Kia ora whānau,

Greetings everyone and welcome to Week 3.

I am beginning to feel more familiar at Te Aroha Primary. I certainly noticed by the end of last week that I was beginning to recognise many faces and have learnt a bunch of names already.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Te Moananui-a-Kiwa hub hui last week where I got quizzed by the children…everything from ‘what would you be doing if you weren’t a principal?’ through to ‘what did you have for dinner last night?’ It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed spending time with the students having a fun korero.

This week I am going to start visiting the classrooms at TAPS to get a feel for what ‘magic’ is happening in our kura…I am really looking forward to it and can’t wait to meet more children in their classrooms and see the fantastic work they are doing.

Just a reminder that the building work is beginning this week in the Waihou Hub, there will be some fencing around the site and it will be a little noisy at times. It will be exciting when they are finished and we will have a modern new teaching space to enjoy.

Finally, as you will see below, Friday is Pink Shirt day. Bullying can be a big deal in a child’s life if they find themselves in a situation where they are being bullied. The Mental Health Foundation does some amazing work in this space supporting students at primary and secondary level. Please support this worthy cause and dress in Pink on Friday and bring along a gold coin donation if you would like.

Have an awesome week everyone.

Ngā mihi nui,

Justin Bertrand

Pink Shirt Day is an anti-bullying campaign lead by the Mental Health Foundation.

Pink Shirt Day is about working together to stop bullying by celebrating diversity and promoting kindness and inclusiveness.

It’s about creating a community where all people feel safe, valued and respected, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion or cultural background.

This year, TAPS is proud to be taking part in Pink Shirt Day.

Pink Shirt Day is happening this Friday 20th May 2022. Students are encouraged to wear a pink shirt (or dress in pink) to show support for this New Zealand wide anti-bullying campaign and to bring a gold coin donation. Proceeds raised will go to the Mental Health Foundation.

TERM ONE DATES 2022

• 17/3/2022 St Patrick's Day - Dress Up Day (Green, Green, Green!)

• 13/4/2022 Wednesday 3pm - Students last day for Term 1.

• 14/4/2022 Thursday - Teacher Only Day (TOD)

• 15/4/2022 Good Friday / Easter Break / School Holidays start

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

• 6/6/2022 Queen’s Birthday – Monday 6 June
  

• 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.

Our Turf is now used Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for practices after school. Can we please ask that on those afternoons, no one else apart from those involved in the particular sport, go into the fenced area of the turf. Practices are times when the coaches need the players undivided attention.

Netball: This week was our duty week. Thanks to the very few people who did help set up and pack up. Next time we will roster people to make sure this is fair. Thanks to Cam and Nakita for manning the office for us.

• Year 5 to 8 players, please turn up to the courts in uniform - so that means either the school jacket (Year 7 / 8) or your polar fleece. This will just make us look like a ‘team’

• There was a wee incident at netball on Saturday (not us thank goodness). This serves as a timely reminder to us all that these are kids - just wanting to have fun. At all times we need to be kind and positive.

• Denice Taukiri is in charge on Saturday for the Year 7 / 8's and Shayleigh for the Year 5 / 6 team.

Rippa: Practise again this week.

This edition's reporters were Morgan, Tessa, Jahnaia, Taylin, Bella, Jasmine, Elisabella and Perryn - “bringing extra news and student views" to our newsletter. Keep up the great work, girls!

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 Room 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.

As of next week, a new workspace is being modified in the Waihou Hub block. This involves what used to be a resource and teacher aide space and cloak bay area between Rooms 3 and 4 being renovated into a much bigger and usable workspace.

To keep our students safe while this work is being done, there will be temporary fences up around the construction area.

It will be exciting to see this space when all the work is completed!

Welcome to Week 3! 😊

Writing: We will be working on our final animal report this week. It has been great seeing some of the students really try hard to extend their ideas and include lots of details in their writing.

Mathematics: We enjoyed our session with Anna last week and can't wait to see her again this week.

Reading: Our class novel, The Good, The Bad and Everything Else, has been a great lead in to this Friday's PINK SHIRT DAY as it deals with issues around bullying in an engaging and relatable way.

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 learning sites such as: Prodigy, Sumdog, Sunshine Classics and Epic!
• Our Library day is Monday.

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.

This week in spelling we are looking at words with syllables - open and closed syllables. An open syllable ends with a vowel sound that is spelled with a single vowel letter (a, e, i, o, or u). Examples include me, e/qual, pro/gram, mu/sic. A closed syllable has a short vowel ending in a consonant. Examples include hat, dish, bas/ket.

This week we will be looking closely at Bullying and how we can share kindness to make ‘our place’ a whole better place to be in. We will be taking part in lots of little activities to show that being different and unique is ok….and giving compliments is more than ok. Ask your child about this.

In Maths we have a few people still working on the 4 x tables so in order to give them so spce and time to master them, those who have conquered that particular mountain will be having a revision week! In group work we continue to look at multiplication and divisionOne group will be looking at learning quick facts and the other will be looking at using their multiplication facts to help with division and fact triangles…and Maths rich tasks!

In Reading as a class we are looking at main ideas within paragraphs but in our guided groups we are looking at tasks which all depend on the need of each group.

We continue to work hard on being an awesome bunch of people!

Kia Ora Koutou - Welcome to Week 3!

Wow. Time is flying, I guess that means we are having fun?! Another busy week ahead for us here in Room 9 and we are super excited about some of the stuff that is happening.

Maths - get your brains buzzing as we are diving right into multiplication and division. We will be starting off the week by looking at known multiplication facts to help us solve large multiplication problems. Mrs Mac will be back in our class this week too!

Topic/Inquiry - This week we will be looking closely at our local history across our hub. Students will be working in groups and will attend ‘workshops’ on Monday and Wednesday. This is a fantastic way for students to work alongside different students and teachers.

Literacy - to link in with our Local History, we will be looking at one of our local olympic legends ‘Sir Peter Snell’. Our reading focuses carefully around identifying the main ideas and summarising them in our own words. In our writing, we will be continuing to look at biographies and will be prepping some interview questions to send home for our whanau to answer. This is so we can create our own biography on a family member important to us.

Tech Week - this week we celebrate technology and innovation here in NZ. This week students will get an opportunity to read, learn and play technology based games during their ‘can do’ activities this week. Checkout this website for more information on what ‘TechWeek’ is all about - https://techweek.co.nz/.

PINK SHIRT DAY - this Friday we support PINK SHIRT DAY. We encourage our students to get behind this initiative and invite students to wear pink this friday for a gold donation. This donation will be given to the Mental Health Foundation.

Looking forward to another fantastic week!

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. Footless tights are not permitted.

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.

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