Kia ora koutou,

Welcome back to all of our families and children. A particular welcome to our new children, Tim, Alfie, Henry, Oskar, Liam and Teddy. We are really pleased to have you all with us.

I hope that you all managed to get a good summer break and quality time with your families. The children have come back rested and ready for action. The classes have settled into their mahi and we very much look forward to our year ahead.

There is an unavoidable paper war at the start of the year sorry with several notices coming home already. Hopefully you should have received a sports sign up form, an essential pupil information form and a housekeeping reminders letter with the essential pupil info form. If for any reason you have not seen these, please just let us know and we will get them to you.

The habit over the last few years has been to outline our COVID protocols. This year it will be very brief! Parents are very welcome on-site and in the classrooms before school. We love seeing you here and the kids love to show you what they have been doing in class. Assemblies start this Friday, 2.15pm in Room 7, and we welcome you to join us.

I look forward to catching up with you all if we haven't already over the next few days.

Mā te wā,

Gareth Swete

Wednesday Sausage Sizzle Volunteers

School lunches begin again next week and we are asking for volunteers to cook the sausage sizzle for our children on Wednesdays this term please.
If you are available to cook sausages from approx. 11.45am on a Wednesday for 45 minutes, can you please contact the school office asap.

The sausage sizzle is very popular and we are keen to continue providing this as an option for our Wednesday lunch.

SchoolApps

Please make sure you have access to our SchoolApps notifications to ensure you receive up to the minute information sent out from the school. The link to set it up can be accessed here - install link

Kia ora SBS School Community!

We are thrilled to be back at school for 2023! What an exciting year of learning experiences we have in store, and I am thrilled to share that we have an excited and eager class of tamariki in Papatūānuku!

This week, we welcome Liam, Henry, Alfie, Oskar and Teddy to our class! Welcome to Papatūānuku and Sawyers Bay School!

We have had fun exploring our playground. We’ve been climbing the the top of the Big Fort each day, up the Spider Climbing Frame, around the playground to the Little Fort, and playing in the sandpit!

Inside the class, we’ve been learning class routines and exploring the equipment, activities and games. We have started our artwork which depicts our “Summer Holiday Highlight” and each child has told, and published a story to accompany their art pieces. We are showing these in assembly this week if you’d like to come and be part of the first school assembly for 2023.

Rīpoata na Mrs Campbell

Kia Ora from Hine-Rau-Wharangi

Welcome back to the new school year and to Hine-Rau-Wharangi whanau, it has been an awesome start to the new school year. The children are very excited to be in their new class and we have been slowly getting into our daily routines and getting to know where everything is in the classroom.

This week we have been doing some fun activities about getting to know each other and have been working on our forwards and backwards counting. The children have been learning the different Math games in the class that we will be using at math time to enhance our addition and subtraction skills.

The Dunedin weather has been stunning at the moment and really hot so it is really important that our children have drink bottles and sun hats at school.

In Hine-Rau the classroom door is always open or the other alternative for communication is

adeleb@sawyersbay.school.nz feel free to come in and chat. I look forward to catching up with you all. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Rīpoata na Mrs Brewer

Haere mai and welcome to the Tāwhirimātea whanau! It has been so lovely to see the school buzzing with familiar (and new) faces again, and to once again see parents coming in and out of the school and classroom.

What a wonderful start to the term so far. So far this week has been all about getting to know each other and our new spaces and becoming familiar with some of our classroom routines. We have been learning about Te tiriti o Waitangi and how this made people feel. This has led to us creating a very collective and fair classroom treaty which we will get published and signed to put up on the wall. We have been playing lots of physical games both indoors and outdoors, with the children really enjoying playing some old favourites and learning some new games too. We have been using tens frames in math in a variety of ways including lots of different partner challenges with them. Below are a couple of photos of the children hard at work trying to beat their partners while making and recording numbers to 20. We have also been busy writing about our holidays and publishing these onto a suitcase template which we will also decorate. These should be up on the walls shortly so feel free to pop in next week and have a read. I have quickly come to realise that there are some very keen writers in Tāwhirimātea this year and I have already had requests to write our own books so this is something we will work towards later in the term. Today the children will have Mr Slabbert (Chris) teaching them which will be a regular occurrence on Thursdays and I look forward to being back in class on Friday. Friday assemblies will begin this week for those who are keen to come along. It will be our turn to share in week 3 if you want to mark it in your diaries.

Rīpoata na Mrs Swete

Kia Ora from Ranginui

I know it has only been a few days back but we are up and humming! It is so good to have such happy students who already feel like a whanau group. We have welcomed Miss Josie McPhail to Ranginui. Josie is a third year teaching student and will pop in and out of Ranginui over the year.

You will have received an outline of our terms inquiry and a little ‘Paper Bag’ with instructions. Me in a paper bag is a great activity for the students and I to get to know each other early in the term. Please let me know if you have any questions on what to bring in. The day for your child to share is on the front of the bag. Now that we are SENIORS we will be participating in senior sports rotations and singing on Thursdays.

A few thoughtful classroom ideas: Please tie long hair up. No nail polish or extra jewelry to be worn. Sunhats are a must (protection is well needed at present) plus sunblock before school is very useful. Please no special toys/dolls etc except when it’s for sharing time. Two way communication is important to a successful learning class. Contact me on joslynr@sawyersbay.school.nz with any questions.

I look forward to reconnecting with you all.

Rīpoata na Miss Ruzsa

It has been awesome getting to know the new Tāne Mahuta cohort for 2023 over the past couple of days. We have shared interesting news about us and our holidays, begun to learn our new classroom routines and expectations and engaged in some meaningful tasks to begin the term. Some of the highlights the children have shared with me so far have included: writing a letter to the teacher, learning about mindfulness, reading, trying new oral language activities and designing our desk tags. I am looking forward to building on our learning and continuing to grow our connections in the class as learning collaborators together this year. Thanks for a great start to the term Tāne Mahuta!

Rīpoata na Miss Tenci

Registration for Term 1 Sport (futsal and touch) is due by Tuesday 7th February. A newsletter has been sent home this week - please contact the office if you would like a copy.

All welcome - come and join us!

We have created a search engine that works by filtering out foods based on allergens or preferences. We have all of the major retailers on our website, so families can search what foods in the market are safe.

Here’s the link to our website if you’d like to have a look: https://myWellabee.com Our platform is FREE to sign up and search.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or input.

Aysu Shahin| Registered Dietitian

myWellaBee - Discover Food Freedom

https://mywellabee.com/

Tuesday 28th Feb 2023, Cancellation date 1st March

Registrations 5pm at Port Chalmers Swimming Pool

First race 6pm.

5-7 year olds:

Run ¾ lap around rugby field (400m ), swim 3 widths (30m)

8-10 year olds:

Run 2 laps around rugby field (1km) swim 2 lengths (60m)

11-14 year olds:

Run 3 laps around rugby field (1.5km) swim 5 lengths (150m)

Cost $10.00 per person in a Team or $10.00 Individual, Entries forms available Port Chalmers Pool and Moana Pool. Or email liciamihaka@gmail.com Entries close 25th Feb.

Contact Person: Licia Mihaka 0274178798