Kia Ora, Talofa Lava, Greetings, Malo e Lelei, Kia Orana, Bonjour, Nǐ hǎo, Hallo, Hola, Kon'nichiwa, Namaste, As-salāmu ʿalaykum
A
warm welcome to Ruby Coleman to Room 13.
FROM
THE PRINCIPAL
Tena
koutou Muritai families,
As
we reach the halfway point on our school year, we have much to be proud
of. We have had an incredibly busy and exciting past two weeks with such
great learning and wonderful opportunities happening across the school.
We’ve
been treated to a performance from our school band in our school assembly last
week. They are a talented group of musicians who entertained the entire school
and a large group of parents like seasoned professionals! We look forward to
seeing what songs they select as they prepare for this year’s Bandquest.
Charles and Ruth, their tutors, have been leaning towards songs inspired by
70’s funk, so I look forward to seeing what emerges as their performance
pieces!
We've
had more success in Cross country with 8 of our competitive runners
representing us at the regionals on Tuesday - Guy Marshall, Lars
Meyer-Westfield, Elodie Dent, Lily Brien, Izzy Lewis, Willa Velvin, Aubrey
Chunga and Emily Ebskamp. It’s not easy to get through to this level of the cross country
events so we are feeling especially proud of our speedy runners. An extra
special congratulations must go to Elodie Dent
who made an incredible top ten finish of 6th place at year 4, however
this year 4 group does not go onto inter-Regionals. However, Aubrey
Chunga in year 6, who came in 10th place, secures a spot at the cross country
Inter-Regional competition later this year! Well done to you both! Thanks once again to all those who have
assisted these runners to get to each of these events, parent transport and a
range of staff who have assisted with extra training and organisation. A
fantastic cross country season!
On Monday night I had the great pleasure of accompanying our kapa haka roopu to
Walter Nash stadium where we took part in Hutt Fest (formally called
Polyfest). Our kapa haka group was the biggest we’ve ever had, and we
were treated to an energetic and polished performance by a large number of enthusiastic Muritai
learners. Our teachers leading the group were Steph Lamborne, Ruth Hooke
and Anton Norman - each of whom have put in many hours alongside our students
firstly teaching the songs, then refining the performance into a stage show
which the audience utterly enjoyed. Our students put their all into this
expertly rehearsed performance, and I know from talking to the parents on the
evening, and to other students and teachers I have spoken to, we are all
feeling a lot of pride about our group and their performance. I’d like to also thank all of the additional
staff who gave up time in preparing the group prior to the performance and also
in supervising and supporting our students on the night - we couldn’t have done
it without such a team effort, thank you to you all.
I am regularly ‘wowed’ as I walk around the school - talking to learners and seeing learning in action. One learning snippet I would like to share with you comes from an assembly item from earlier this term. A movie was presented from one of our senior students Reihan, who shared a personal story around his identity and culture. The movie Reihan created was played in assembly and you could have heard a pin drop as we all watched and learned about his muslim culture and his obsevance of ramadan this year. Please find the link to Reihan’s movie here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ySxATOt-poD4NRsn8hWIgY6mpT4Z9Mdf/view?usp=sharing
General
information from Police -
A
great new catchy advertising campaign has launched by the NZ Police on a new
non emergency number - 105.
From
NZ Police: NZ Police recently launched a new non emergency number, 105. We’ve
done this to make it easier to get hold of us in the event of non-urgent
situations or ‘Things which have Already Happened’, which don’t require Police
assistance immediately.
You
can call us on 105 for all non emergencies, or you can go online at 105.police.govt.nz to
report things like:
-
Lost property
-
Theft for a public place or car
-
Intentional property damage
-
Or to get an update or add info to a previous report
In
the event of an emergency, always call 111 - Things that are Happening Now.
Staffing Update - Term 3
Penny
Orbell- We farewell Penny who is moving with her husband and children to Saudi
Arabia where Penny and Tony (a teacher at Wellesley College) have both won
teaching positions in an international school. Penny has worked with us
during 2019 as a part time release teacher including regularly being in Room 5
one day per week. We wish you and your
family a wonderful overseas adventure.
Anton
Norman - We farewell Anton this week as he heads off to Hong Kong to teach in
an international school. A new teacher to us, Alice Daykin-Pont, will be taking
Room 15 for the rest of 2019 - she arrives to Muritai School in August after
her move from the UK. We farewelled Anton in our full school assembly last week
and celebrated the positive impact Anton has had at Muritiai over his years
with us - both in and out of the classroom. The staff and students
created a fun movie for Anton which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/s4I-iEYnv0o
Jess
Davidson - We are delighted to welcome back Jess Davidson to the team in Term
3, who returns to us at Muritai after extended parental leave. Jess will be
working as a part time teacher in the junior Kororā team and arrives in early
August after her move back from the UK.
Rebecca
Saker - We are also very pleased to be welcoming back Rebecca who has had a
break from teaching, due to having children. Rebecca also joins the
junior Kororā team as a part time teacher.
End of Term Thanks:
Thank
you to all of our parents for your support over this term. We’ve had a
number of day trips and sporting fixtures that you've all been along to -
cheering on your own and other’s children. Thank you to our coaches and
volunteers this term who have stood in the cold conditions over term 2 rallying
the children and imparting your skills, knowledge & enthusiasm. Thanks also
to our many supporters of all extra curricular activities, enabling all
of the ‘extras’ to occur at Muritai.
Thanks
to our lost property team who have once again kept our lost property to a
minimum, ensuring all ‘labelled’ items are returned and significantly improving
an area of our school.
Thanks
to our new Board of Trustees, who after one meeting have begun to interact and
learn with and from us and each other about our wonderful school, and already
carry such broad skills and talent that I know we are going to be well governed
by our dedicated group of elected trustees.
Thanks
to our entire staff for their commitment to Muritai school and to our
learners. You have all put in extra energy over this term in a wide
variety of ways - tutoring groups, keeping the grounds tidy, leading learners,
helping each other and learners, Board elections assistance, helping with
sports in many ways, coaching or leading performance groups, planning learning
adventures, and of course...writing reports - recognising all of our learners
and their learning journey (these are going home week 2 Term 2), we appreciate
all you've done for and with the lucky learners at Muritai.
Lastly,
thank you to our learners - I do think we are pretty spoilt at Muritai School,
with the incredible enthusiasm and excitement that our learners bring to school
each day and their love of learning. We look forward to seeing you back
next term!
On
behalf of us all here at Muritai School we wish you all a wonderful, well
deserved break, and we will see you back on the 22nd July.
Ngā
manaakitanga,
Bec
Power, Principal
FROM THE BOARD
Hello from the new Board of Trustees!
Last week the new BOT (Jeremy
Buckley, Andrew Saunderson, Marni Stevenson, Kaye Sherwin, Kurt Renner, Bec
Power and Deane McKay) had our first meeting and we are all very
inspired to get stuck in to our most important role which is to ensure Muritai
learners are achieving to their fullest potential.
We have elected our
Chairperson - Jeremy Buckley with Andrew Saunderson stepping in as deputy. Marni
and Kaye will be looking after communication for the board and we will all have
shared responsibility for Policy and Property.
We have wide and differing experiences which we will bring to
the board table to ensure robust decision making and clear plans of action.
Should you see any of us then please feel free to come
and talk to any of us as we would like to be an approachable and transparent
board. We would also like to acknowledge the previous board and all the work
they have done for our school. We have had an informal meeting with the
outgoing board which was very valuable.
As a board we would also like to thank the school
community for trusting us to take on this important role and we take this
responsibility seriously.
Finally a big thank-you to those families who
have paid their school donations.
Wishing you all a happy and relaxing school
holidays.
Muritai
BOT, Jeremy, Andrew, Kaye, Marni, Kurt, Deane and Bec.
FROM THE SCHOOL
Netball
Muritai's Netball section have had a fantastic start to the
2019 season.
The Marshmallows have had a fantastic start to the
season. We possibly won too many of our
grading games as results haven’t really gone our way since then but all our
games have been closed, we have fought hard, we have never given up and we have
come off the court smiling every game.
Even more importantly, we have consumed over 150 marshmallows and,
thanks to our wonderful manager Belinda, we now have a proper Marshmallow
uniform (pink and white hoodies) so our Mascot (Gareth the Marshmallow) feels
like he has a proper family.
The yr 7 and 8 Allstars are moving up a grade next round and Year
5/6's Shooting Stars are super focused and keen to learn, their skills are
improving each and every week. Great team work !
Year 5/6 get some expert tips from the Pulse's Whitney
Souness and NZ player and coaching legend Waimarama Taumaunu. We are very excited to have 3 teams in the
younger age group.
Meerkats are our year 4 group, with yr 3 superstar
Benji slotting in perfectly to their dynamic, fast paced team. Their commitment
to working hard at training has paid off with 8 straight wins ! Keep it up
Meerkats !!
The Mantarays is a mixed yr 3/4 team of new players. Eager to
learn and dedicated to their trainings, the Mantarays are a tight unit who know
how to compete hard and have fun. Unbeaten in Round One. What a start!!
Magic, our youngest team, has new yr 3 players bringing
their natural talents to the sport.
A team with huge potential they've delivered some moments
of exciting netball for the spectators !
Our year 3/4 teams. Great at playing hard, making new friends
and having fun.
Keep up the great work for ROUND TWO !! Big thanks to all the
coaches and managers.
Basketball
Term 2
Here are the results from Term Two:
Magic 1st
Heat 1st
Pistons 2nd
Celtics 4th
Thunder 5th
Hawks 7th
Lakers 8th
Bulls 9th
Congratulations to all the teams. All our teams will be playing
again in Term 3. We look forward to another successful round!!
Kapa
Haka
On Monday, the Muritai Kapa Haka Group performed
at the Hutt Fest at Walter Nash Stadium in Taita. It was a wonderful night. The
students were very excited to perform in their new uniforms. The performance
looked amazing. Thank you to the teachers Miss Lamborn, Mr Norman, and Mrs Hook
who made the performance possible. It was a big day with the rehearsal in the
morning, and then the performance in the evening. The night was a huge success,
so well done to all the performers.
Clara
Maxwell-Lamb Room 23
Game Time @ Chilton Saint James - PLAY – LEARN – HAVE FUN
Chilton
St James are running their Basketball programme again next term. Students
do not need to have completed the first session in order to do this next
step. Game Time will start on 20 August.
See details below:
‘Girls
Got Game’ run by coaches from Capital Basketball has proven very popular and we
are excited to announce that this will be progressing to competition games in
Term 3.
The
female basketball club for Year 1-8 students has its last session for Term 2 on
Tuesday July 2nd and will continue into Term 3 with 3 sessions planned for
Tuesday July 30th-August 13th.
From
August 20th- September 24th the focus will shift to a team-based competition
held at CSJ. This will be called ‘Game Time’. The students will be placed into
teams and after a short warm-up will play mini competitive games run by Capital
Basketball.
Depending
on numbers registering, the times will be as follows:
- Year
1 & 2 will play from 3.30pm – 4.00pm
- Year
3 & 4 from 4.00pm - 4.30pm
- Year
5-8 from 4.30pm- 5.30pm
Cost:
$25
TERM 2 2019 DATES
|
|
5 July
|
Last day of Term 2
|
22 July
|
First day of Term 3
|
26 July
|
Room 22 Te Papa trip
|
30 July
|
After Drop Off - Walk & Talk
|
2 August
|
Rooms 21 and 23 Te Papa trip
|
15 August
|
BOT meeting at 6.15pm
|
16 August
|
SE Zone Swimming
|
30 August
|
School Disco
|
6 Sept
|
Inter Zone Swimming
|
19 Sept
|
BOT meeting at 6.15pm
|
27 Sept
|
Last Day of Term 3
|
14 Oct
|
Start of Term 4
|
TERM DATES FOR 2019
Term dates for 2019 have been confirmed by our Board of Trustees
as follows:-
Term 1 Monday 4 February to Friday 12 April
Teacher only day on Friday 15 February
Term 2 Monday 29 April to Friday 5 July
Term 3 Monday 22 July to Friday 27 September
Term 4 Monday 14 October to Thursday 19 December
