It has been wonderful operating the school and the curriculum programmes this term with less restrictions. Many of our students are participating in the winter sports activities and it is great to see the enjoyment and fun they are getting out of playing in their team sports. As you are aware, the opening up of events, and the mixing of students is balanced by the risks of any viruses being spread. We are all aware that COVID-19 continues to be one of the current viruses circulating, and we know the other normal winter viruses will also start making their way through our community.

We are definitely not back to “business as usual” as we are still having to operate within a COVID-19 orange restriction framework. This requires students to isolate for the full seven days if they have COVID-19 or are in a household where there is a COVID-19 positive case. This does create some logistical challenges for families as well as the school, however we are pulling through this very well and I appreciate the support we have from our community.

We have had some wonderful events for our students this term, and we have more things planned in the next few weeks.

A few updates for you:

Teacher Only Day – School will be closed on Thursday the 23rd of June. Please note that the Matariki public holiday is Friday the 24th of June. So school is closed Thursday and Friday of that week. The teachers will be looking at the NZ Histories Curriculum as well as analysing the achievement of students and planning ahead for Term 3. Written school reports will be sent home at the end of this term.

We are planning for a school disco on Wednesday night the 22nd of June. More details will follow.

Property Matters

The interior upgrade has now had a building consent issued. Repricing of the proposal is currently being done. As there has been significant time delay the costs and availability of Trades is now a contributing factor.

The school will be having a complete upgrade of the sewerage system. This is currently being scoped as a project by the Ministry of Education and I will have more details when the plans have been finalised.

We are also looking at a school repaint next year, and we hope to do some planning work towards developing an entrance way into the school that is clearly signposted and welcoming. The board intends to consult with our community about ideas around this project development. If you know of any landscape architect who may be able to assist us please let me know.

This year is the triennial election for the board members. This means that school boards across New Zealand are re-elected. The election date for Albury has been set as September the 7th. The Board has selected Canterbury Education Services as our Returning Officer. Our board constitution will see us filling 4 elect members to our board. If you are interested or know of any other community member who may be interested in standing for election, please contact me or any other board members if you would like to know more about the roles.

A community meeting is being held on the 7th of July at 6:45pm at the Fairlie Community Library for any members of the community throughout our district who may wish to know more about the responsibilities of being on a school board. This meeting is being run by the New Zealand School Trustees Association.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank both Liv France and Aaron McCall. Liv and Aaron have served our school community extremely well for a number of years and both have recently stepped down from their board duties due to other commitments. It has been a pleasure working alongside you and your dedication to Albury School has been greatly appreciated.

Our next board meeting is June the 16th at 6:30 in the school library. Feel free to come along if you are interested in seeing how and what happens at a board meeting.

Nick Fisher – Albury School Presiding Member

2022

May

• Thursday 26th: Sushi
• Thursday 26th: Assembly

June

• Wednesday 1st: Interschool Cross Country at Cannington School 10.00am
• Monday 6th: Queens Birthday - SCHOOL CLOSED
• Thursday 9th: Sushi
• Thursday 9th: Assembly
• Tuesday 14th: Interschool Cross Country Championship at Waihi School (selected senior students only)

• Thursday 16th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm
• Wednesday 22nd: Disco Albury Hall, 5.30pm-7.00pm
• Thursday 23rd: Teacher only day- SCHOOL CLOSED
• Friday 24th: Matariki- SCHOOL CLOSED

July

• Friday 1st: Ice Skating Day Tekapo Springs
  
• Thursday 7th: Sushi
• Thursday 7th: Assembly
• Friday 8th: End of Term 2

• Monday 25th: Start of Term 3
• Monday 25th: Teacher only day- SCHOOL CLOSED
• Thursday 28th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm

August

• Wednesday 10th: Ski Day Roundhill
• Thursday 25th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm

September

• Tuesday 6th: School Photos
• Thursday 29th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm
• Friday 30th: End of Term 3

October

• Monday 17th: Start of Term 4
• Monday 24th: Labour Day- SCHOOL CLOSED
• Thursday 27th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm

November

• Thursday 24th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm

December

• Wednesday 7th - Friday 9th: Senior Camp Aoraki Mount Cook
• Tuesday 13th: End of Term 4
• Thursday 15th: Board meeting, school library 6.30pm

The term has started with beautiful warm days, and the beauty of autumn covering the school grounds in a carpet of leaves. Playtimes consist of making leaf piles and fun, fun, fun. In the classroom learning is gaining momentum.

We began the term looking at shapes and learning about their attributes. We combined digital technology with maths and took photos of shapes outside and made a picture collage of them. It was a challenge to get the whole shape in the photo, lots of skills were learnt.

Literacy learning is gaining momentum. We are learning about sentences and how to write them. We know that every sentence has a noun and a verb and that there are different types of sentences.

We loved meeting Daliha Malaeulu and Donavan Bixley on Friday. Daliha shared her journey to become an author and read us a selection of her books. Donavan drew some characters for us and read us a beautiful story about Maui as a young boy. What an amazing experience for us all.

We are looking forward to the cross country and enjoy practicing at school.

Enjoy the pics.

Nga Mihi

Heather van der Heyden

Our Rippa Rugby team travelled to Timaru last week to compete in the Year 5 & 6 Rippa Rugby Tournament at Ashbury Park.

I was a glorious sunny autumn day and they all had a great time.

Our awesome Albury Kids did amazing in their games and showed great resilience and a fantastic can-do attitude.

Thank you to Darcey for coaching the team and to Liv and Mel for the support!

On Friday, 20th May, we had some visitors at Albury School.

Our Albury Kids were mesmerised by their stories and loved seeing their inspiring work.

Dahlia Malaeulu has created a series of books for preschoolers and primary school aged children with the goal to introduce them to the Samoan language and culture.

The children loved looking at her books and listening to her stories and she had brought lots of items in her suitcase for the students to look at.

Donovan Bixley is an author and illustrator and has created or co-created over 100 books that were published in numerous countries and languages.

The children were intrigued to learn that his writing and illustrating journey started at the young age of 8, when he wrote a story in a little notebook to go with his drawings based on the Lord of the Rings books.

Mrs Donnelly surprised the Tui kids with their very own little notebooks, for them to get signed by Donovan Bixley and to create their own drawings and stories.

Thank you Erin, Georgina, Laura and Liv for providing a beautiful selection of food for our visitor's morning tea.

We have received a discount offer for our Albury School families who would like to register for the Mackenzie Half Marathon on 23rd July 2022.

The organising team would love to see as many children and their families entering from all around the Mackenzie Region.

You will be eligible for 10% off registration costs for the 2.5km Hole in One Fun Run, the 5.5km Flat Jack or the under 19 run or walk 10km River Dip by entering the code 'ALBURY' when registering.

Does anyone have an old stainless steel kitchen sink they would like to donate to Albury School?

If you do, please get in touch with Heather or Kathrin, it would be much appreciated!

Our Albury Kids love their mud-kitchen and we would love to get it fixed!

To attend camps or overnight trips you must have a current Police Vet Check.

For some parents their PVCs are expiring this year (Kathrin will email you to let you know).

If you wish to renew your current PVC, and for new requests, please let Kathrin know and we will get the applications underway. They take quite a long time to process, so we need to plan months ahead to get these processed.

A reminder to ensure that all students bring their own full water bottles from home daily.

To contact school during school hours please ring the office: phone number 03 685 5844.

If we are unable to take your call, please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

To let us know that your child is away for the day, please ring the office or send an email to office@albury.school.nz and we will pass on the information to the classroom teacher.

Please be aware that if your child is away or if there are changes to their pick up routine we are required to collect this information from a caregiver -just give us a quick call or flick us an email.

Thank you!

Healthcare and Behaviour Management

Albury School Policies are located online at School Docs.

www.schooldocs.co.nz

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