’m married to Kirsty and our three children have or are attending Owairoa Primary School. The school has for many years been an important part of the local community. The family-type atmosphere that exists here and the healthy state of the school is not only a credit to the staff and management of the school, but testament to the strong support they receive from the Board of Trustees and the local community. The school continues to make great strides in meeting the needs of its staff, students and the school curriculum and is constantly looking to evolve to cater for the changing needs of the local community. I would certainly like to see this continue to happen, as I see it as crucial with ensuring Owairoa Primary School remains the great successful school that it is and should always be. I encourage and support participation in sport, cultural and other extra-curricular activities for all students from Owairoa Primary School. I believe that through involvement in extra-curricular activities, children develop important social skills and values which will benefit them as they grow and progress through their learning journey. For the last two decades I have worked at the Auckland Botanic Gardens in Manurewa. During this time, I’ve been able to see first-hand how sustainability and interacting with the natural and physical environment are an essential part of the education of young people. In my current role, my responsibilities include overseeing the training of staff and co-ordinating health and safety on-site. With my skills, knowledge and experience accrued through my work, I want to help ensure that Owairoa Primary School continues to remain a safe place for both staff, children and their families to work, study and play in. Given my work experience in horticulture and tertiary background in environment management, it is really pleasing to see the progress Owairoa has made in the Enviroschools programme. This is also something I’d be particularly keen to develop further within the school. I would like to ensure that the staff continue to have the support and access to the resources they need, to provide the best classroom and outdoor learning environment possible for all children at the school.
HOUSE LEADERS-Spotlight Scarlett Hogg – House Leader of Tainui House My name is Scarlett Hogg and I am in Room 25. I am a Tainui House Leader. I am 10 years old and l will be 11 in September. The things I like to do most are play Netball, paint and go on family trips. I enjoy talking to and spending time with my friends. The greatest thing about the Number 1 school (Owairoa Primary) is that we all follow the RISE values. If there are any problems on the playground, the other House Leaders and I are happy to help you. I enjoy the company of others and seeing good things happening to other children because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that brightens my day. Owairoa has offered me many positive opportunities. I really enjoyed learning how to sail in Year 5. I hope we do it again this year. I love that at Owairoa we all try our best with everything we do! That’s why Owairoa is the best school in the world. I feel very special that I get to be a House Leader at Owairoa. My advice for other students is to never give up on your goals and to work as hard as you can to achieve them. My goal this year is to get Tainui to win the House Shield. Leo Taka – House Leader of Tainui House My name is Leo Taka and I am 10 years old. Something special about me is that I wear hearing aids. I love to play cricket in the summer and football in the winter. I also enjoy horse riding with my Mum and playing squash with my Dad. My favourite books are the Harry Potter ones and I also really like watching the movies. The thing I love most about Owairoa is all the cool things we get to do like sailing and sport trips. I think all of my teachers have been fantastic too. There are lots of great memories like our christmas concerts and a trip to Kelly Tarltons, but my favourite memories are of playing other schools in sport. My advice to other students is if you are struggling with something, keep trying because you can do it. I am looking forward to representing Tainui house this year.
School Blog Update Junior School Blog Bang! Clap! Boom! The Year 1’s have been loving Science this term as we explore the topic of sound! We have had the opportunity to see and feel sound waves in action though a range of hands-on activities and used instruments and movement to create different sounds. Room 9 loved the activity which involved salt, a speaker and a clear drum! When Mrs Farid played music through the speaker, the drum vibrated which caused the salt to move or as Room 9 put it… dance. We look forward to seeing what other awesome activities this term will bring in the Science room. Middle School Blog Our Year 4 students have been studying electrical circuits and all Sparking our Learning things electrical. We know the difference between mains electricity and electricity from a battery. We know also that electricity is generated. The learners in the photo are in our specialist science room. They made a circuit and were learning how to add a switch to the circuit to turn a bulb off and on. We also learned about which materials are conductors and which are insulators. Students worked in twos and threes, so collaboration and team work were paramount. Great communication skills were important too. Our students took in new information and science knowledge and acquired new skills. Important if you want to be a science genius at high school! Senior School Blog Books, Books Term 2 in the Senior School began with a focus on the lifelong skill of reading. In Y5/6, students are expected to use their reading skills within and More Books every lesson and across all learning areas. Teachers concentrate on different ways to assist learners to: think critically, answer questions, express opinions, improve reading comprehension, generally read more … and hopefully enjoy it. This term some students have committed to a Literacy Pro rotation. Students do an online quiz which determines their reading level. Then they read and read and read! After writing a book review and taking a quiz on each book, they get to enjoy choosing another one to delve into. After 4 weeks, learners take a final quiz. So far, many students have improved their scores, which means prioritising reading shows results. Classes have also set up Reading Challenges during Term 2, encouraging students to read widely. Seniors have hunted for books that they might not usually select to read, finding these at home, at school, in the library or online. By challenging themselves to tackle different books, students have stretched their knowledge and vocabulary. Many have found new genres to enjoy reading within. Some students have worked with teachers to set themselves goals. Classes have set rewards to be collected at the end of Term 2. Celebrating each other’s progress is the aim. Finding creative and interesting places to read has been fun. Reading here, reading there, reading everywhere! So, keep a look out, you might find that someone has found a spot to sit or rest with a good book, one they simply cannot put down.
Blanket Appeal Success We received a note of thanks from the President of the Rotary Club of Howick, thanking our school community for supporting their recent ‘Blankets 4 Kids 4 Winter’ appeal. With your support, this year they collected over 1,500 quality blankets. “This is a record number and well worth the effort. We have had great support from the community which will have such a positive impact on so many families this winter” As well as distributing to the three local charities, All Saints, Our Lady Star of the Sea and STAND, they also sent 200+ cot blankets to Littlemore, an organisation that supports maternity and family wards at Middlemore. Absence Notification Our SkoolBag App is the best way for our parents and school community to stay up- to-date with school notices, newsletters If your child is going to be absent or late to and communications. school, please email our office on absent@owairoa.school.nz You can get started or notify us via the Skoolbag App, to ensure all with Skoolbag in absences and lateness are recorded accurately. only a few minutes. Simply download the Skoolbag App from the App Store or Google Play Store, create an account and then add Owairoa Primary School. June 1-8pm 29 Parent Teacher Conferences Students dismissed at 12.3 0pm 30 Parent Teacher Conferences July 8 End of Term Two 25 Term Three Begins 26 Board of Trustees Meeting 7pm 27 Launchpad Classes Start August With kind regards Seasons Programme Starts 3 from your “family” Alan McIntyre PRINCIPAL
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