Te Aroha Primary School
Term 2 Week 6 2022
PRINCIPAL / TUMUAKI MESSAGE
Kia ora parents and whānau,
I trust that you all had an enjoyable long weekend. With 5 weeks behind us we are now in the middle of Term 2. This week is Support Staff week where we put the spotlight on the awesome team that we have here at Te Aroha Primary School. Look out for our Facebook posts showing how we have celebrated this coming week.
Thank you to those who have completed our Inclusive practices community survey. So far we have had 22 responses. We would like to have a lot more than that please. I understand that the survey does not work on a cellphone so we have devices available at school for you to use. The results from this survey will provide us with rich data that can be used to inform future planning around the school. For it to be truly representative of our community we need as many families as possible to complete this survey, please take the time to do it for us. Thank you.
So far in my 5 weeks I have had the pleasure and privilege of visiting the Waihou and Tikapa moana hubs. I was very impressed with the high quality of teaching and learning that was occurring in classrooms. It is clear that we have dedicated and passionate teachers here at Te Aroha Primary School. In the next few weeks I will be visiting Te moananui-a-kiwa to see how our senior students are progressing through their term 2 mahi. The Goldfields classroom is also an amazing place to visit and I am a regular visitor to their classroom. There is always something exciting happening there.
Being a short week I’m sure it will whizz by. Have an awesome week everyone.
Ka kite,
Justin Bertrand
KEY TERM DATES
TERM TWO DATES 2022
- 2/5/2022 First day of Term 2 / Our new principal, Mr Justin Bertrand, starts with us.
- New Zealand Sign Language Week 2022 – Monday 9 to Sunday 15 May
- 20/5/2022 Pink Shirt Day – NZ Wide Anti-Bullying Campaign - Friday 20 May
- Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa - Samoa Language Week 29 May - 4 June 2022
- 6/6/2022 Queen’s Birthday – Monday 6 June
- Support Staff Week (7th - 10th June)
- 8/6/2022 - Rippa Rugby Day
- 9/6/2022 - PTA AGM is set for 6pm Thursday 9th June in the staffroom. Coffee and cake provided. All welcome.
- Ready, Set, Go! – *UPDATED DATE* Wednesday 15 June (1:40pm - 2:40pm), Wednesday 22 June, Wednesday 6 July
- 24/6/2022 Matariki Public Holiday – Friday 24 June
- 8/7/2022 Last day of Term 2 – Friday 8 July
Other term dates to be advised.
SPORTS NEWS - Mrs Paul
Totara Springs: Thanks to everyone who got their application in on time. We will announce the definites and work on having the rest of the team sorted before the end of the week. When selecting a team, preference will go to all those who put their hand up every time we have a sporting event, and those who fully participate in school sports such as Swimming, Cross Country and Athletics.
Rippa: This Wednesday - a letter will come home with the arrangement for cars. Please check with your child if yours hasn't come. All parents were asked to register their children online. It was disappointing that I had to sepend my Saturday night doing this as half our parents hadn’t done it. Our teams would have been sent home had this not been done when we arrived. Thanks Megan Diprose for your help with this. Please be at school at 9am ready to leave not long after for the Managers Meeting. There will be food for sale.
EXTRA NEWS and STUDENT VIEWS
Senior School Reporters
This week our Reporters were Perryn, Morgan, Nicole, Jahnaia, Tessa and Taylin - “Bringing extra news and student views to the Newsletter”.
Waihou Hub Art!
The student in Waihou (Hub 1) are artists! Here are some of their most recent artworks. Even though Room 3 are in the library, we were still able to get some pictures of their artwork to show.
Room 1 Art
Room 2 Art
Room 3 Art
Junior School at Play
Waihou (Hub 1) is currently under construction, which has limited their playing space. However, this has not discouraged or stopped them from enjoying the areas they do have. At the moment the sandpit is a huge hit and some other places that have been occupied include the junior playground, the lower field and the quad.
Here are some photos of them in action!
Year 7/8 Technology at Te Aroha College
Please make sure your child has shoes that cover their feet (NO SLIDES PLEASE) and long hair needs to be tied up. Roll call for the bus at 8.30am outside Rm 10. If your child is running late and misses the bus, please take them straight to the College.
Students 12+ years are to wear a mask on the bus as per Orange setting.
CLASSROOM ROUND UPS
WAIHOU / HUB 1 / JUNIOR BLOCK / YEAR 1-2
Room 1 - Mrs Johnson
Hope you all had a great long weekend. Becoming a Mathematician has been a focus in our class and last week it was so pleasing to see the children’s enthusiasm as well as the progress that has been made with counting. Great excitement when we got to 146!
LITERACY - This week our phonics work is h,e and r and 3 letter words we can blend together with the sounds we have learnt. Please keep practising the word blending at home, mastering sounding out and then putting the word together is an integral part of becoming an independent reader. Thank you for supporting your child’s learning at home, at this early stage of reading it really is just practice, practice, practice!
MATH - Our class goal is counting backwards from 20 accurately and to know the numbers that come before a given number to 10 and then to 20.
Thank you Room 10 for the wonderful helpers who take such good care of Room 1 during rainy day lunch times.
REMINDERS
Please remember your drink bottle, homework books and book bags everyday.
It is very helpful to have a change of clothes in school bags just in case they are needed.
Room 2 – Miss Webb
Welcome to Week 6, I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend! We have another exciting week planned in Room 2.
- Maths: Last week we really enjoyed using Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons to help us with our subtraction. This week we will focus on subtraction again and use Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes to support us with this.
- Writng: We will also use the Pete the Cat book for our focus in writing. We will follow up our writing from the week with Pete the cat artwork!
- Reading: I have been really impressed with the progress of all the room 2 tamariki in their reading. It is evident that everyone has been working really hard on their home learning too.
A reminder that next Thursday, 9th June, I will be available from 3.00 - 3.30 for any parents and caregivers who would like to pop in and meet me. This is a great opportunity to have a look around our classroom and see some of the children’s work in their books. Learning discussions will take place at a later date in the year.
Please remember your drink bottle, homework books and book bags everyday.
Please do not hesitate to contact me via Seesaw or email zwebb@tearohaprimary.school.nz
Room 3 – Miss Swan
Kia ora koutou
Welcome to Week 6 Room 3 whānau!
I hope all enjoyed some time together over the long weekend! Some highlights for Room 3 last week were making predictions and discussing our results on what would happen with our bottle balloons and being superstars with our counting collection lesson!
- Writing: This week our focus is on using word cards to double check our work. Rereading our sentences to see if they make sense and making changes where needed is a huge part of our writing journey.
- Reading: New reading groups are underway and Room 3 children are working hard towards their individual reading goals. We are mastering Work on Writing this week as part of our Daily 5 programme during our reading times.
- Maths: Room 3 are master counting collectors! We love being able to count in 10’s past 100! We continue to work with numbers from 0-100 and start to explore place value.
Reminders for the week:
Please remember your Poem book.
I am commencing testing this week and we welcome the lovely Miss Green to our class on Wednesday!
Please remember your drink bottle, homework books and book bags everyday
Our days are getting colder - school jerseys and warm socks are needed!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me via Seesaw or email mswan@tearohaprimary.school.nz
Have an awesome week 😊
GOLDFIELDS / SATELLITE UNIT / JUNIOR BLOCK
Room 4 - Mrs Suzette Willis, Mrs Donna Taylor-Erutoe and Team
We had a lovely Teddy Bears picnic on Friday celebrating the Queen’s birthday! Looking forward to meeting with our whanau Week 7 for our IEP meetings. Debz our play therapist comes on a Tuesday and does Sensory play . We play games and the students love it! We had a visit from our Speech therapist Ruth, doing a Kiwi chat online session as well.
Have a great week whanau!
TIKAPA MOANA / HUB 2 / MIDDLE BLOCK / YEAR 3-5
Room 5 - Miss Entwisle
Welcome to Week 6!
- Reading: Our class novel Gruesome Twosome by Keith Brumpton is proving to be a hit in class. We are enjoying finding out about the adventures of the main characters Fatima and Cuthbert.
- Writing: We are becoming experts at identifying similes and are starting to spot them in the books that are read to us as well as those we read ourselves. We are starting to use these with more confidence in our writing.
- Mathematics: We are moving onto Money and will be using our knowledge of 10’s to help us with this.
- Topic: We have been learning about some of the myths and legends to do with Aotearoa. We will be looking at the history of Te Aroha and identifying local landmarks (natural and man-made) and how they came to be named.
Reminders / Online Learning - Homework
Our Spelling words and weekly poem and other home learning based tasks are available on Seesaw. This work is optional.
Students have free access to learning sites such as: Prodigy, Sumdog, Sunshine Classics, Epic! and Mathletics.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact Miss Entwisle via the school office: 078848803; email: mentwisle@tearohaprimary.school.nz or through the Seesaw message function. 😊
Room 6 – Mrs Bankier
Mrs Bartram will be in on Tuesday so that I can complete my testing in Reading and Maths. Mrs Bartram will be continuing on with our Wonder Project Rockets.
Spelling: This week we are focusing on the ch sound in words, while reviewing open and closed syllables.
Maths: we will be continuing learning our multiplication facts and problem solving using multiplication.
Writing: will be a character description writing assessment piece, which we will publish and share with you on Seesaw.
Please remember if you have any 1.5L drink bottles we are needing some for our Wonder Project rockets.
Room 7 – Mrs Paul
I will complete my testing on Tuesday and it has been lovely to see all the progress we have made despite the silly bug circulating the country.
In Spelling: We continue with the y making a long e sound on the end of words. I am most impressed with the children’s attitude to this new spelling programme and the activities.
In Writing: We will finish narratives this week. Mr Bertrand joined us for a narrative lesson last week and he was impressed with the wonderful ideas the children were sharing and the way they worked together as a group.
Our NZ Histories work will involve a bit of computational thinking as we navigate the islands this week. This can be accessed from home if you wish to have a look.
TE MOANANUI-A-KIWA / HUB 3 / SENIOR BLOCK / YEAR 6-8
Room 8 – Mrs McKenzie
Welcome to week 6!
This week will be another busy week, involving some more testing and assessments. Students are well aware of this and should be confident and capable of doing their absolute best.
- Students are becoming experts in the History of New Zealand and the Pacific as we explore further into our Topic Inquiry, the Histories Curriculum. We are learning through Reading journals and articles, text, legends, art, Writing explanations and digital technology to ensure students are getting the breadth and depth of skills and knowledge.
- In Maths we continue to use division strategies, showing division in written form, and towards the end of the week, we are looking at fractions and decimals in division.
- Art has been enjoyed by all, and we are starting to gain a collection of colour on our walls that reflect our learning. There has been some pretty amazing musical talent show in our classroom too, we will continue this!
A reminder that students should be practising their multiplication facts at home too, to ensure they can quickly and confidently solve problems.
As always, I am always happy to answer any questions from you via email or Seesaw. Have a great week everyone.
Room 9 – Whaea Armstrong and Mrs Gamble
A big thank you to all those who brought in materials last week for our Maori Pā construction. Everyone had great success in completing these and we look forward to showing our finished products in the upcoming week.
A short week ahead with testing taking place alongside our classroom learning.
- Math: We will begin to look at how to apply division strategies to solve math problems. Please continue to help your child learn their multiplication and division facts. This will help build a strong foundation and provide them with the confidence to move onto more complex and challenging math.
- Literacy: Last week for reading we had great success in identifying and summarizing key information within the text ‘Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa - NZ Wars’. We will continue developing this comprehension strategy along with making connections between texts, linking information and consolidating our learning. We made a great start with our information reports on Maori Pā last week, we hope to finish writing these and have our collaborative group video blogs completed also. These will be posted on Seesaw by the end of this week or early next week.
- Inquiry: We will continue to focus on NZ Histories. Last week we looked at the northern war and the Taranaki war. The Waikato war will be our focus this week. Adding the last finishing touches onto our Maori Pā models and completing the supporting tasks is our top priority.
If you have any questions send us a message on Seesaw or email
aarmstrong@tearohaprimary.school.nz and lgmable@tearohaprimary.school.nz
Here are a few photos of our Maori Pa models under construction. We have been so impressed with the amount of creativity put into these, well done Room 9.
PowerCo Visit to Room 10
We were very proud to have the media team from PowerCo visit us last week. PowerCo kindly donated laptops to our school and our group of techies converted these to a chrome book configuration for us to be able to use them in class. We were able to show them how we use these with our learning and all the different online platforms we use. It was very exciting to be interviewed!
Room 10 – Mrs B
Kia ora koutou -” E toro haere ana mātou” = we are going places.
- Literacy and Inquiry - “What Happened Here” - our learning will continue to be linked in these areas as we begin our indepth focus on the New Zealand Land Wars - ‘Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa'' This will require us to look deeply into the text to show our understanding and connection to the text. We also complete our Maori Pā models and our explanations on how the innovative designs of pā tūwatawata enabled Māori to defend themselves against the military technology of the British invaders. This is really exciting work.
- Maths - we continue to explore efficient strategies to solve large whole number division problems and are looking forward to another visit from Mrs Mac this week.
- Samoan Language Week - we look forward to sharing our siva Samoa dances this week, which was our class challenge for last’s week’s Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa - Samoa Language Week.
I am super proud of the learning that is happening in Rm 10 at the moment - keep it up! Our class is an exciting place to be.
Looking forward to an awesome week.
Arohanui - Mrs B dp@tearohaprimary.school.nz
LUNCHES IN SCHOOLS PROGRAMME
WINTER UNIFORM EXPECTATIONS
TE AROHA PRIMARY SCHOOL UNIFORM POLICY
Children at Te Aroha Primary School are required to wear the appropriate school uniform to school each day. Summer uniform is worn in terms one and four and winter uniform is worn in terms two and three.
Our winter uniform consists of:
School Beanie (optional)
Green polo shirt with school logo
Green polar fleece top with school logo
School navy blue shorts
School navy blue skorts
School navy blue track bottom
Sensible shoes - we recommend sneakers, jandals or sandals or slip on shoes. Ug boots or high heeled boots are not sensible shoes for children to wear to school.
Optional winter uniform items:
Tights – black, dark green or navy blue. *UPDATED* Footless tights/leggings are now permitted, but need to be full length and plain navy (no patterns or branding).
Navy blue or dark green skivvies may be worn under the polo shirt. (No other coloured skivvies are permitted).
Additional uniform notes:
• Children are required to wear shorts/skorts underneath their track bottom at all times. This is so that when class physical activity is done children don’t over heat in a track bottom in summer or in winter end up with a wet and muddy track bottoms.
• We want our students to be neat and tidy and a good example of what our school stands for when they are at school and out in the community.
PTA NEWS
PTA AGM
We Need You!
Reduced to single figures, this body of parents is vital to the school in many ways. They effectively help the school’s efforts in providing the best for your child - computers, play equipment, subsidised trips and much, much more.
- Kate on 0211877459
- PTA email taps.pta@gmail.com
SPONSORS
We need these firms to keep our school cashflow and community relations going strong. They are generous to us which enables us to benefit your children so I would ask you look at the team of sponsors and where possible, use them as we all gain.
School Policies and Procedures
School Policies and Procedures
SchoolDocs is the tool we use for our school policies. These are kept updated with the SchoolDocs team ensuring legal and compliance matters are always up-to-date.
To access SchoolDocs simply :
1. Go to schooldocs.co.nz
2. Click Search for your school.
3. Start typing the school’s name and select it from the dropdown list.
4. Enter the community username tearohaprimary and password school
From there it is simply a matter of navigating to areas you wish to look at - enjoy the read.
School App, Facebook, Seesaw and our School Website
Please use these tools we provide - we use them to alert, inform and effectively communicate with parents.
Check it out - there is plenty for you to find out.
If in doubt please ask your child’s teacher as we will be using these platforms on a regular basis to keep our parent community informed and up to date.
Contact Us
Email: admin@tearohaprimary.school.nz
Website: https://tearohaprimary.school.nz/
Location: Jubilee Avenue, Te Aroha, New Zealand
Phone: 07-884 8803
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Te-Aroha-Primary-School-193399510687026/