Matapu School Newsletter

Term 2, Week 6, 11th June 2021

Calendar - Please note some new dates added & further information for events will be sent home closer to the date if required.

  • Week beginning Monday 21st June - Puanga Week
  • Wednesday & Thursday 23rd & 24th June - Whanau Learning Conferences
  • Friday 25th June - SPA Disco & Sausage Sizzle
  • Saturday 26th June - Matapu SPA Bogan Bingo Night
  • Tuesday 29th June - BOT Meeting, 9:10am
  • Friday 9th July - End of Term 2

Principal's Weekly Update

RAISE Goal: to show integrity by making good choices on wet weather days


Te reo phrase of the week: kāti (that’s enough)


Kia ora,


We hope you all had a fantastic long weekend. We have had a great week at school. On Tuesday we celebrated the efforts of our support staff (teacher aides, office administrators, cleaners, and caretakers) as part of the annual support staff appreciation week. All of our support staff do an incredible job of ensuring our school runs so smoothly. Their work ethic and ability to go above and beyond is regularly commented on, which makes us feel incredibly lucky to have them as part of our team.


John Parsons

Our senior students attended a talk about cyber safety on Thursday. Many of the messages they heard are applicable to all of our students as most of them are pretty adept at being able to use a digital device from an early age. I’ve listed a few specific pointers from the session below:

  • Children should not use devices in their bedrooms

  • All primary and intermediate aged children should be off devices by 7:30 pm

  • Children should never accept a friend request from people they don’t know


In an increasingly complex digital world, it is wonderful to have some practical tips that our whanau can easily implement at home.


Rod Carley, our caretaker for the past 18 months, has indicated that it is time for him to finish up. Raewyn and Rod have been building a house north of New Plymouth, which is nearing completion. Rod has been a big part of our property team and has really helped to maintain the outstanding presentation that our school enjoys. We wish him and Raewyn all the very best for the future.


We are therefore after a new caretaker. It is a casual position where the hours of work can vary, but there is always consistent work available. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please send them my way or flick me an email at principal@matapu.school.nz.


Ngå mihi nui


James Willson

Values Awards

Values Awards

Room 3 - Anika for showing integrity by always doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.

Room 1 - Toby for being super helpful every Friday morning when we set up for assembly.

Room 2 - Stefi for showing tenacity and persevering through her reading.

Room 4 - Noah for making a huge effort to complete his independent activities.

Room 5 - Jazmyn for being a consistent role model in Room 5.

Room 6 - Kyle for showing amazing enthusiasm for all of your learning.

Values Awards
Puanga Week

Puanga Week

From Monday 21st to Friday 25th of June we are celebrating Puanga.


As part of this celebration we are having a shared lunch with our buddy class on Friday the 25th of June. We would like each child to bring a plate of food to share with their class.


Puanga is given prominence as some parts of New Zealand cannot see Matariki clearly and therefore look to the next important star near Matariki. That star is Puanga.

Puanga and Matariki is a time to wānanga, to restore faith and hope for the future, a time for whanaungatanga, to be with others, share stories and kai, and celebrate who we are.

As well as marking the beginning of a new year, it also signals other new beginnings. Traditionally Puanga and Matariki was the time to plant trees, prepare the land for planting crops and renew associations with whānau, family and friends.

The New Year is also a good time to reflect on your place in the world, to reawaken old skills or try out new ones and set new goals.

Puanga Week

Whakatauki

Ko te manu e kai ana i te miro nona te ngahere.

Ko te manu e kai ana i te matauranga nona te ao.


The bird that consumes the miro owns the forest.

The bird that consumes knowledge owns the world.

Room 1

Room 1

We have had another great week in Room One! Yesterday we took our year 7 and 8 students to Hawera to listen to John Parsons speak about keeping ourselves safe online. He shared lots of valuable insights with us over the afternoon. A couple of important lessons that we hope have made it into your conversations at home is;

  • How important it is for children to not post personal information about themselves, their families or their friends online, and
  • When they are old enough to have social media profiles, that they ensure they have family members following them on social media so they too can help to keep an eye out for predators that may be lurking online. Please help your child by continuing to have these important conversations at home.

Room 1
Room 2

Room 2

This week has been extremely busy considering it was only a 4 day week. On Thursday, the Year 7 students went into Hawera to listen to John Parsons speak about cyber safety. It was an incredibly important talk that all students needed to hear and covers an important issue about how to be safe online.


On Wednesday we created a hut or shelter using strawbees, where students worked in pairs to create some interesting looking shelters. We worked on our tenacity and persevered to complete the activity.

Room 2
Room 3

Room 3

This week it has been national support staff week. Our class benefits from the support of three hard working teacher aides; Olivia, Jacque and Sharon. Room 3 would like to send a massive thank you to these three T.A's and to Emma in the office. You are constantly helping to keep our classroom sailing along smoothly. Thank you!
Room 3
Room 4

Room 4

We had Mr Blance in a few times this week, he showed us how to use some great describing words for writing. We have almost finished painting our maps and we are revisiting some of our Aumangea Taima creations to see what we can do better. Last Friday we created some lego mountains and we learned about how to construct them without falling to pieces. We will have another go at this and try to use some of the things we learned to improve our designs.
Room 4
Room 5

Room 5

Another great week done and dusted. Each week we look at a new sound in our class. Either a letter sound or a digraph sound and we try to spot it during the week in our class, in our books and even in the school. We were looking for the letter H in this photo! We love our weekly letter hunts!
Room 5
Room 6

Room 6

Our challenge for ourselves this week has been to work with our buddy to try and make a hexagon shape using Lego.

First we had to talk together to decide who would collect the board and who would get the Lego.

Next we had to share our ideas on what a hexagon looks like and how we might be able to make it, then work together to have a go at constructing it. We had to learn to share the tasks so that we all had some contribution to the activity.

It was a tricky challenge and we had to think a lot about it, but we got there in the end...have a look and see what you think!


Room 6

Sponsors

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

Mark Joblin Concept & Construction Ltd, Sanfords Rural Carriers, Taranaki By-Products, McDonald Real Estate, Eltham Vet Services, ANZCO, Power Farming, Corrigan Electrical, Matapu Bulk Transport, CRV Ambreed, FMG, Mack Transport, Blastways, Nevada, Ballance, Todd Energy, & BCCL (Burgess Crowley Civil Limited) Carrfields Livestock, Rosemount Charolais - Dairy Bull Specialists, PGG Wrightson Livestock, Jack Gray Ltd, Bruce Parry Livestock, Kelsen's Glass & Glazing, Tommo's Tyres Ltd, Chris Perrett Electrical Solutions, Holdem Contracting Ltd, STE (South Taranaki Electrical), Kaponga Four Square, MG Taranaki.

PLEASE SUPPORT THOSE THAT SUPPORT US

Matapu School

Matapu School

Matapu School

495 Hastings Road, Matapu, New Zealand admin@matapu.school.nz (06) 272 6764 matapu.school.nz