Wednesday 23 July

Naumai e te whanau o te kura Muritai

Tena koutou katoa

Welcome to the second part of the school year. I am sure that you enjoyed the holiday time with your children but no doubt were pleased to see them return to school to continue their learning journey. We welcome our new students and their families to Muritai School - Satchel Wilson (R1), Thomas Keenan (R1), Aubrey Chunga (R5), Jacob Beckett (R4) and Ruby Molineux (R24). Our beginning of term 3 roll is 440. Also a big welcome to Annette Borgonje who has started teaching in room 14.


What a freezing start to Term 3.  Wrap up and stay warm and please make sure your children have warm outerwear and winter shoes to wear. Our observations so far are that children are dressed nice and warm so thank you for making sure of this. We will do our best to ensure they are nice and warm outside as well. Having said that if it is not wet the children will be outside in break times moving and getting some fresh air as this is important for good learning. Our library as always will be open at lunchtimes for children who enjoy a quiet read.

Also a reminder about dropping children off early - 8 o'clock is the absolute earliest that children should be arriving at school and we keep classrooms locked until then. We strongly suggest that children should not be at school before 8:15 which is 25 minutes before the first bell rings.


This term is busy. It always has the reputation of the Arts term with artsplash choir, dancesplash and the school production at the end of term. However there is much to be done before then and staff have worked hard over the break to establish exciting, engaging and relevant learning plans for their classes. We have already established goal setting with our children. This follows on from the end of last term's reports,  learning celebrations and parent meetings. 

Our thoughts are with Kirsty, Jack and Flynn Healy at this time after the sad passing of Joe. Joe was a big supporter of Muritai School when the boys attended and was a big contributor to our school activities. The funeral is at Wellesley College at 1.00 this Friday and we have staff attending and so will re-organise the school for Friday afternoon to cater for this. We trust that you understand this situation.

POLYNESIAN FESTIVAL
In the final week of last term we were very proud to see our Kapa haka roopu perform at the Polynesian Festival at Walter Nash Stadium. The roopu were outstanding and it was just wonderful to see the hard work that they and Raihania Chadwick and Ruth Hooke had put in over the last 12 months. They were professional and determined and a credit to their whanau and kura. They certainly were the best that they could be.

MAORI LANGUAGE WEEK
This week is Maori Language week. Mr Chadwick has organised many activities to empower staff and students to engage in and increase their use of te reo during each day. We have taken guidance from the excellent website which you can access here 

BUILDING PROGRESS
The building team went indoors during the holiday break to remove the ceilings in rooms 15, 9 and 8, replacing them with fire retardant gib and increasing the insulation between the floors. They have also improved the access on the south side of the school. After much digging and preparing the site, soon the slab will be laid and from there the library will be be built upwards which will add to the excitement for the children.

CROSS COUNTRY RESULTS
Our cross-country team managed to get 12 runners through to the Wellington Champs at Waikanae where they performed with distinction
Congratulations to  Macey Caughley - Y7 - 1st and Charlotte Humphries - Y6 - 3rd.
Other results achieved = 
Greta Woolloff - Y4 - 10th
Harry Rookes - Y4 - 55th
Chelsea Summers - Y5 - 25th
Emily Jones - Y5 - 48th
Jack Evans - Y5 - 23rd
Henry Evans - Y5 - 34th
Samantha Woolley - Y6 - 11th 
Zali Young - Y6 - 22nd
Theo Jones - Y6 - 33rd
Mia Treadwell-Burke - Y8 - 27th

BUTTERFLY MURAL
A new mural has recently been installed in our Junior school and its even 3D! This was a massive project created by Lisa Allen and our senior school Art Ambassadors (with the assistance of some engineering from our caretaker Roger). They are extremely proud of their achievement – and so they should be! We are sure our junior children will treasure this lovely contribution.

SCIENCE FAIR
Well done to all our Year 7 and 8 students on an outstanding Science Fair at the end of last term. We were absolutely blown away with the work that had been created and the level of understanding the children could articulate when discussing the process of their science investigation. Although the final products are AMAZING it is important to think about the 8 weeks journey the students have been on. It certainly was a massive process and we were very proud of many of the students. Judged by senior teachers and chief judge Mrs Ryan the overall winner was Helena Cvitanovich with her study of "What flour has the most gluten"?

A big congratulations to the following students who received a placing and will represent the school at the NIWA Science fair later this term.
Year 7   1st - Kieran Smith ; 2nd - Matiu Inwood ; 3rd - Alice McFarlane
Year 8   1st - Emmeline Gray ; 2nd - Hannah Moffat ; 3rd - Jake Murphy


SIR PETER BLAKE TRUST LEADERSHIP WEEK
The last week of Term 2 coincided with Sir Peter Blake Trust Leadership Week. The students in our Senior School were lucky enough to have two members from the ‘Dream Team’ to talk to us about their experiences in leadership and how leaders can inspire and encourage others to be the best they can be. A special thanks to Brent McPherson (ERO) and Ben Clark (Corrections) who shared their expertise and experiences on leadership with us.

YEAR 5-6 SPEECH FINALS
From the beginning of Term 2 each student in every Y5/6 class prepared for and presented a speech to their class. Not an easy task but an important part of the school 'journey'. The top two Year 5’s and top two Year 6’s from each class were then invited to present their speeches in a semi-final to the syndicate.  Eight finalists (four Year 5’s and four Year 6’s) were selected to compete and present their speeches in a final, which was held in front of an audience of their peers,  the year 4 classes, and parents and friends. This year’s competition was of a very high standard with a wide variety of interesting speech topics. Congratulations to Evie Richardson, for her outstanding effort on her speech on 'Phobias', taking out the Year 6 speech category and also the Supreme winner of this year’s speech final. Congratulations also to Finlay Clark for winning the Year 5 category with his speech on Netball.

SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR
Once a year we hold our annual Scholastic Book fair which allows our community an opportunity to purchase books at a competitive price and raise money for the school library stock. This year your generosity raised over $1000 for our library. A special thanks to Sue in the library and her main team of organisers, Liz Alderson, Narelle Ferrier and Hannah Fieldes and the group of parent helpers that helped on the day.

WORLD VISION 

We were thrilled to be informed that Muritai children raised $3942.10 for World Vision and the children of Malawi. This is an outstanding effort and World Vision will be at our assembly on August 15th to recognise this achievement. Our thanks to Karen Chao for her organisation of this worthy annual event.

SCHOOL PRODUCTION
Under the direction of the new 'director of performing arts', Mr Raihania Chadwick, planning is well under way for this year's whole school production. The title this year is Tall Tales as we explore the world of children's literature.  The show will be performed on Tuesday 16, Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 September.

CARNIVAL COMMITTEE
The team is busy behind the scenes preparing for this year's carnival to be held on Sunday November 23. The team met last night and has made good progress in their planning. Once the foundation planning and structure is in place they will be looking for 'parent labour' so start thinking and preparing for how you can be part of our big bi-annual school fundraiser.

HOME AND SCHOOL
The team is bubbling along at the moment and have set the date for the school disco which is Friday evening of August 15th. This is in week 4.

Years 1-3    5.00 - 6.00pm
Years 4-6    6.15 - 7.45pm
Years 7-8    8.00 - 9.30pm

Cost: $5.00 which includes a glow stick and an ice block. Pay on the door. There will be a SAUSAGE SIZZLE ($2) throughout the evening. Kids... get ready to dance the night away to the latest top 40 hits.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Thur 24 July  -  Otago Problem Solving Y5-8
Fri 25 July  -   Y7-8 show 1.30
Tue 29 July  -   ICAS English; Y7-8 Hockey; 
Thur 31 July  -   Board of Trustees mtg
Fri 1 Aug  -   School assembly 1.45
Mon 4 Aug  -   Year 7-8 parliament visit
Tue 5 Aug  -   Y5-6 Zone netball
Tue 12 Aug  -   ICAS Maths
Fri 15 Aug  -   Star4Jam; School assembly 1.45; School Disco
Tue 19 Aug  -   Y7-8 Netball 
Thur 28 Aug  -   Board of Trustees mtg
Fri 29 Aug  -   School assembly 1.45
Tue 2 Sept  -   Y5-6 Zone hockey
Wed 3 Sept  -   Starting school at 5
Fri 5 Sept  -   School assembly
Wed 10 Sept  -  Artsplash choir - rehearsal at 11.00 and performance at 7.45
Fri 12 Sept  -   Dancesplash - rehearsal and performance at MFC; Stage goes up in hall.
Mon 15 Sept  -   School production - dress rehearsal and run through
Tue 16 Sept  -   School production - performance
Wed 17 Sept  -   School production - performance
Thurs 18 Sept  -  School production - performance
Wed 24 Sept  -  Junior school Jump Rope
Thurs 25 Sept  -  Board of Trustees mtg
Fri 26 Sept  -  School Assembly 11.45; Last day of term.

COMMUNITY

Keep warm and cosy indoors on Sunday 3rd August from 11am until 2pm at the Eastbourne “winter” Market being held in the Muritai School Hall.    You will find wonderful treats for all the family, hot and cold food, fudge, chutneys, baking.  Browse the exciting range of clothing, even find time to stock up on some early Christmas shopping!   Support our community, buy local, shop local.
Eastbourne Market Team
www.eastbournemarket.co.nz
www.facebook.com/eastbournemarket


Lost Puffer Jackets
Can you please check your puffer jackets.  Ella Giles has lost her Fairydown black jacket (named).  Left behind at school at the end of term 2.  Please call 021 433 021 if found or return to the school office.

Also Roko Treadwell-Burke has lost his puffer jacket.  Black Kathmandu size 6 with "Roko" written in small blue ink on the bakc of the inside label. 

Wednesday 2 July

Kia ora koutou,

This is our final newsletter for the term as we reach the halfway point of the year. 2014 is going really well at Muritai School. The children are well settled, the teaching and support staff are totally committed and the school continues to make steady progress as we work through our annual development plan. Apart from a few jack hammers and diggers which have arrived of late things are going very much according to plan. You will have received your child's mid year report on Friday. I thoroughly enjoyed reading each one and seeing the children's progress and their learning goals and next steps going forward. I hope you did too.

As a school Muritai's teaching staff have been looking really closely at how the key competencies from the NZ curriculum influence our children's learning. The competencies are managing self, relating to others, participating and contributing, thinking, and using symbols and texts (the curriculum) and they  all work hand in hand to help children progress, not just academically but as people. The recognition of the key competencies is the key that unlocks modern learning. You will have read elsewhere (newspapers/media) how important each of these competencies are in the modern work place and it is no different in the school today. Jobs are very different than 20-30 years ago and the five competencies have to work closely in harmony together to get quality performance at school to set the children up for life.  For most of our children they are still developing these skills as they mature as people, but by entry to secondary school they will need to be well down the track to succeed in that assessment driven environment. This challenges our teaching staff to not just notice what students are learning, but how they are learning, and their capacity to continue and improve their learning.

Managing self as a competency is a prime example.  Children's ability to understand the task, accept and focus in on, and complete the task, while working within a busy workplace, is critical to the overall success of the task. Some children do this better than others but all children need to show competency in this area to be able to get the job done. It is the same with relating to others, participating and contributing, thinking and using symbols...and while we have strengths and weaknesses, the more strengths we have in the competencies, the more we can take to the big wide world.  It also challenges us as parents to follow through with the competencies at home to develop character in our children as these skills are not just 9am - 5pm 'school' attributes. It is exciting stuff and a really nice challenge that motivates our teaching and support staff. Our children, as individual people, present a moving landscape and we relish the challenge to enable them to be the best they can be.

How key competencies drive the learning process is described nicely here .

Celebration of Learning
Tomorrow after school we welcome you to your child's classroom for the 'Celebration of Learning'. The children will take you through their learning journey so far this year.

Meeting with teachers
If you would like to follow up the celebration of learning sessions with the classroom teacher, or discuss any concerns that you may have, they are always available to meet with you. Just email to contact them to arrange a mutual time.

Science fair
Our year 7-8 students have really excelled in their science fair assignments this year. At present they are in room 21 but will be available to view in the school hall tomorrow afternoon. There are some amazing ideas that have been investigated and the presentation of the studies is quite superb. Fascinating learning.

Open afternoon for the senior school
The year 7-8 team is holding an open afternoon on tomorrow from 1.30 for parents and children of year 6. There is an information session at 3.15 where teachers and children will share their thoughts and experiences about daily life in our senior school.

Inter-school cross country
The team has performed right to the very end with some excellent placings in the regional champs in Waikanae yesterday. We are still waiting official results but we are aware at this time that Macey and Charlotte have managed to qualify through to the inter-regionals which will be held later in the year.

Scholastic Book Fair
Our annual book fair is on in the library this week and finishes tomorrow evening. Thank you so much to our organisers and parent helpers for the supervision and making this event possible.

Kapa haka
Our kapa haka roopu perform tonight at the Walter Nash Stadium as part of 'the Polynesian Festival'. This is the culmination of some hard work by the team and Raihania Chadwick and Ruth Hooke. Congratulations to the roopu and all the best for tonight

Holiday break
With the holiday break on the horizon it is a good chance to have a good rest and for the children to recharge their batteries. They have put in a great effort this term and are very tired. If I may be so bold to insist the children keep up their daily reading, do some live mathletics and spend time with family or friends exploring the great things New Zealand has to offer. A reminder that the Eastbourne or Petone library have a wonderful variety of reading material for the children to access - fill up a box and take it home!

The new library
There will be a lot of action on the library building in the holiday break with trucks and excavation equipment onsite. The area in front of the '2-storey middle block' will be a hive of activity. I suggest that if you come to use the school facilities you stick to the north end of the property (playgrounds north).

Next term
As we look forward to term 3 we have lots ahead of us. The Artsplash choir is already in motion and of course we have our school production to prepare for ready to go by week 9. At the same time we have the Commonwealth games and the general election occurring in this time frame so there will be some interesting inquiry work going on.

Carnival Team
The Eastbourne Village Carnival is always a great event and this year it will be held on Sunday November 23. The carnival preparation is ticking over nicely and the organising team is meeting early next term and we will be starting to gather names to boost the team as we get close to date.

Informing us if children won't be at school.
Just a reminder that if the children are not going to be at school please let us know. If the children are going to be away from school, other than illness, then we need written notification as we keep a file of records ( a one line email is suffice).

It is that time of year when people are starting to plan for 2015. If you know that you will not be returning to Muritai School in 2015 please let us know as soon as possible. It helps immensely for our future planning.

Thank you for your continued support for Muritai School.

Have a lovely holiday break and enjoy your time with the family.

Noku na

Andrew Bird


COMMUNITY NOTICES
Zumba Classes
Get bikini-ready and have fun dancing!  Zumba classes starting term 3, 21 July for 10 weeks $120 or $15 casual.  Monday 7.30-8.30pm;  Wednesday 9.30 - 10.30am.  Please register interest as class is number dependent.  Melissa 021-253-4499






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