Wednesday 26 March

Welcome to Hettie Allen who has started school today!

As we approach week 9 of the term things are really starting to hum. The children are deep into their inquiries and are building a strong collection of work from this term.

We have our first stage of reporting to parents at the end of this term.  We will be will be doing anniversary or progress reporting against national standards for Year 3's and for year 4-8's we will be feeding back 'results' from term one testing as well as general progress against classroom expectations.  With just 15 minutes per interview, time is short but we will certainly aim to give you good information about how your child is tracking against the curriculum.

A reminder that our staff is always available to meet with you about student progress or any issue at any time by appointment.

CARNIVAL 2014 TEAM
For the last couple of Carnivals we have had a fantastic team lead the organisation of this event.  This year we need a new energetic and enthusiastic group of people to run this event.  The last team put together a comprehensive manual to keep it simple.  Each Carnival makes approximately $50/60,000 and is therefore an extremely important fundraiser for the school.  The last Carnival donation paid for our new pods of MacBook Airs and IPads for student learning, with previous donations being for our library which should be under construction shortly.

If you are interested in being part of this team, please let Jo or Carole in the office know.  Without your help there will be no Carnival this year!

PARENT INTERVIEWS

Parent Teacher interviews will be held on Tuesday 8 April and Thursday 10 April.  School will be finishing early on both these days at 2.15 to enable the first interviews at 2.30 and the last being 7.15pm.  You will be able to make appointments through the school interviews website from Monday 31 March.  Details will be sent via email to you all.

LIFE ED
We welcome the Life Ed team to Muritai for the next week or so.

SWIMMING SPORTS
The children were excellent in our recent swim sports held at Huia Pool for the seniors and Eastbourne pool for the juniors. They swam beautifully and thoroughly enjoyed the competitive environment that was organised so well by Mr McKay and his team. It was so good to see the quality of the swimming overall. Very pleasing!
Congratulations to our year group champions...
Year 5 - Kahu Rolfe and Emily Jones
Year 6 - Hamish Dalziel and Samantha Woolley
Year 7 - Callan Hughes and Helena Cvitanovich
Year 8 - Liam Mahoney and Milly Griffiths

The winners of the house relay was King and the champion house overall was Sanson. 

CROSS COUNTRY

The children are right in the middle of cross country training at present. We have a new track this year at the Eastbourne Recreation Ground. The event is on Tuesday 15th April. We have moved it to provide a flat track and a better viewing platform for spectators.

The new course goes as follows...

Start the race at the bottom right corner of the Rec (where the green flag will be).  Students to run:  

• anti-clockwise around the outside of the park and out of the exit by the carpark (Karamu Street)
• a short distance up the promenade and then down the steps and onto the beach
• run north up the beach until they come to Tuatoru Street carpark, run between the Rec centre and RSA clubrooms and back onto the field
• run back towards the finish (which is where they start the race)
• This is a 1km loop.  

We also have an open grade and championship grades for Y5-8 students

NEW Races

Y3/4 races will be 1 lap (Y3 boys and girls races, Y4 boys and girls races)

Y5/6 Championship race will be 2 laps (Y5 boys and girls races, Y6 boys and girls races), Y5/6 Open race will be 1 lap (Y5/6 boys and Y5/6 girls races) 

Y7/8 Championship race will be 3 laps (Y7 boys and girls races, Y8 boys and girls races), Y7/8 Open race will be 1 lap (Y7/8 boys and Y7/8 girls races) 

Estimated times are...

Junior cross country between 9am and 10.30am

Middle and senior cross country between 11am and 1pm (ish)

DRESS AS A RAINBOW DAY FOR KIDS CAN 

The Senior Charity Group is organising a "Dress as a Rainbow Day" for Tuesday 8 April. Students are encouraged to come to school wearing their brightest assortment of clothes in the wackiest way they can and bring a gold coin donation for Kids Can.  There will be prizes for the student who most resembles a rainbow in each syndicate.

YUMMY STICKERS

We are collecting Yummy stickers again this year.  Please collect the Yummy cut-out labels from bags (each cut-out label is worth 10 stickers) and individual Yummy apple stickers available from New World, Pak'n Save and participating Four Square stores. The more you collect, the more sports gear we can claim so start collecting your Yummy cut-out labels and stickers now!

ART EXTENSION

For the past six weeks some very extraordinary year 7 and 8 artists were given the opportunity to express their talents in a most challenging way, doing a beautiful looking piece of art. The artist Susanne Kerr inspired Mrs Allen with a great idea for a painting workshop at school.  Susanne Kerr is a local artist living and working in Eastbourne. She has done many silhouette artworks, expressing feelings and stories. Our job was to come up with our own idea and a message or story.  It was very challenging and hands were aching with tiredness.  At the end of the project the art was amazing. They were great because they were all unique.  It was an amazing experience for all of us and I had a lot of fun!  Thank you Mrs Allen for giving us such an opportunity to show our talents!  Thank you also to Susanne Kerr for being so inspiring.

By Helena Cvitanovich

INTER-SCHOOL FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT

Last Wednesday, 30 members of the year 5/6 syndicate took part in the inaugural Wellington Regional Inter-school Football tournament. The tournament was held at the Hutt Park and Muritai School represented three of the major footballing nations in Europe - the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. The students had a fantastic time and many were recipients of spot prizes such as mini footballs. The Netherlands squad finished the day in first place while Spain and Germany followed close behind in 2nd and 4th place. A big thank you to all the parents who supported the students on the day.

WILD FOOD CHALLENGE

The 4^th Annual Eastbourne Local Wild Food Challenge attracted more than 40 entries and 250 spectators to the Days Bay Pavilion.  There were lots of great entries from local kids who really made such a fantastic effort sourcing their wild ingredients. 

The winners of the Kids Challenge were Sam Woolley & Georgie Allen with their Wild Child Smoked Eel Pie with Blackberries.  We had lots of great entries from local kids who really made such a fantastic effort sourcing their wild ingredients.
                                             Sarah & Bill Manson

TECHNOLOGY

A group of our Year 7 and 8 students entertained the children at Barnardos Early Learning Centre last week , giving them a ukulele performance. The students have been learning to play ukulele as part of their technicraft rotation over a period of 5 weeks. By the end of the rotation the children have learnt the basic chords and have developed quite a repertoire. Part of the performance included a selection of songs for wee people – this allowed the Barnardo’s children to join in with the singing, body percussion and it was evident that they were having a great time! Not only did the wee guys enjoy it – our seniors loved the chance to get into the sandpit, play on the outdoor equipment, read stories and dress up and play in the family corner!

Ruth Hooke

TOUCH

With 5 weeks of games already played, finals week is now here. We have been really lucky with the weather this term and hopefully this continues and all teams can get to play their final game. There will be prize giving after the games with full details being emailed out to parents later this week. Good luck to all of you who are playing or coaching (and supporting).

Raihania Chadwick

SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS

Please note that if you are using the new online ordering system for scholastic your order needs to be done by the 4th of April. You can make your order using this link: https://www.txtpay.co.nz/VPos/ScholasticOrder.aspx

If you would still like to make your order through school these can be accepted up until the 10th of April. If paying by cheque please make this out to Scholastic NZ. No cash orders can be accepted.

COMMUNITY NOTICES

Little Dog Barking Children's Theatre brings you 'Party Pigs and a Sausage Went for a Walk' - Epuni Community Hall, 37 Mitchell Street, Lower Hutt - 30th April 2014 10am & 11:30am - tickets $7 each (under 2's are free) See www.littledogbarking.co.nz tickets contact Sarah 021 042 1851 sarah@littledogbarking.co.nz.   Suitable for ages 2 - 8 years.

Queen Margaret College Scholarships
Queen Margaret College invites Year 8 girls to apply for the following Year 9 QM 2015 Scholarships:

Year 9 Academic Scholarship
Year 9 Fuji Xerox Sports Scholarship
Year 9 Performing Arts Scholarship

Further information and requirements for these scholarships can be found at www.qmc.school.nz/admissions/scholarships or email enrolments.registrar@qmc.school.nz