Term 2, Week 8: Friday 21 June
Kia ora koutou, Mānuka whānau, Congratulations Christina! We are excited to announce that Christina has recently won a position as an Across School Teacher with our Kāhui Ako (Rolleston cluster of schools). This means that Christina will be working with teachers across our network of schools, and will be released from our Mānuka community on Thursdays and Fridays beginning Term 3. You may have seen our advert on Facebook for a 0.4 teacher to cover this time. We will let you know when an appointment has been made. This is an amazing opportunity for Christina and we wish her well. Manuka Survey We have created a survey to gather feedback in regards to our Manuka Information evening. Your responses are anonymous, and the survey will take approximately five minutes to complete. Your responses will help us with our planning of future events, and our general communication with parents. Please make sure you have your say by visiting the survey here. Learning Conferences Last week your child’s goal sheet came home in their bookbags. We have been working on these at school and hope that you are working on them at home also. Toys at school We are having persistent issues with children bringing toys to school from home. This leads to disputes, off-task behaviour and unhappy children and teachers. Please do not allow your child to bring toys to school from now on. For those boys who are bringing little vehicles, we have plenty of school ones to play with at Learning Through Play time. If your child brings home a toy that is not his or hers, please return it to school. Winter Coughs and Colds We are at that time of year when there are lots of bugs flying around. We would really appreciate you keeping your child at home if they are unwell to try and contain the spread of colds etc. Please remember to phone the WMS office if your child is going to be away from school on a particular day. We hope that you have an enjoyable and safe weekend - only two weeks to go! Ngā mhi nui, The Mānuka Team Term 2, Week 6: Friday 7 June Kia ora koutou, Mānuka whānau, Learning Conferences Last week we had our Student Led Conferences on Thursday afternoon/evening and Friday. Thank you for coming along with your child/children to see how they are progressing and to set future goals, we really appreciate your time and energy for this important part of our term. A copy of your child’s goals and agreed actions to support these goals will be coming home at the end of week 7 so look out for these! Our Mānuka Blog You will see a new page on our blog with a copy of the presentation that we gave to whānau at our Parent Information Evening on the 21st of May. As well as the presentation, there are the questions and answers that we covered and a link to a survey about our information evening. Thank you to those parents that were able to attend this evening. Wet day activities at lunchtime With winter well and truly making its presence known this week we are once again thinking about how we can best support the children in our community on days when outside play is not possible during morning tea and lunch breaks. A number of teachers are running activities that your child can take part in this term when it is raining and details of those will be shared with your child in the coming days. Toys at school We are having persistent issues with children bringing toys to school from home. This leads to disputes, off-task behaviour and unhappy children and teachers. Please do not allow your child to bring toys to school from now on. For those boys who are bringing little vehicles, we have plenty of school ones to play with at Learning Through Play time. If your child brings home a toy that is not his or hers, please return it to school. Winter Coughs and Colds We are at that time of year when there are lots of bugs flying around. We would really appreciate you keeping your child at home if they are unwell to try and contain the spread of colds etc. Please remember to phone the WMS office if your child is going to be away from school on a particular day. Something we found interesting A lot of our learners set themselves an ICE DRIVER goal of increasing their resilience in our recent conferences. This is a really important skill for children to have and therefore we have decided to have a ‘Discovery Friday’ all about resilience to support this goal. In the meantime the team have recently read an article that we thought you may find interesting, please see the link below if you would like to read it too. https://deeprootsathome.com/kids-friendless-bored-impatient/?fbclid=IwAR2szuuL_0Dwh1c3zKxuTi4Swo_H0Nj7TpAes_M_h3V_poXwQp_d2X9rAMg We hope that you have a relaxing weekend and stay warm! Ngā mhi nui, The Mānuka Team
1 Comment
Kia ora koutou, Mānuka whānau,
We are at the end of Week 4 already - wow! Mānuka Parents’ Meeting Thank you for the parents who attended the information evening in Mānuka. We will attach the powerpoint to our blog for those who were unable to make it. Reading books If you have any reading books, please send them with your child in their reading packets. We are looking at doing an audit of all of our books next week. Tote boxes After having a look around the community we have noticed that the tote boxes that the Year 3’s had carried on from last year are rather redundant this year as our books are being kept in a class set with the teacher. If your child has nothing in them, they will bring them home for you to put them in a safe space for future years. Pizza Wheels Keep up the great work with your pizza wheels! Once you have filled in your pizza wheel, we can sign them off and then on Friday we will stamp them all and return them to you for the weekend. If you need new ones come and see us and, we can give you a new one. Moira Moira is on leave for a very exciting reason! She is celebrating her family receiving a Century Farm Award in Lawrence. Coming up… In the next few weeks we have a lot on On Wednesday 29 May there is a national teachers strike, this will mean that the school will be closed. During the afternoon and evening of Thursday 30 May and during the day of Friday 31 May we will be meeting with you all and your children to share their learning and set new goals at Student-Led Conferences. We are really looking forward to seeing you all and have the students share their learning with you. Please note that because the teachers will be involved in Student-Led Conferences on Friday there will be no formal instruction, we ask that your children only attend conferences that day. Today a copy of their goal sheets and their reflections went home - keep an eye out. Monday 3 June - Queens Birthday (no school) Kia ora koutou, Mānuka whānau,
You are reading the first KIT notice for Term 2 - welcome back to another term in Mānuka! Mānuka Parents’ Meeting We invite you to attend an information evening for all Mānuka parents, to be held on Tuesday 21 May, from 6.30-8pm, upstairs in Mānuka. We look forward to sharing with how we are teaching and learning in Mānuka, and answer any questions you may have. We would love to see as many of you along as possible. Look out for your personal invitation in your child’s bag one day next week. We will be covering relationships, our learning, a typical day in our community and learning support programmes. If you have any further suggestions please email [email protected] early next week, before we frame up the evening’s programme. Cross Country Thankfully the weather was kind enough (just!) for our cross country to go ahead on Monday. We are so proud of the effort and persistence shown by our Mānuka learners as they competed in the school cross country this year. The children challenged themselves to be the best they could be and they did so well! It was particularly a bit step up for the Year 3s, with the long run down to the silo and back. NZ Playhouse Theatre Today we had an excellent performance of The Tortoise and the Hare from the New Zealand Playhouse Theatre, but this one was quite different from the original. The children were all very engaged and participated enthusiastically and we spent much of the day engaged in follow up activities, including making maps, making puppets, creating diaramas and masks. Ask your child what their favourite part of the performance was! Toys at school Bringing toys to school has become an ongoing issue for some of our learners, leading to disputes, of-task behaviour and unhappy children and teachers. Please do not allow your child to bring toys to school from now on. For those boys who are bringing little vehicles, we have plenty of school ones to play with at Learning Through Play time. If your child brings home a toy that is not his or hers, please return it to school. Miss Day Poor Miss Day has been off work sick most of this week. We look forward to her returning well and rested next week. WMI Open Evening The West Melton Intermediate will be holding their open evening on Tuesday 11th June. This evening will introduce prospective students to the WMI programme, the teaching team and existing and past students, and will explain the numerous exciting opportunities that WMI offers our students. There will be two meetings and you are welcome to attend either. Younger siblings are also welcome.
Pink Shirt Day Next Friday, the school is holding Pink Shirt Day, and annual event to profile bully free workplaces and schools. There will be more information about this, but the idea is to wear pink. The Student Exec will be running some activities. There will also be the term’s first Celebration of Learning next Friday, and the Pink Shirt theme is sure to feature there. PUMs This past week, teachers across the school have attended Paid Union Meetings to discuss our pay claim and vote. Thank you for your support, as we work to gain better recognition for teachers and better resourcing for our learners. NPDL filming This Monday afternoon there will be a film crew onsite at school from Core Education filming about play and deeper learning at West Melton School. They may be filming in the Mānuka community and, if so, children would be in the background of these shots. If you do not wish your child to be recorded, please email [email protected] Knitting We have a keen group of beginner knitters learning the ropes. If you have wool or needles to spare (size 5ml or bigger) please send them along to Mānuka. Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday to all you wonderful mothers out there! The Mānuka Community teachers Kia ora koutou, Mānuka whānau, Wow - just like that it's nearly the end of Term 1! And what a busy term it's been. We've got one week to go before we can all have a well-earned rest, and enjoy the odd sleep-in or pyjama day. Duathlon We were all slightly saddened by the cold and damp conditions this morning! This means that our duathlon as planned for today has been postponed until next Thursday. Fingers crossed the conditions are much better then! Those parents who had indicated they were available to help, could you please confirm your availability for Thursday by emailing Mrs Hawkins: anita. [email protected] Gumboot and pyjama day While it was less than ideal 'duathlon' weather, it was perfect for gumboots, pyjamas and onesies! We all looked amazing, were snug and warm, and spent the day singing 'The Gumboot Song' and discussing things that make us feel happy. West Melton Country Fete
Our very sincere thanks to you all for your generous contributions towards our 'Go Fish' game at last week's Fete. And an extra special 'thank you' to those parents who generously gave their time to help run our game, or to make fruit ice creams. We hope you all enjoyed the day as much as we did! Thank you, farewell, and welcome We'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the mahi that Bree has done over the last four weeks (and next week on her final week). Bree (Miss O) has proven herself to be a kind, patient, caring and extremely capable teacher. Our mānuka learners have loved working with Miss O, and our mānuka teachers have valued Bree's contribution to our teaching team. We're not sure how we'll cope next term, Bree, without you, and wish you all the very best as you complete the last few months of your studies. Next term we'll be welcoming Adrienne Gardiner, a Post-Grad student from the University of Canterbury. Adrienne will start at the beginning of Week 2, and will be with us for seven weeks. She will be working across our Mānuka space, under the guidance of Anita. Please come and make yourself known to Adrienne, and welcome her to our learning community. Review of Term 1 Our Mānuka teachers have been meeting this week to discuss learning and our timetable for Term 1, and to make some small tweaks and changes in preparation for Term 2. There will be small changes around our library day and time, that we will communicate in our first K.I.T. notice of next term. There will also be a change to our Fab Five time, which will move to alternate Thursday mornings (from 9 - 12.30). There will also be some minor changes to reading groupings, and your child may read with a different teacher next term. Boxes for construction Please start saving your empty packets and boxes for us! We'd love these for construction in the morning - cereal boxes, muesli bar boxes, cardboard tubes from baking paper etc would all be fantastic! (No toilet rolls, please). And that's everything! Our thanks for your continued support over the term. It's been a great start to the year. We wish you all a happy, safe and relaxing break (at the end of next week!), and we look forward to catching up in Term 2! Kia pai tō mutunga wiki, Moira, Libby, Anita, Leanne, Christina & Bree [email protected] Tēnā koutou parents and whanau, We have had a busy week in Mānuka this week. Swimming is finished as the temperature continues to cool, and we have started WordLab in the afternoons. WordLab is our school phonics/ spelling programme that focuses on learning common ‘chunks’ of words. We will be putting up a list of Essential Words on our Weebly if you would like to continue spelling homework with your child at home. These words are just for you and your child to work through at your leisure and will not be prescribed from your child’s pod teacher. Kindness Friday Today we had a school wide focus on kindness after the sad events of last Friday. The day was a great success with students participating in kindness activities in our Mānuka community in the morning including making paper chain and hearts that you will see on our school fence this afternoon. This afternoon we had a school karakia, sung the National Anthem, had a moment of silence, school waiata and haka. We then practised kindness further with our whanau groups which was run by our whanau leaders. Rather than collecting money this mufti day, we asked our greater West Melton community to, if they could, donate to the Give-a-little page that has been set up for the families affected by last Friday. Thank you to all of you who have been able to donate. Here is the link again if you lost the email: givealittle.co.nz HYGIENE: Please be aware that there have been many different tummy-bugs doing the rounds through school at the moment. Continue to teach your child good hygiene routines to hopefully stop this spread. If your child is unwell, please keep them at home so they don’t spread their germs throughout the school. FETE: The Fete is rapidly approaching! We are sure you already have marked the 31st March in your diaries and Google Calendars. Prizes: We desperately need more prizes for our “fishing game”. Boys/ girl gifts between $1-$5 would be perfect. Please send in a gift or two to help us raise money - it’s only one week away! Also, we need a paddling pool for our game, if you have one we can borrow please let your child's pod teacher know! Sign up: to successfully run our two fundraisers we need your help. Neither require previous experience, just a smile and a willingness to have fun on Sunday. Please email [email protected] if you are able to help with any of these time slots. (Photo below) PLAY: Some students have started bringing toys from home to use during play in the mornings. As a teaching team, we are happy to leave this to your parental discretion. Equipment can be brought to school for play or running workshops, however we will not take responsibility for lost, stolen or broken property. Please discuss these risks with your child if you choose to send toys to school. Please make your children aware that this equipment is NOT to be played with at break times; it is for supervised in-class-time Learning Through Play sessions only. We would also love some cardboard boxes that can be used for creating different things. Cereal boxes are best for this as they are easy to cut with our little scissors. Any boxes can be placed by the sink. Thank you! SCIENCE: As I am sure you know Mānuka have been participating in Science with Dr Smalley for the past two weeks! The learners have been having a great time and we are excited to announce that it is finally Mrs Hawkins’ and Mrs Morgan’s literacy groups turn! So - if your child hasn’t had science yet, please ensure you ask at the end of the day what we got up to! Science is during literacy time so there may be a change in how many reading books come home ‘as per normal’ but keep rereading books your child has in their packet to practise fluency and reading whatever you have out from your public library during this time. We’re excited to see what Dr Smalley has coming up for us next... And that’s a wrap! Thanks as always to our amazing parents and caregivers who have come in and helped this week with play, putting away books or reading with our students. You are valued members of our community and we greatly appreciate all of your time, effort and willingness to help. Have a safe and happy weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday :) The Mānuka Teachers Tēnā koutou parents and whānau, We have had another rush of warm summer weather this week and the children enjoyed their swimming on Monday and Tuesday. Next week will be our last week of swimming so your children need to bring their togs on Monday and Tuesday for one final splash! The learners have been working hard on their maths this week and we had a Discovery Friday last week all about the sea run by our guest teachers and by all accounts the children had a wonderful day with them. We had our last day of our Goal Setting meetings last Thursday. It was great to meet all our learners’ whānau and agree on some goals for the term. You will receive a copy of your child’s goals today, which you will find in their reading packets. It would be great to share these again with your child and talk about the things that they will do to achieve their goals and what you have agreed as parents and whānau! We have had a few cases of head lice in Mānuka. Over the weekend it would be a good time to check your child’s hair and treat if necessary. From next week our learners will be starting science with Dr Smalley. This will mean our literacy time will look a bit different, and your child may bring home fewer books for the weeks that they are doing science. For the next two weeks, Ms McKendry’s and Miss Day’s pods will be doing science. In Mānuka we have our agreed classroom expectations and the children made some bees to represent each expectation. See the photos below. Next week we will be going to the library on Friday afternoon instead of Thursday afternoon. Please make sure that your child brings back any library books they have out as they won’t be able to get new ones without returning others. Next week we welcome Brianna Oorthuis (Miss O) to the Mānuka Learning Community. Bri is a final-year teacher trainee at the University of Canterbury, and will be based with us for the next five weeks. Bri will be spending her time observing what the Mānuka teachers do, what learning looks like at Year 2 and 3, and supporting learning in all sorts of different settings! Please come and introduce yourself to Bri and make her feel welcome in our learning community! If you have any questions about Bri or her work, please feel free to discuss these with Mrs Sands. Thank you to those families who have donated wrapped gifts for our Mānuka Community game for the fete. The Mānuka community still desperately need HEAPS more so we would really appreciate a donation of two wrapped gifts for our game for the fete. Indicate if suitable for boys, girls or either. Value of each gift up to $5. You are welcome to donate more gifts if you want! Please send them in any time from now on. The fete committee thank you for your generous donations of chocolate for the chocolate wheel. It was great to see the kids dressed in mufti for the day last Friday. Also, we have been offered the use of a fruit ice cream van, which we need to staff. We will need two volunteers per hour to man this - apparently it is as easy as pie, with everything provided, and we just need your time! We need two people for an hour each, for the hours from 10am-3pm. Thank you to one kind mum who has volunteered to help - we would love the assistance of a few more of you, so just get in touch, or leave a comment below to let us know. Tēnā koutou parents and whanau,
We have seen a great dose of sunshine in the past weeks, and are really getting into the routines of Manuka. The learners have been working hard on their literacy, we have had a discovery friday all about bee’s with the addition of a real bee keeper! We have had two days of our Goal Setting meetings and are excited to work hard alongside our learners to achieve these goals and appreciate all your support at home too. If you are attending on the 28th February, we are looking forward to having you. As it is still hot and the sun is shining it is important to keep up the sunblock and water. We are reminding our learners to keep hats in bags between breaks and after school to prevent the wind taking them for a ride. We are in the swing of our Literacy programme now. Your learner will have reading books in their reading packet most days. It is important to revisit these books at home, as reading mileage can have a great impact on reading confidence and fluency. We let readers accumulate over the course of the week and collect them all back on on Mondays. On Friday of Week 5 the teachers will be taking a release day together to work collaboratively and plan some awesome things for our learners. We will all still be on site if needed, and there will be some Guest Teachers here who are very familiar with the children. Libby and Christina have begun the Incredible Years Teaching training, and had their first day on Thursday. They have already started to accumulate some great strategies and ideas to share alongside the children and are eager to start. We are starting to look forward to our Fete. In preparation we would really appreciate a donation of two wrapped gifts for our game for the fete. Indicate if suitable for boys, girls or either. Value of each gift up to $5. You are welcome to donate more gifts if you want! Please send them in any time from now on. Also, we have been offered the use of a fruit ice cream van, which we need to staff. We will need two volunteers per hour to man this - apparently it is as easy as pie, with everything provided, and we just need your time! Please let one of us know, either in person or by email if you are able to help out with an hour of your time for this. Tēnā koutou parents and whanau,
Welcome to all Mānuka families. We are excited about working with the Mānuka learners and we are looking forward to a fantastic year. A few things about us: Moira McKendry is our team leader. Libby Day is in her second year of teaching and is released every second Tuesday by Kathryn Meyers. Libby was also teaching in Mānuka last year. The lovely Anita Hawkins is joining us from Totara. Anita has wide junior school experience. We also welcome the wonderful Christina Sands, who has moved upstairs from Kōwhai. And a very special welcome to Leanne Morgan, who is beginning her teaching career at West Melton. Leanne is released every Tuesday by Rose Trolove. Other staff you may see in Mānuka are learning assistants Julie Blain, Cara Cormack and Catherine Henderson-Hughes, who provide support for a range of learners and assist us in delivering our programmes. This year, KIT notices will be going out every second Friday, so be prepared to hear from us Fridays of even weeks. Our swimming days are Mondays and Tuesdays, so please ensure that your child has his or her swim bag with togs, towel and goggles (if they use them) at school every Monday and Tuesday. Our focus is not swimming skills, but more a focus on water confidence and safe practices in the water. Please make sure all clothing is named. Library day is alternate Thursdays (odd weeks) and we also have a Friday slot which we can use the weeks we have Fab 5 on Thursdays. Children can get 2 books out for up to two weeks. The library is also open most lunchtimes, if children want to return books and get new ones issued at any time between our class visits. Fab 5 visit the Mānuka team every second Thursday afternoon, and they teach PE, enviro and The Arts (visual arts, music, drama). Their first visit was yesterday! Ask your child what awesome Fab 5 learning they did yesterday afternoon. Hats - We are going to be putting hats in bags after school to go home please, and we are aiming to put them in bags (zipped up) between morning tea and lunch to prevent more misplaced hats, especially when it is windy! Lunch boxes - We have a feed’n’read break every day 9.45am. Please ensure your child has suitable healthy fruit or protein snacks to have at this time. As an enviroschool, one of our priorities is to reduce litter as much as possible. We’d really appreciate your support in maintaining litter-free lunch boxes as much as possible. Do make sure all little containers (and their lids) are named, as it is nigh on impossible to find the owner when there are many the same! Our programme follows a reasonably regular daily schedule from Monday to Friday. We have literacy and play running alongside each other from 8.50-11am, with a feed’n’read and fitness break. After play at 11am, we have a mindfulness session, followed by maths through to lunchtime. After lunch Mondays and Tuesdays we have swimming. Wednesdays after lunch is inquiry and alternate Thursdays after lunch is Fab 5 or library. On Fridays, we run Discovery Friday, with a specific focus for each week. Our Literacy program will be starting next week! Children will be bringing home a new book to read three times a week. Sometimes they will also bring home the same book several days in a row. There is great value in rereading the same book. Rereading books allows children to practise fluency, common word practise and to build confidence. The focus in maths this term will be both Statistics and Number. In Statistics, we have been making class graphs to display data. Next week the children will be working in groups, collecting their own data and using it to create graphs. Across the school, parents will be receiving a “Getting to Know You” form for each of their children. Please look out for this in your child’s reading packet today, take some time to sit with your child and fill it in over the weekend and get your child to return it to their pod teacher next week. The information we receive from you and your child helps us to better understand them and their needs and to best cater for their learning. One thing we are focusing on is building confidence with children at school. Some of our learners find the morning transition to school a challenge and we would really appreciate your help in negotiating this by completing a quick drop off of your child in the morning. Please feel free to discuss this with us if you have concerns. Next week, Moira McKendry will be out of class on Tuesday, and Libby Day, Leanne Morgan and Anita Hawkins will be out at a course on Wednesday. We have regular guest teachers in, whom most of the children will know. Wishing you all an enjoyable weekend The Mānuka Community teachers |
|