March 1st , 2010

We have had a number of children start this last fortnight. Welcome to Eliza, Andrew and Curtis Shaffer, Riley and Oliver Day, Liam McNamee, Joshua Gratwick, Oliver Fastier and Solomon Tito.

We welcome Sarah Tweedie back to the teaching staff until the end of term. Sarah will be working in the junior school.

As we approach the mid point of the term classrooms are very much into the rhythm of learning. Routines and treaties have been established, initial parent meetings are complete, key assessments have been done and staff are currently working through the process of developing focus targets based on cohort achievement information.

Children should be well settled by now and getting stuck into the daily workload and trying to do their very best in all that they do.

Tonight the Board of Trustees and senior staff are co-ordinating a session for parents on the national standards. This is the first of three presentations this year to inform parents about education at Muritai School.

An agenda is on the front page of our website so you can see the order and topics of the evening.

Basically the order looks like this:
Welcome – Tim Wake (BoT)
Facts and perceptions – Andrew Bird
Implementing national standards – Matt Skilton
Reporting to parents – Andrew Bird
Resources / School Blogs - Matt Skilton
Conclusion – Tim Wake

SOME THOUGHTS FROM ANDREW ON NATIONAL STANDARDS
The impact of National Standards in literacy and numeracy on primary and intermediate schools across New Zealand must not be underestimated, and the approach taken to incorporate these into the successful programmes that schools are already running requires careful consideration. Some key points -

· The standards describe the benchmarks all children need to meet to keep up with the curriculum at primary and intermediate schools.
· Teachers will decide whether a pupil is at, above, below or well below standards of literacy and numeracy.
· The standards will require teachers to make an overall judgment on a child’s progress based on comprehensive evidence including tests and observations.
· The Education Review Office will check schools to ensure they are using the standards properly.
· The Board of Trustees will have to report to the Ministry of Education by May 2012 on the numbers and proportions of pupils at above, below or well below the standards.

At Muritai School our priority is to balance the importance of being able to report on our children’s levels of attainment in a set of nationally accepted benchmarks with our current direction and focus in developing thought processes, key competencies and values, and extending learning abilities thorough the creative and innovative teaching styles our teachers are encouraged to employ.

Fortunately at Muritai we have been using a comprehensive range of assessment and reporting procedures that already provides quality information on achievement growth, trends and comparisons within individual and age group expectations. Our current procedures are well placed to incorporate the National Standards, and I therefore expect the refinement needed to incorporate any national testing tools that are yet to be developed will simply be an addition to what we already do.
You can get a picture of what we do by accessing our Charter and our Reporting improved student achievement to community

Our challenge will be to ensure that we do not lose sight of the vision that we have for the ‘Muritai Child’ and the exciting work we are currently developing through children’s engagement, learning opportunities, key competencies and values education. While reading, writing and arithmetic have been given high priority by the current government, parents can be assured that we most certainly will not be undervaluing or sacrificing our vision or the importance of social sciences, sciences, technologies, the arts and sports as we believe these have a significant positive impact on the development of our children.

Of course there will be teething problems with the new standards and much will be required of professionals to work with the Ministry of Education to find solutions. Indeed this may take several years before all are satisfied. Undoubtedly however, the successful implementation of the new standards will rely greatly on principals and teachers themselves, how they approach and embrace these and how they successfully incorporate them into their current programmes without undermining what they are currently delivering well and striving for.

We encourage feedback on our reporting processes. Our staff are available at any time to meet with you for feedback or to address any concerns. Please feel free to discuss how this is working for you and your child with the classroom teacher. It is important to us that you are receiving quality feedback on a regular basis that informs you in simple and honest terms “where your child is at”.

Andrew Bird
PRINCIPAL / TUMUAKI

SWIM SPORTS (YEAR 5-8)
This Thursday is swimming sports at Huia Pool for year 5-8 students. The event will run between 9.00 and 12.30. This means that buses will be leaving at 8.40 on Thursday so we can get through the numerous events and complete all the relays. We appreciate your support in getting the children to school by 8.30 for this event.

YEAR 5-6 CAMP
All the very best to our year 5-6 students and teachers who head off to Forest Lakes, near Otaki on Tuesday next week. I am sure you will have a great time.

YEAR 7 MURAL
Many of you may have noticed the new mural on the side of the school on Muritai Rd. It is a tradition for our year 7’s to contribute an art project to the school before they become our school leaders. The 2009 effort is another exceptional contribution. Congratulations to Kirsten Berry and our 2010 year 8 students for their efforts.

MAKING PAYMENTS TO THE SCHOOL
We have had a lot of queries recently about how parents can pay for school donations, fees, camp, etc. One of the easiest ways is by a direct payment with on-line banking. The school’s details are:
Bank: National Bank
Account Name: Muritai School Board of Trustees
Bank account: 06-0545-0236275-00.
Please ensure the reference fields contain your child/ren’s name and details of the payment, ie Smith, camp fees. Payment can also be made by cheque or cash. If you need any further information, please see Carole or Sue in the office.

BOT ELECTIONS
The Muritai School Board of Trustees is holding elections during May 2010 to fill 3 positions. There is a useful section on the NZSTA website called ‘What is a trustee?’

We will be posting out Candidate Nomination forms to the school community in the second week of March with nominations closing at noon on 23 April. Voting day will be Friday 7 May 2010.

If you are interested in joining the School Board of Trustees and would like further information, please feel free to contact Tim Wake the Chairperson or Andrew Bird, Principal.

PERFORMING ARTS
On Friday 19 February the percussion group STRIKE performed at Muritai and gave us a show to remember. It was a highly energetic and entertaining performance, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. They opened the show with a piece called ‘Fire’ which involved them using flames to create sounds - quite spectacular. They performed many pieces with different drum and marimba combinations and invited a group of students and teachers to join them up on stage and accompany them. You can see the Muritai TV interview with STRIKE at http://www.muritaitv.blogspot.com/

We have a lot of students who have drum lessons at school with Steve Wren and it was interesting for them to see drums and percussion being played in this way rather than your standard drummer as part of the rhythm section of a band. Some of the Year 6 students have experimented with one of Strike’s ideas of using cans of food to create a piece of music. Some of these creations will be performed at the Forest Lake’s camp concert!

AFTER SCHOOL CARE VACANCY
We are looking for a special person to work from 2.30 – 6pm on a Wednesday at After School Care. Must have some skills to contribute to our programme such as art, craft or sport, have experience working with children and be fun, fit and energetic. Please contact Cath Barker 5627718 or barker@muritai.school.nz, ASAP.

SCHOOL LEADERS
We have an exciting group of Year 8 students who are very eager to take on leadership roles and responsibility. Congratulations to Jack Griffiths and Sofija Cvitanovich who are our two lead students this year. Jack and Sofija have consistently provided leadership in their peer group over the years and will work closely with senior management on school developments.

In the senior school we encourage leadership. We have some amazingly talented individuals who are continually promoting and displaying leadership qualities. Everyone has the potential to be a leader, whether they are leading by example, role modelling, are sports captains, providing encouragement or by being given the opportunity to take on any role of responsibility on request. Leadership doesn’t always come with a title.

We will continue to promote and encourage our students with roles of responsibility.

School Reps: Sofija Cvitanovich, Jack Griffiths

House Captains: King – Scott Manson, Jessica Woodnorth,
Sanson – Harry Heath, Maddy Hesketh,
Charters – Finn Small, Georgia Crawford,
Cook - Lucien Beck, Kenzy Cooper
Class Reps: Room 21 – Megan Baldock, Nick Bielby,
Room 22 – Lisa Hanschke, Louis Littlejohn,
Room 23 – Verity Mc Rae, Thomas Rodgers

All year 8 children are involved in leadership activities which include – Charity organizers, assembly coordinators, Muritai TV, Enviroschools, Classroom liaison, sports leaders.

On Friday 48 senior students began their training to be PALS – (physical activity leaders). This is a programme to promote our older children training younger children in physical activity. The leadership training addressed becoming good role models, identifying fair play, and be active, responsible students. This is what the physical activity leaders (PALs) are.

With guidance from Georgina from Sports Wellington, students were involved in a range of activities designed to develop:
Leadership skills
Good role modeling
Skill needed to run physical activity sessions with younger students
And encourage fair play and build confidence

Opportunities to display leadership are continually arising. We are looking forward to seeing this year’s student’s shine in these challenging roles.

LEARNING SUPPORT
Sarah Richardson, our learning support teacher, has created a blog called “The Learning Den”. Parents, children and teachers can access lots of useful information and links about learning difficulties and sites for your children that provide high engagement in learning the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. Sarah will continually build resources for parents to access in a timely manner. You can access the blog at The Learning Den.

This Wednesday is World Read Aloud Day. Sarah has put some activities that you can do on her blog. You may like to communicate with Sarah, become a follower or identify things that you believe would be helpful at her site.

SPORT
Touch
What a great first round for the new 2010 touch season. We have 6 teams (along with a brand new year 3 team playing for the very first time!) Hutt Park is our new venue and is a great place to play touch rugby - what a game!

Here are the results for round 1:

Muritai Bears (year 3 boys) - lost to a year 4 boys team 8-0
Muritai Eagles (year 4 mixed) - won 7-0,
Muritai Sharks (year 5 mixed) - lost 7-0
Muritai Storm (year 6 boys) - won 6-1
Muritai Flyers (year 7 girls) - won 2-0
Muritai Rockets (year 7 and 8 mixed) - won 3-1

Netball
Netball teams are being co-ordinated at the moment and we are pleased to announce we have three Year 5 & 6 netball teams and two Year 7 & 8 teams. These teams are ready and eager to start training for the upcoming season which starts on Saturday 1st of May.