FRIDAY 3 JUNE 2016

Tena koutou katoa

Naumai e te whanau o te kura Muritai

From the Principal -

As we approach the half-way point of the term we look forward to the mini-break that is Queen’s Birthday. Please note that school is closed on Tuesday 7th June as staff moderate their assessments in teams and begin writing the mid year student reports. From there it isn’t a downhill run at all as staff and students work together to press on with their studies and complete the projects they are working on.

Towards the end of this term we have some achievement feedback for families as to the progress the children are making against the milestones. Written reports come out in 4 weeks time on Friday 1 July and the children will share their learning successes with you on Wednesday 6th July at the celebration of learning from 3pm-6pm. Please lock that Wednesday into the diary so your can share with your child their learning journey.

As we go forward feel free to catch up with your children’s teachers who are only too happy to speak with you about progress. Face to face meetings are best, rather than trying to resolve things via email.

Some staffing news -

We welcome Heather Mawby to the staff next term as replacement for Hayley Skilton in room 9. Richard Dobson will replace Hayley in the senior management team and be the acting AP for year 3-4. We also welcome Christa Pitman to our part-time teaching staff. Christa will be working in room 8 and room 4 after Queen’s Birthday. We also welcome Alison Furminger and Katherine Kokich to our student support team.

I just want to say thank you very much to the seven parents who put their names forward to be part of the Board of Trustees - a courageous thing to do.  We really appreciate this.  Voting has now closed and the results will be published at the end of next week after the postal votes have been counted.

From the Board -

The Board is pleased to share the main points of our Towards 2020 strategic document. The process of developing the Towards 2020 document started before the school’s extremely positive 2014 ERO review. The Board was able to identify a few key themes based on feedback from our students, staff and community, and then using the ERO report and by looking closely at the government priorities for education.

Parent sessions reinforced these key concepts and gave us greater definition as to what the community wanted for their children. These 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.

This Towards 2020 document sits underneath our School Charter and will drive the teaching and learning environment. Management and teaching staff will use the 2020 to plan and organise the learning contexts by integrating the 7 key concepts with the curriculum. This gives each child continued access to the progress we will make as a school.

In our research we identified that employers and government have recognised that current work requirements have changed over the last generation and our children are going into work communities where they will need –

• To have strong literacy, language and numeracy skills and increasingly need skills of communication, cooperation, computation, creativity and critical thinking
• To be innovative and think differently for international competitiveness
• To be aware that quality control is embedded in all operations
• To be able to think across disciplines, to make connections and solve problems
• To be able to work in a team, rather than comply to a hierarchy of command

In response to this research and consultation we have identified 7 concepts to strategically develop and grow the teaching and learning environment at Muritai. 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.

Expanding these 7 concepts we have identified what we want to see in action going forward -

Concept	Goals
Achievement and success for all learners.	An inclusive, supportive and challenging school environment that enables children to achieve and experience success, reach their full potential, and become active, confident, life-long learners.
Thinking globally, but acting locally	To reflect on global issues and use local issues as part of our learning contexts. Children build an understanding of things around them and how they can participate locally to create solutions to their community issues. This will empower them to tackle global issues.
Science, technology, engineering and maths education creates pathways to exciting professional careers.	To nurture curiosity and creativity in our children by increasing their understanding of how science, technology, engineering and mathematics are crucial to our everyday life, and our future.
Growing great citizens.	Teachers and children use our school values and the key competencies to ensure a learning environment that features quality learning and social behaviour.
“Lead with pedagogy, accelerate with technology”	Innovative, flexible and future focused teaching is enhanced through the use of digital technologies, that are used innovatively and strategically for student learning in a cybersafe world.
Use community experts to enhance children’s learning experiences.	By enabling members of the community, with expertise, to have access to our classrooms to teach children’s deeper levels of content knowledge.
Quality learning spaces and resources promote a continuously improving community of learning.	Innovative, flexible and future focused teaching will help develop our learning spaces and use resources to best support and enable quality teaching to occur.

From the School -

CROSS COUNTRY

We had an outstanding day for our Cross Country event this week.  The sun was shining, the wind was non-existent and the waves were crashing in spectacular fashion.  This created an awesome back group to what would be a fabulous day.  All for the students did an amazing job in their races.  A special mention to the Muritai School staff for your work today … we did it!

We also congratulate the following students for placing in their races:

Year 3-8 Championship races - long course
Year 3 Girls 1st – Sophie Mouat 2nd – Emily Diedrich 3rd – Edith Janssen	Year 3 Boys Champ 1st – Aubrey Chunga 2nd – Max Bentley 3rd – James Cowley	Year  4 Girls Champ 1st – Holly Ridley-Gibbons 2nd – Paige Bangma 3rd – Bella Diamond	Year  4 Boys Champ 1st – Bruno Thompson 2nd – Johnny Baird 3rd – Joseph Keenan
Year  5 Girls Champ 1st – Rosa Blair 2nd – Lola Campbell 3rd – Mia Campbell	Year  5 Boys Champ 1st – George Baird 2nd – Theo Thompson 3rd – Dougie Sherriff	Year 6 Girls Champ 1st – Greta Woolloff 2nd – Elodie Bain 3rd – Esme Daley	Year  6 Boys Champ 1st – Fraser Belliss 2nd – Jack Roche 3rd – Aren Coley
Year  7 Girls Champ 1st – Marta Perez-Benet 2nd – Lucy Dungan 3rd – Lily Sambrooke	Year  7 Boys Champ 1st – Mason Donnelly 2nd – Lucas Archibald 3rd – Luke Thompson	Year  8 Girls Champ 1st – Lea Pummer 2nd – Charlotte McFarlane-Karl 3rd – Yasmin Kerr	Year  8 Boys Champ 1st – Ethan Hester
Y5-8 Open Races - short course
Year 5/6 Girls Open 1st – Florence Landers 2nd – Jasmin Leder 3rd – Alex Irvine	Year 5/6 Boys Open 1st Harrison Allen 2nd – Jim Hobbs 3rd – Luca McKay	Year 7/8 Girls Open 1st Emma Littlefair 2nd Molly Matthewson 3rd – Emily Braithwaite	Year 7/8 Boys Open 1st – Angus Flynn 2nd – Ben Murphy 3rd – Tom Griffiths

Those students who placed in the ‘Top 10’ in championship races from Y4-8 have qualified for the Central Zone Cross Country event next week (Tuesday). Congratulations -

Year 4 girls - Holly Ridley-Gibbons, Paige Bangma, Bella Diamond, Izzy Kane, India Farndale, Emmy McKay, Charlotte Wilson, Emma McRobbie, Ishbel Cook, Marieve Wilson-Bray

Year 4 Boys - Bruno Thompson, Johnny Baird, Joseph Keenan, Curtis Caughley, Charlie Fisher, Ori Hoskin, Devon Reddaway, Monty Potter, William Dungan, Mathew Cowley

Year 5 girls - Rosa Blair, Lola Campbell, Mia Campbell, Sage Pettus, Clara Maxwell-Lamb, Mia Houthoofdt, Isabella Carroll, Harriet Wilson, Jessica Park, Paris Moore

Year 5 boys - George Baird, Theo Thompson, Dougie Sherriff, Felix Pummer, Hugh Diederich, Jack Marsden, Ollie Saunderson, James Littlefair, Eli Turner, Marcus Ruane

Year 6 girls - Greta Woolloff, Elodie Bain, Esme Daley, Artemisia Walcott, Amelia Cave, Francie Penney, Lily Heath

Year 6 boys - Fraser Belliss, Jack Roche, Aren Coley, Myles Caughley, Barney Cass, Daniel Brownsword , Tom Brownsword, Cam Bentley, Charlie Watkins, Joe Dickson

Year 7 girls - Marta Perez-Benet, Lucy Dungan, Lily Sambrooke, Sophia Cotsilinis, Francisca Zabella, Chloe Bothwell

Year 7 boys - Mason Donnelly, Lucas Archibald, Luke Thompson, Sam McRobbie, Sam Roche

Year 8 team - Lea Pummer, Charlotte McFarlane-Karl, Yasmin Kerr, Laura Hardy, Nina Owles, Ethan Hester

NETBALL

Results from our Netball teams for this week…some very close games

Muritai Y7-8 loss 19-24 Sacred Heart

Muritai Magic win 15-11 v Te Aroha 1

Muritai Bullets   loss 9-11 v Te Aroha 2

Muritai 3   win 16-11 v Waterloo 3

Muritai Minions loss 7-10 v St Peters and Pauls 10

We hosted Max from World Vision at our last assembly. He gave an excellent presentation on this year’s 40 hour famine cause - supporting refugees who have left Syria. Max told the children that more than 5 million people (many of which are children) have been displaced from Syria - which is more than the entire population of New Zealand. Muritai children have always got in behind World Vision and steadily raised about $2500 - $3000 annually.

The 40 hour weekend is next weekend 10-12 June and a new initiative to experience a sacrifice is to live out of a backpack for the weekend. Rather than fasting, children put some supplies and possessions in a backpack and live out of this for 20 or 40 hours. Not as a easy as it seems!

JUNIOR SCHOOL PARENT CURRICULUM MEETINGS

Maureen Buckley and the junior team ran a successful curriculum meeting on writing this week attended by about 12 people. This upcoming week the team are presenting on maths. These workshops will give you some ideas on how you can support your child's learning at home and also explain the stages of development in learning to read, write and do mathematics as they go through their first two years at school. They are a repeat of the workshops undertaken last year.

The evenings are in room 3 and the following day the meetings will be repeated in the library at 1.30 p.m. Both sessions will be for approximately an hour.  The session is -

MATHEMATICS - Wednesday June 8th 7 p.m. or Thursday June 9th 1.30 p.m.

It was lovely to see the articles on Luca Morgan-Marshall in the Hutt News and Eastbourne Herald. Luca has been making ‘Hearts of Clay’ to raise money for sick children. Well done Luca - that is very kind.

ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS

Could you please return your Entertainment Book or payment to the office as soon as possible.  There are still 68 books outstanding and we need either payment or the book back.  We are offering the book or the digital copy.  For further information please contact michelle.fisher@xtra.co.nz or call her on 04 562 8877.

DENTAL CLINIC

The dental bus has been and gone - that is it for the year. All the children have been screened and any remedial work required will be completed at the main dental clinic at Petone Central School. The feedback from the technicians has been that our children have extremely healthy teeth - well done everyone. If you have any dental issues going forward and need treatment ring 0800 TALK TEETH.

DIARY DATES (staff may contact you with more details about these events)

Mon 6 June      Queen’s Birthday - school closed

Tues 7 June     Teacher only day and Central Zone cross country

Wed 8 June       Y5-6 Speech finals

Fri 10 June School assembly

Mon 13 June ICAS Writing Exam

Wed 15 June ICAS Spelling Exam

Thurs 16 June Board of trustees meeting

Thurs 30 June     PolyFest 2016

Fri 1 July         Mid year reports go out

Wed 6 July       Celebration of learning 3pm - 6pm

Fri 8 July          Last day of term.

TERM DATES FOR 2016

Term 1 = Monday 1 February - Friday 15 April

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 2 teacher only days this year at Queen’s Birthday and Labour weekend.

Teacher only day one = Tuesday 7 June

Teacher only day two = Tuesday 25 October

COMMUNITY NOTICES

HUTT VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL INFORMATION EVENING

Will be held for all parents/caregivers and their students, who are interested in attending Hutt Valley High School in 2017

Hutt Valley High School Hall - Thursday 9 June 2016 at 6.00 pm

There will be introductions and brief addresses plus guided tours of the school and advice on programmes. Enrolment packs will be available.

HUTT STEMM Festival returns for 2016!

Returning after its debut last year, Hutt STEMM Festival is back and bigger than before. STEMM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Manufacturing and the festival celebrates all of the great work happening in these fields, right here in Lower Hutt.

The festival runs from 4-12 June, and there are heaps of free events including many for families, kids and students. You can see the full listing at huttstemm.nz or the programme we are giving out to take home, but a few highlights include Lego Legends at Eastbourne Library, Pop Up Science and Hutt Science Discovery Day at the Dowse, and The Mind Lab by Unitec in Petone. Each of these are fun and hands-on, mixing creativity and science.

Incredible Years programme

The Incredible Years is a programme that helps with the day to day difficulties in parenting children (aged 3 – 8 years old) with challenging behaviour. It is run as a group over 14 weeks. Incredible Years builds on the strengths that you and others in the group already have. Because each child is an individual and no two families are the same, Incredible Years will help you to parent your unique child. Building a positive relationship with your child is the basis from which changes can be made and parenting can become easier. This programme has been run worldwide for over 30 years and has helped many parents and their families, in NZ and beyond. Join a group and put the fun back into parenting!

Contact Dawn Nippert - 04 439 4671 or 0800 737275 or dawn.nippert@education.govt.nz

POP UP SHOP - ONE DAY ONLY

Sunday 12 June from 9am to 3pm

The Royal (formerly Montage), 32-36 Rimu Street, Eastbourne

Textile and Art lovers - Don’t miss out!

An opportunity to purchase from Valerie Carson’s collection of treasures gathered on her travels to India, Pakistan, Central Asia and on the Silk Road.  And Jenny Brown’s fabric dolls.

Silks, Scarves, Caps, Toys, Textile and Craft books (some out of print volumes), Needlework tooks, Art Works.

Cash only - no EFTPOS

Fundraising for Valerie’s grandson, Max Brown to compete with the NZ Sprint Kayak Team at the U23 World Spring Kayak Champs, Belarus in July 2016.