Tena koutou katoa
Naumai e te whanau o te kura Muritai
Welcome to Laurence Webster who joins the Muritai School family in room 2 this week.
FROM THE PRINCIPAL
This is my last newsletter for a while. I head away on my adventure next Thursday and Maureen Buckley will be the Principal for term 3. Raewyn Roberts will be teaching in room 3 in Maureen’s place. I’m very much looking forward to the experience, particularly my course at Harvard University. Being an educator and having the opportunity to attend a special course at Harvard is quite a thrill. Going forward the school will continue to follow a straight line forward. I am sure Maureen, Carole and Jo will be a great team in the office and with the senior management team, teaching staff and support staff continuing to work so closely together, things should tick over nicely.
As we approach the last week we celebrate our children’s successes with written reports issued today. The mid year report shares the children’s progress against the curriculum requirements and indicates how the children are tracking towards achieving the national standard in reading, writing and maths. Teachers have noted comments of strengths and next steps as best they can. As always if you need additional information or would like to talk to your child’s class teacher then please contact them to arrange an appointment.
When reading the reports there was a common theme through them, and that is that our children are achieving very well, but as I explained to the children last week in assembly, teachers would like the children to be confident to stretch and extend themselves to the next level, particularly in writing. Our teaching is focussed on introducing new ideas and we are finding some of our children feel safe in what they know and can do, rather than trying new ways to improve and extend their work. We continue to press for accurate work - something that tends to come with maturity and it is a lack of accuracy at times - working too quickly or being careless - that holds some children back from achieving the higher grades. We know that Muritai children have excellent knowledge, oral language skills and problem solving skills, but that is just a small part of the assessment package. In Maths we know that children who have swift recall of their basic facts have an advantage over the students who labour with instant recall. Continuing reading at home and going over number facts over the holiday break and beyond would be useful. Live Mathletics is a useful tool to speed up basic facts recall. As we go forward through next term we will encourage the children to trial and experiment with new things to take their work forwards.
CELEBRATION OF LEARNING
Next Wednesday 6 July, parents are invited to visit their children’s classrooms where students will guide their parents through their learning journeys. Teachers will be on hand for any clarification required. Classrooms will be open from 3pm until 6pm. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to see your child’s day-to-day learning and achievements, to reflect on their growth and this helps them self-review their own progress together with the teachers report.
As mentioned in the last newsletter the year 7-8 team is exploring ‘The Internet’ as their Inquiry focus – including looking at the pros and cons, risks and how children keep themselves safe online. Annette and the team invite parents of Y5-8 to an informal ‘chat’ over a hot cuppa after our Learning Celebration evening on Wednesday 6th July at around 6pm.
FROM THE SCHOOL
MISSING BOOKS
Maureen Buckley has been taking stock of our junior readers and it appears that we are missing quite a few. If you have any Muritai School books, can you please drop them into the office.
ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS
There are still a few entertainment books out in the community. Please return yours as soon as possible. Any outstanding books after next week will be followed up personally by the office.
POLYFEST
Yesterday a strong group of children from year 4-8 went to Walter Nash Stadium to perform in the Polyfest show for 2016. It was such an amazing experience, there were so many schools performing with different varieties of songs and costumes. From seeing all the different schools you could identify the different cultures coming to life on stage. Muritai school sang three songs and made routines with poi, rako, and taiaha. It was an amazing turn-out and I would definitely recommend Polyfest for any other students next year.
A massive thank-you to Mrs Algar and Mrs Hooke for all the direction, choreography, organisation and giving up your own time to put the show together. They have given up so much of their personal time to enable these children to shine.
There is a DVD of the performance available, $13 for a single night or $50 for all with order forms available at the office from today $13 single night, $50 all five nights. Order by next Friday 8 July.
YEAR 7-8 SCIENCE FAIR SHARING
The Senior School students have been beavering away for weeks on their Science Fair Projects and the fascinating and varied results of this hard work will be on display at the Senior School from 11-12 on Friday 1st July. We would love it if you could come and share with us in our celebration of all that is Science!
LOST PROPERTY
As it is the last week of term next week we will be putting out the lost property on the deck. Our goal is for all of it to be claimed by Friday so please if you are missing some key clothing items I hope you find it next week!. Please make sure clothing is named and then things can be returned if found.
HOOKED ON BOOKS
Maureen Buckley is looking for adult volunteers for her valuable Hooked on Books Programme. The adults can be parents or grandparents of children at the school or from within our community. If you would like to do this on a weekly or alternate weeks for approximately an hour in the afternoon, please contact Maureen Buckley buckley@muritai.school.nz
CLAY CREATIONS!
After learning about Australian illustrator Shaun Tan and exploring his 3D Clay illustrations of the Brothers Grimm Fairytales in the book "The Singing Bones", students were inspired to write their own myths and create illustrations for these (or other myths they had read) from clay. The finished sculptures, along with the students' writing, will be on display at our Celebration of Learning on 6th July. Please come and have a look!
MURITAI SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAMME
The July Holiday programme brochure is out and available from the school office. Lots of fun and interesting events to keep your children happy and busy during these holidays: Glow in the Dark Disco, Creative Ceramics, Zombie Day, Lighthouse Cinema, EHock and Beach combing, Ice Skating, Pizza and Pasta Day, Wacky Wednesday, Badminton and a Puppet Workshop. Complete the brochure and drop into the office or go to our website and complete the online form: http://muritaiafterschoolcare.blogspot.co.nz/
HVHS 1ST XV
Six ex-Muritai students are members of the Hutt Valley High School first XV. On Wednesday night they played Wainuiomata in the Wellington final of the Co-ed Cup national knockout competition, winning 24-12. Well done to HVHS and to our ex-Muritai players, McLeod Harrison, Robbie Lowe, Piri Bradshaw, Elliot Hawes, Xavier Manson, Jamie Simpson.
YEAR 5/6 RUGBY
Congratulations to our year 5/6 rugby team who played Wellesley yesterday at Wellesley and winning 17 - 15 in a very close match. It has been a while since we have taken up the challenge to play Wellesley in a rugby fixture and we look forward to the re-match in Term 3.
NETBALL
Congratulations to all our teams this last week who all won their games:
Muritai 1 vs Hutt High won 25 - 10
Muritai Magic vs St Michaels won 16 - 4
Muritai Bullets vs Hutt City Rebels won 14 - 3
Muritai 3 vs Eastern Hutt Lightening won 4 - 1
Muritai Minions vs Korokoro Phoenix won 8 - 2
Muritai Magic are also sitting first equal with Rata Street in the Primary Grade 1. This is the first time we have had a team in primary 1 and this team is jointly leading the grade. An outstanding effort and this team should be very proud!
DIARY DATES (staff may contact you with more details about these events)
Tue 28 June Y7-8 Zone Football
Thurs 30 June Y5-6 Rugby v Wellesley / PolyFest 2016
Fri 1 July Y7-8 Science Fair sharing / Mid year reports go out
Mon 4 July PIzza Monday and Y7-8 Shaun Greaves visit
Wed 6 July Y5-6 Rugby v Eastern Hutt / Celebration of learning 3pm - 6pm
Fri 8 July Last day of term 2
Mon 25 July First day of term 3
TERM DATES FOR 2016
Term 2 = Monday 2 May - Friday 8 July
Term 3 = Monday 25 July - Friday 23 September
Term 4 = Monday 10 October - Friday 16 December
We have a teacher only day at Labour weekend.
Teacher only day two = Tuesday 25 October
TOWARDS 2020
We are currently sharing the main points of our Towards 2020 strategic document. These 7 key themes maintain the integrity of what Muritai School has now, but take us forward towards 2020 to innovate, progress, and modernise the way our teachers teach and our children learn.
These 7 concepts are -
1. Achievement and success for all
2. Thinking globally, acting locally
3. Science, technology, engineering, maths
4. Growing great citizens
5. Lead with pedagogy, accelerate with technology
6. Using community expertise
7. Using learning spaces and resources to enhance learning.
This week we are going to expand and define the final concept of our 2020 plan.
Using learning spaces and resources to enhance learning -
We want to encourage a confidence and flexibility in using our spaces based on the process of teaching and learning anywhere, anyhow and anyway. Learning is now so accessible in such a variety of ways and so the Board and teachers need to think progressively about how to accommodate new ways using spaces and resources for learning. This thinking includes building development, new furniture acquisition and purchasing resources that will enhance Muritai School through to 2020 and beyond.
Goal
Quality learning spaces and resources promote a continuously improving community of learning.
Objective
Innovative, flexible and future focused teaching will help develop our learning spaces to best support and enable quality teaching to occur.
Strategy
- Continue to develop teacher capability that recognizes that quality learning is made up of a combination of the following elements …
- Personalised learning – children learn at different speeds and so need different levels of pace, approaches and experiences.
- Socially constructed learning – collaboration, peer-to-peer, students working co-operatively.
- Differentiated learning – children need different ways to learn things to make sense of the world.
- Self-directed learning – learning can be initiated and managed by the children themselves.
Key Components
- Our building and learning spaces continue to be modernised to meet teacher and learner requirements supported by MOE recommended design and flow.
- Our furniture is varied, ergonomic, comfortable, and enables quality learning.
- Additional spaces outside of the classrooms are fully utilised as part of our 2020 strategy.
- Our storage enables our resources to be safely kept and easily accessible.
What we will see…
- Mixed pedagogies – direct/indirect instruction.
- Flexibility – learning anywhere, anyhow, anytime.
- Open learning spaces – common hubs and varied spaces.
- Collaboration between teachers and children in different spaces and contexts.
- Access to resources for children for the different activities.
- Strengths based teaching – different children with different teachers.
- Teachers develop collaborative communities of practice.
COMMUNITY NOTICES
MISSING SCOOTER
Missing - a purple ‘Avanti’ scooter from the school playground last week. Unnamed. If you find it, can you please bring to the school office.
KULA KIDS’ YOGA TERM 3
Winter is a great time to work on the flexibility, strength and balance that yoga can offer in a warm dry studio, just a block from the school. I’ll even pick up your 5-9 year old from Muritai school in our ‘walking schoolbus’!
Wednesday or Thursday
27 July - 15 September
Ages 5-9: 3-4 pm
Ages 10-13: 4:15-5:15 pm
8 weeks for $90
Contact Jeanne with inquiries or to enroll
e: kulakidsyoga@yahoo.com
Fun French for kids at Muritai School for ages 5-12
- Experience French learning the fun way!
- Lots of interactive activities, role play, crafts, active games and music, and cooking
- Free trial lesson
- To register your interest please contact Stefi on Stefi@funlanuages.co.nz or phone 562 8211
Music Classes for Children for Term 3 at Muritai School
This year Priya Gain has been teaching itinerant music classes for students (years 0-8) at Muritai School on a Thursday morning. Group classes are based on the Orff approach to music education, which weaves together storytelling, songs, movement/dance, and instrumental play in small ensemble groups. It is centred on the playful exploration of the elements of music and children are given lots of opportunities to improvise and express their ideas creatively. You can visit my Muritai teaching blog here to see what these classes look like: www.orffatmuritai.blogspot.co.nz
I am now taking enrolments for next term. If you would like to find out more about these classes for your child please email me: priyagain@gmail.com
Next Kids Cross Country Series Event is in Tawa on Sunday 24 July
If you haven't already taken part in our Kids Cross Country Series come along on Sunday 24 July. These events are open to everyone. You don't have to be a member of a club to take part. We have races for pre schoolers through to year 8s. Enter at least a week before the event and receive a personalised race bib on the day. Or you can enter anytime on the day from 9.30am. For more info go to https://www.athleticshub.co.nz/our-programmes#kidsxcountry or contact Jo at Athletics Wellington on 021 976116.
