Kia ora e te whānau,
Hoping this pānui finds you all doing well on this glorious spring day! Hero is telling me that I am reaching almost three quarters of you which is amazing. A reminder that all you need is an email to get yourself an account and we can grant you access to the app or have the pānui emailed to you if you prefer.
Learning Check In’s:
Reminder to book these in with your child’s kaiako for either Wednesday 24th or Thursday 25th August from 3.15 – 5.30pm. Remember these are encouraged if you want to set some goals based on what was communicated to you about your child via the mid year report. You can book these on our website.
Cluster Speech Finals:
On Monday we had our Turitea School Speech finals for the students in Year 5-6 with their topic of ‘Are we there yet?’ Massive congratulations to our winner Callum, second was Izzy and third was Nina. Kerian was the winner of our Year 4 poetry recital. The rest of the school were a very captive and disciplined audience. They even provided us with some outstanding impromptu speeches while the judges were deliberating. Callum and Izzy went on to represent us at the Fitzherbert Cluster Speech Finals, which we hosted and Izzy won the Year 5/6 final and Callum came third. They did amazing and represented us with pride and mana!
Board Nominations:
By now, you will have received your voting forms via email with a password and code to log in with to vote online. As I mentioned, we are lucky to have 7 nominees that you can read about and cast your votes. The nominees are Liam McBride, Niki Murray, Kimiora Te Wiki, Hannah Mooney, Joeli Nagera, Sarah Alderdice and Peter Butler. Please let me know if you need help or have any questions about this process as we look to elect our new board for the next three years. An exciting time for us all.
Home Learning:
We don’t have a home learning policy at Turitea School, however I have given each kaiako autonomy for them to decide how this could work in their classroom. In Professor John Hattie’s book Visible Learning, he clearly states “Homework in a primary school has an effect of around zero. In high school it is larger. Which is why we need to get it right. Not why we need to get rid of it.” I’d rather our teachers spend their time planning quality teaching and learning to happen in class, than preparing homework tasks that usually have a small uptake of participants and can create stress in the household. Taking advantage of the Learning Check In’s mentioned above to meet with your child’s teacher could be a good time to discuss this further with them.
Mid Term Break:
Another reminder that this is on Monday 29th August and school will be closed for instruction. I am interested in whether you appreciate having this day off or not in 2023 and beyond, so please can you indicate to me via this survey by the end of next week.
Lamb Pet and Calf Day:
This day is locked in for Saturday 29th October. Entries and payment are all online this year. You can fill out the form here and pay online by using Child’s Name and Pet Day as Reference into 03 0726 0572091 00.
From the PTA:
We have a few famous Turitea School Recipe Books left for sale for $15 in the office if you missed out on these last year. We have the Spots & Stripes themed disco coming up on Friday 2nd September from 6pm. If anyone has any connections to lighting or a bubble machine, please let us know via pta@turitea.school.nz
Skateboarding Sessions:
Our three senior classes loved having Gareth Cox (Samantha and Grace’s Dad) come up and teach some skateboarding tips and tricks on Tuesday. He has kindly offered to do this every second Tuesday for half an hour per class. Cheers Gareth! The skateboards are hot property and being well utilised every break time.
Front Garden:
Meryl and Peter Butler have a vision for our front entrance as we remove the lime path and old bark and look to beautify the area with some new shrubs. Finn, Myah, Sienna and Samantha mucked in this morning to give them a hand, showing our value of kaitiakitanga and looking after our environment. Thanks team!
Sports @ Turitea:
Netball Draw – No games due to the venue being unavailable.
Basketball – Season completed for 2022. Well done to our teams
Hockey Draw – Sunday 14th August – Year 5/6 Lightning vs Westend Goldsticks at 12:15pm on 2A. Year 3/4 Avalanche vs CSNS Crusaders at 10:00am on 2B. Year 1/2 Flame vs Parkland Sharks at 9:15am on 2Ha.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Troy