West Park School - T2 Wk 4
Friday 27th May 2022
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Kia ora, Talofa, Kia orana,
Greetings Parents, Grandparents and Caregivers,
Thank you all for the absolutely fantastic turn out! We enjoyed at our Parent/ Teacher/ Student learning conversations held over the past two weeks. Turn-out was over 90%, a fantastic result, being the highest turnout we have ever had for our parent/ teacher evenings.
This year’s Tough Guy & Gal challenge on 22 May was again a huge highlight for many of our students and parents. During the race the kids amongst other things had to climb over ladders, crawl through muddy tunnels, and cross a river – The finish line was all often crossed with mud covered smiles. Thanks to the many parents who helped and cheered the kids on. Also, an enormous thank you to Charmaine Day for all the work in organising and coordinating buses, parents and children for what has now become a well-represented annual event. This was Charmaine’s fifth and final year of organising our school’s participation in this wonder event. We would struggle to offer our kids such great opportunities without great parents like Charmaine. Again, a huge thank you to her and her ongoing commitment and enthusiasm.
Helping your child with Writing
To support the great work staff and students do in writing, it would be great if you could encourage your child/ren to write for a few minutes each day, and in particular during holidays periods. It is important to acknowledge that children become better readers by writing, and better writers by reading! Some simple writing activities that could be done at home during the holidays include:
· Lists: Families make these all the time: shopping lists, to-do lists, invitation lists, holiday packing lists. Encourage your children to make lists of their own. Ideas: birthdays of family.
· Notes: Encourage your children to jot notes to family members and capture special moments in writing. Ideas: saying goodbye to grandparents after a summer vacation, the taste of a chocolate chip ice cream, a booster message for a sibling facing a challenge, a love note to a parent or a thank you note.
· Journals and diaries: In the process of writing, journal writers often come to deeper understanding of their lives. The journal becomes a precious keepsake as the journal writer continues through life. Make a diary or journal an annual essential of Christmas giving.
· Dialogue journals: These are a written conversation between a parent and child, usually in a notebook passed back and forth at different times of day. This is a way for a parent to develop a deeper relationship with a child – questions, answers, encouragements, apologies, and words of affection can be written that might never be spoken.
· Letters and e-mails: Letters can help children stay in touch with distant family members. All children love getting a letter or e-mail back. Getting into the habit of letter-writing can become a lifetime pleasure.
· Birthday and special-event books: Provide blank books for family members and guests at birthday parties and special events so they can write personal notes and wishes. These become treasured archives of people and occasions.
· Parodies: Make it a family thing to write spoofs of songs, poems and advertisements to mark special occasions or achievements.
Home-based writing should be enjoyable, real and frequent.
· Make the writing an authentic part of everyday life. Avoid making it overly instructional. Give a quick response to requests for help rather than subjecting children to a lengthy ordeal of explanations or looking up words or information. This can be done later so the flow of writing is not interrupted.
· Don’t be overly concerned with grammar and spelling. Pointing out children’s shortcomings will discourage them from writing. Keep a dictionary close to hand and let your children see you using it to check a word in your own writing. Your attitude to spelling and grammar will naturally influence theirs without your having to make correctness a bugbear that takes away the pleasure from their writing.
· Always have writing materials available – pens, pencils, coloured markers, paper and staplers. Visit stationery shops to find attractive paper clips, stickers, notebooks and blank cards. The family writing kit should include envelopes, postage stamps and scissors. When shopping with your children, look out for items to add to the collection.
Updated Covid Cases
Our Covid and household contact number shave remained consistently low, this is much in part due to parents helping children meet isolation requirements, when they found that they were either a confirmed case or a household contact. We are finishing this week with the figures below. Also a reminder that you can find a Covid-19 update table on our school website (www.westpark.school.nz). The table is updated every forty-eight hours to show the number of confirmed cases, and the number of students isolating by being household members of confirmed cases.
One of our School Value - Excellence
Excellence is striving for quality or merit in all that we do. A focus on excellence means we take time, work hard and think carefully about a project or activity. Excellence lets us take pride in our accomplishments. We are guided by a vision or an ideal, and we do our best to make it a reality.
Excellence must be tempered by balance, because when we seek excellence in one area, we risk neglecting our other values and priorities. It doesn't mean being perfect; it means using our abilities and opportunities to their fullest. Whatever our mission in life, a commitment to excellence brings us closer to living it well and to attaining our dreams.
Have a lovely weekend.
Luis Echegaray
Principal
Newsletter Sponsored By
Book Character Friday
Junior School Update
Middle School Update
Senior School Update
Room 14/15 have been working with statistics this term and were presented with the question: 'are you normal?' The students decided to collect data on a range of criteria and work out the average for each attribute to identify what a normal child in year 6 would be like. Students displayed a great range of mathematical skills in taking tallies, making accurate measurements, assigning a number system to work out the average hair colour and length and eye colour and completing calculations to come up with their averages.
Their findings are below.
Their final discovery: None of them are 'normal' but are all unique.
A couple of people matched three criteria, but most others met only one or two of them and an interesting discussion occurred on whether if we went to all the local schools would we find anyone 'normal' in Year 6.
School Notices and Upcoming Events
Book Club Notice
SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR:
The annual Scholastic Book Fair raises a great number of rewards which are used to purchase library and classroom books as well as resources to assist in our student’s education.
This year the book fair will be held during our school ‘Book Week’ in weeks 4 and 5 of Term 2. It will also have extended open hours on Thursday 26 May for people to take advantage of viewing the fantastic range of books before or after parent / teacher interviews.
The Book Fair will be held in Room 9 from Wednesday 25 May - Tuesday 31 May. Viewing and sales times will be (depending on more parent help):
Monday 30 May, 2.45- 3.30pm
Tuesday 31 May, 8.15 - 9.00am
2022 Term Dates
Term Dates 2022:
Term 2 Mon 2 May – Fri 8 July (10 weeks)
Term 3 Mon 25 July – Fri 30 Sept (10 weeks)
Term 4 Mon 17 Oct – Fri 16 Dec (9 weeks)
Upcoming Events
- Monday, 30 May - BoT meeting (6.15pm)
- Wednesday, 1 June - Dental van onsite for 5 weeks
- Friday, 3 June - Teacher only Day (School closed)
- Monday, 6 June - Queen’s Birthday (School closed)
- Thursday, 9 June - Pump dance workshop
- Friday, 10 June - Rooms 16 and 17 trip to Carter Obs.
- Monday, 13 June - Years 1 and 2 trip to Te Papa
- Wednesday, 15 June - Room 10 trip to Carter Obs.
- Thursday, 16 June - Pump dance workshop
- Wednesday, 22 June - School Photos
- Thursday, 23 June - School Photos / Pump dance workshop
- Friday, 24 June - Matariki (School closed)
- Monday, 4 July - BoT meeting (6.15pm)
- Friday, 8 July - Last Day of Term 2
- Monday, 25 July - First day of Term 3
Community Notices
KELLY CLUB
Contact Us
Email: office@westpark.school.nz
Website: https://www.westpark.school.nz
Location: 97 Broderick Road, Johnsonville, Wellington 6037, New Zealand
Phone: +64 (04) 478 7074
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/farmcoveintermediateschool