17th January 2012

Happy New Year to all our families, I hope you are managing to enjoy the summer break despite the weather being less than ideal.

The school has been a hive of activity over the break. Our caretaker Mr. Graveson has organised for new games to be painted on the concrete for the children to use during breaktimes, tomorrow our junior playground will be re-barked to improve safety for the children and Mr. McClean has been busy loading software onto new Ipads and laptops which the children will be able to use in their classrooms in the new term.

For any new families wanting to enrol their children, our school office will be open on the 2nd and 3rd of February with school starting for the children on the 7th. Come in and see our friendly office staff and we will organise class placements, stationery and uniforms.

I hope that the children enjoy the rest of the holidays, we look forward to welcoming them back on the 7th of February.

Reading Time With Geronimo Stilton

28th November

Geronimo Stilton was a special guest in our library and at assembly to finish off our bookfair with style. Our bookfair brought record sales once again which has contributed $1,800 worth of new books to our library. Thanks to everyone for their support with this event, it truly has a significant impact on our library catalogue and, more importantly, our kids.

Collette Lemon (School Librarian)

A very special visitor

16th November

The junior school children were very excited last week when Brian and Bobby came to visit. Brian and Bobby came to talk to the children about Keeping Themselves Safe. The children had to write to Bobby to let him know why it was important for him to visit our school and were thrilled when he chose to visit us. Remember to ask your children what important safety messages they learnt from Bobby.

Just for this Friday we have moved our assembly to 10.15am. If you are planning to come along please note the change of time.

31st October 2011

A tiring but rewarding day

All of the children had great fun either taking part in or watching Ag Day on Friday. Have a look at the middle school page for more photos from the day. Thank you to the organisers for making the day such a success.

25th October 2011

It has been a pleasure welcoming the children back to school today and it was great to see the sun. Just a reminder that Term 4 is a summer term so the children are expected to wear their hats to school. A newsletter will come home with the children tomorrow which will keep you up to date with all that’s happening this term. Please remember that we have our Agricultural Day on this Friday, if you have time come along and join us.

4th October

As we come to the end of the term, this is the perfect opportunity for us to look back at the achievements of our children. Our children have been highly successful on the sports field this term. The Year 5 and 6 netball, hockey and miniball teams all won their competitions at the North Cluster Sevens, with our Year 6 netball team going on to win first place and our hockey team and Year 5 netball teams winning third place at the Western Bay of Plenty tournament. Our hockey team also came 3^rd equal at the Tauranga Primary Schools’ tournament and two of our miniball teams took part in the Miniball World Cup held at the Mount. Last month we celebrated as Louie Campbell and Hanna Maloni went through to the regional speech finals from where Hanna went on to win third place in the Western Bay competition. Our movie crew won the New Zealand Transport Agency’s Movie Competition and are through to the second round of the Kid Witness News Competition where they are in to win a trip to Singapore. Other highlights for the term have been: our choir’s superb performance at Baycourt; two successful snow camps; a junior school trip to Rainbow Springs; the start of our new entrant class in Room 7 and a well-attended open afternoon focusing on children’s literacy skills.

We hope you have a great holiday with your children. The new term starts on 25th October.

30th September

Each year Mrs. Pheloung, one of our talented Reading Recovery teachers, records the progress of children who have turned 6. We currently have 70% of our children, as they turn 6, reading at or above the National Standard. This is a result to be really proud of especially as the National Standards are aspirational rather than showing the achievement of an average child. Since we started keeping Reading Recovery records in 2005 there has been a 33% increase in the number of children reading at the National Standard or above. I wanted to congratulate our Reading Recovery teachers (Jill Pheloung, Cathy McGeady and Helen Harrison) and to thank our parents who are encouraging the children with reading mileage at home. Together we are making a real difference to our children and setting them up for success.

30th September

Hanni Maloni went through to the Western Bay of Plenty Speech Finals last night. Hundreds of children from Te Puke, Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Katikati all took part in school and regional heats to get through to the finals. Hanna presented an excellent speech entitled “Are we to believe the TV?” We are very proud of Hanna who came third in the finals and represented our school fabulously. Well done Hanna.

26th September

Last week Louie Campbell and Hanna Maloni represented our school at the North Cluster Speech Finals held at Matahui Road School. We were very proud of both our speakers who gave very confident presentations in front of large groups of parents. Louie presented a highly entertaining and informative speech about the common cold. Hanna spoke about the power of advertising and how we can be manipulated by product placement. Although both children really showcased their talents, a special congratulations goes to Hanna. Hanna won the Year 6 speech final despite some very stiff competition. Hanna will now go forward to the Western Bay of Plenty Speech Finals at Maungatapu School this Thursday. This is an achievement to be proud of. Well done Hanna and good luck on Thursday.

16th September

Our Middle and Senior school children have worked very hard on their speeches over the last few weeks. The finals for the senior school were held on Wednesday and the winners were:

Year 5

1st Louie’s speech on the common cold

2nd Hunter N’s speech on apples

3rd Lucas D’s speech about farts!

Year 6

1st Hanna’s speech about advertisments

2nd Kristen’s speech about what is cool

3rd Ashley’s speech about gross facts

Congratulations to Louie and Hanna who go forward to the North Cluster Speech competition which will be held at Matahui Road School on Wednesday the 21st September at 6.30pm. Good luck guys!!!