Pānui (News)

Mihi atu ki a koutou, (Greetings to you all) This week the pānui comes to you from Anna in Troy’s absence. He’s in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) for Tau Mai, Tau Tahi! (The Trans-Tasman Principals' Conference). I’m sure he will come back with many exciting ideas and stories to enrich our tamariki at Turitea.  Spring Fling The Spring Fling was unbelievable. That was my first experience of it and it far exceeded my expectations. Our amazing tuakana from Totara and Kahikatea let their creativity fly with their creations and in my opinion should be running their own stalls at many markets around...

The last two days have probably been the most satisfying and rewarding in all my time here at Turitea School. And from the kōrero (conversations) that we had at our Staff Hui last night, it seemed I wasn’t alone in thinking this way. Our kaiako shared their whakaaro (thoughts) about their experience at Te Rangimārie Marae and I just had to share some of these with you:

Perhaps we need a dress up day every Friday? Our kids love it and it is really ‘bucket filling’ seeing them arrive at school looking so bright, happy and pumped as you can see above! The perfect way to come to kura if you ask me... Today’s theme around spring colours was to keep building the hype for our Spring Fling which is on next weekend. Our Facebook event tells us we could expect upwards of 500 people coming along, which would be absolutely amazing! Hope this date is locked in your calendar and you’ve told your friends, colleagues and neighbours all...

There was a sea of kōwhai (yellow) at our morning hui today as many of our tamariki showed their support for the Cancer Society through Te Rā Daffodil (Daffodil Day). Ngā mihi nui (Big thanks) for donating to our school page that we set up here or to those who brought in coins this morning. Our cumulative count has it at just over $700 that our community has raised - Kei reira koutou! (Awesome everyone) The yellow certainly brightened up everyone's day today. 

Cameron, Meryl, Chris, Ada, Milana, Leo B, Alexa and Ben B and myself have spent the day alongside students from Managweka and Manchester Street Schools engaging in a day of learning in the forest. We learnt how to whittle, make fire using flint and steel, about the local pūrakau of the area and engaged in various tree climbing and bush walking fun as you can see above. It is pretty special to see how natural kids are at making new friends and building that whanaungatanga with two other schools. Mihi atu to Memory (Tumuaki at Mangaweka) for allowing us to come...

Apologies for ‘blowing up your phones’ this week for communicating our Whānau Maths Week challenges that we had every day. It was so great to see kids rushing into school in the morning with their family’s answers to the previous day's challenge to put in our prize box. Our purpose was to engage our tamariki with an estimation activity they completed as a class and then have a problem to solve at home to get kids talking about maths with you all. We hope you have enjoyed engaging in this with your child and haven’t seen it as extra ‘homework.’...

You might have heard on the news that our Prime Minister and Education Minister talked to the ‘shocking state of maths’ and ‘chronic underachievement’ across our country. They claim data from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study (CIPS) shows just 22% of Year 8 students were working at the expected curriculum level for mathematics. However, what they didn’t inform us is the data they are referring to relates to a trial of only 853 Year 8 students across 42 schools who took part in this study. This data is also based on a new curriculum that hasn't even come out yet....

Trusting you’ve all been enjoying all the Olympic action over the week and haven’t been staying up too late getting your ‘fix’. It was great to see our Kiwi Rowing Team making their mark overnight, wasn’t it? Although the Olympics are entertaining to watch, there is so much learning that our kaiako are pulling out and using in their classroom around this event. The Maths, Writing, Artwork, PE links that are made prove to be an amazing learning experience for our ākonga (students). I know I don’t usually promote kids on screens, but please let them have a watch over...

Nau mai, hoki mai ki te kaupeka tuatoru. (Welcome back to Term 3) Our Monday morning was beautiful with our usual Mihi Whakatau (Traditional Welcome) that we have to welcome our new whānau members to Turitea. Starting the term together as a whole school is a great showing of our school uara (value) of whanaungatanga (relationships). It also educates our tamariki about an important process in Te Ao Māori (The Māori World) and we know having exposure to this, will normalise this tikanga (traditions) when we visit Rangimarie Marae in Week 9. Watch this space… 

We’ve made it whānau - Half way through the school year already! We trust you all received your child’s report through Hero (Or via their school bag if they are in Rimu). Hopefully you were able to find the time to sit with your tamariki and go through this with them to share in their successes. Although these reports are designed for the parents or whānau to read, our kaiako craft these in a way that celebrates the ākonga (student) as a learner. All too often, the people that the report is about, don’t actually get to see/hear what is...