Albury School Newsletter
1st October 2021 Term 3 Week 10
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Congratulations to our Albury Kids, staff and families for navigating a complicated term. We have managed to fit in most of the activities that were planned and although our curriculum programme was shortened, our Albury Kids have continued to flourish in their learning (having time at home during lockdown and returning to school with vigour and enthusiasm!).
We have recently welcomed Fergus and Alice to Albury School this term. They are enjoying their class and are being well looked after by their older siblings! Such a pleasure to have these awesome Albury Kids at school.
As you are aware we have a change of class structure moving into Term 4. Mrs Elsie Greenwood is now on Maternity leave. We wish Elsie and family all the very best. It is great that Elsie is part of our Albury Community and is continuing to support the school in her role as Staff Rep on the board. We will still see Elsie around and the Albury Kids are looking forward to keeping up the contact with her. Mrs Heather van der Heyden will be teaching Piwakawaka next term and she is really looking forward to joining the team here at Albury.
Term 4 brings a range of annual events and happenings that we look forward to. To start the term, we have Pet Day. We will be able to run this event whether we are at level 1 or 2, as it is outside and we will run this as a local event (not open to the general public). We intend to display the SCIENCE FAIR projects at Pet Day. We will set these up for you to look at. The Science Fair was somewhat derailed due to the immediate lockdown.
Thank you to Robbie Mehrtens Electrical – for supporting Albury School with the testing of the cleaner’s electrical equipment. We really appreciate this support for our school.
School Pool
Unfortunately we have not had any response for pool operators to manage the pool during the holidays etc. The board discussed the matter and a decision has been made that due to the board being unable to meet the requirements of the Water Pool Safety Standards during non-school days, that the pool will not be open outside of school hours. However, the board agreed to allow me discretion to open the pool (when I am available) for the community. I am the “official” trained operator and I will be able to send out a FB message if I am around and available to open the pool. This is a compromise. It is expected that the pool will be open before the start of the new school year.
Holiday work around the School
We have been nursing a water leak this term and during the holidays we will be sorting this out. This will involve some digging so please if you are on-site, please be aware and exercise care and safety around any holes.
We are also planning to have the Cypress Trees trimmed and a bit of a tidy up of some other vegetation. If you have any spare time, please feel free to drop into school and weed a garden. Our gardens are lovely but they do need care and attention and a help out is greatly appreciated.
School Website and Term 4 Events:
A reminder that our new website is up and running. We are linking a GOOGLE CALENDAR and we will keep this current with events and happenings. However, as a heads up the following events are planned for next term:
Science Roadshow – Year 3-6 at Mackenzie College. Friday 5th November, 10-11am. This is a clash with the Fairlie Fun Day. Unfortunately we can’t do everything this term and we will be offering the students an opportunity to attend the Roadshow as this does not travel to our area every year.
We have booked in some coaching sessions with the KORFBALL trainers. They will provide some lessons on Friday Oct 29th and Thursday Nov 4th . We are looking forward to introducing our students to this new sport.
Mackenzie District Athletics – being held at FPS is planned for Monday 22nd November.
SC Athletics day is 30th Nov.
Final Assembly will be held on the evening of the 9th Dec (5-7pm).
The last day of school is Tuesday 14th December. Buses will be running as normal for us until the end of the school year.
On a final note, thank you all for your support of our Albury Kids and staff. We wish you all happy and safe holiday and look forward to seeing everyone back on Monday 18th October.
Donna Donnelly
Principal
Albury School
Home and School- Spring Market Day 2021 - CANCELLED -
pet day
This years pet day will be held in the first week of Term 4 on Friday, 22nd October.
Please complete and return the google form that was emailed out earlier this week as soon as possible.
10.00am Arrive and take your pet to their designated area.
Morning Tea
10.30am Judging for all animals begin. Please stay with your pet in their designated area
and wait for the judges.
11.15am Dog obstacle course
11.45am Lamb/Sheep leading
12.00pm Lamb drinking competition
12.15pm Lunch
12.45pm Parade- Fancy dress optional
1pm Awards
Home time
The students are invited to complete a Pet Project. This needs to be returned by Thursday, 21st October. It is not compulsory, but will gain extra points on the day.
Sun Hats
Many thanks to the H&S who have funded new hats for our Albury Kids. These hats will be issued to students next term and will remain at school.
Year 6 Transitioning Programme
I have met with the team at Mackenzie College and there are events planned in T4 for our Year 6 students to meet up with the other Year 6 students and to attend Mackenzie College as part of the transition programme. The dates and activities will be shared with you early next term.
Senior Camp (Y4-Y6)
The Camp to Living Springs is confirmed for the 24-26th November. The final budget has been completed. The cost per student is $150.00 and we are very thankful to our H&S who are making a donation to cover the shortfall. The full cost per student is $280.00. It would be appreciated if you could make your camp payments as early as possible into the school’s bank account:
ALBURY SCHOOL BOARD OF TRUSTEES – 123- 159 0137213-00.
Please put NAME/CAMP in the reference line.
The last day for payment is Friday 12th November. Many thanks. The students are really looking forward to joining with St Joseph’s Fairlie for this amazing camp. We will share more specific details next term.
Agri-Day - Proposed Day Wednesday 8th December
This is a popular day for our students and we are thankful that Sheralyn arranged this event for the Albury Kids over the past few years. We are seeking some input from our families and wondered if there was interest from some families to help out with this day and arranging an activity that you could run as part of a rotation.
Please let me know if you are interested in helping out – and we can make our plans!!
Calendar
OCTOBER
- Friday 1st: Last Day Term 3
- Sunday 10th: Home and School Spring Market 2021 - CANCELLED -
- Monday 18th: First Day Term 4
- Friday 22nd: Pet Day 10.00am
- Monday 25th: Labour Day - SCHOOL CLOSED-
- Friday 29th: Korfball coaching session
NOVEMBER
- Thursday 4th: Korfball coaching session
- Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th: Senior Camp Living Springs
- Friday 5th: Science Roadshow (Y3-Y6) Mackenzie College 10.00am-11.00am
- Monday 22nd: Mackenzie District Athletics, Fairlie Primary School
- Tuesday 30th: South Canterbury Athletics Day
DECEMBER
- Wednesday 8th (proposed day): AGRI-Day
- Thursday 9th: Final Assembly 5pm-7pm
- Tuesday 14th: last day of Term 4
Piwakawaka Classroom
The end of yet another term! The year is whipping by! I am so impressed with the way the students came back to school and resettled quickly after lockdown. There has been a lot of learning and testing going on in the last few weeks that's for sure!
We have finished off our weather topic and moved onto an art project based on the work of Romero Britto using contrasting colours and patterns to create effect.
Our narrative writing topic made a nice change from speeches - Ana found an elephant in her coal bin at home - this sparked some very curious questions about where it came from, how it got there, and who it belongs to! Here are some of our creative stories. We have been adding adjectives and punctuation to add effect to our writing as well.
One stormy night on a far away ship there was a little girl named Ana. The storm was so loud, Ana woke up. She went to go and find her Dad but while she was walking she spotted a black thing on the ground. "What?" she said in a strange way. "How did that get there?" She picked it up it had a secret massage on it...Sophie
The elephant snuck in the door and jumped in the bin! Jack Mc
At Ana's house she found a black elephant. It was heavy, black and felt like concrete. It was wrinkly and rough and small. I think a unicorn might have made it and put it in the coal bucket while Ana was asleep. Meila
A pirate snuck into Ana's house. Ana said "Who's that noise?" She went into the garage and she looked in the coal bucket. She picked it up and then it grew bigger and bigger, then it smashed the house! Maddie
Reading - the 5yr olds have been learning our letter sounds and how to merge them together as part of the Better Start to Literacy Approach. This is really helping our 5 years olds already!
Older students have been working through independent reading and answering questions using slides on Goggle Classroom. Last week they read about native birds and how to take good photos. The learning focus was on believing that I can do challenging things. This week they are reading about sign language and learning that I can manage stress or nerves if I have a plan.
Enjoy the school holidays!
Take care - Mrs Greenwood
A message to our Piwakawaka students from their new teacher, Heather van der Heyden
Kia ora Piwakawaka students,
I am excited to be your teacher next term.
I live in Geraldine and love spending time planting and looking after our gardens. I love cats and spend lots of time with my cat Honey. I was very excited to visit Albury School last Friday. I love your sandpit and am looking forward to creating and playing in the there next term with you all. I also like the huts that you have been making under the trees. Tyres, pallets and sticks are great for making huts.
I can’t wait to meet you all and to play, learn and grow together.
Enjoy your last week with your wonderful teacher and I will see you all
next term.
Nga mihi
Heather van der Heyden
Tui Classroom
Science, skiing, storms, speeches, snow, lockdown, disco - I think it’s fair to say that this term has been eventful!
The novelty of snow clearly hasn’t spent it’s force on our students. Everyone had plenty of experiences to talk about at school after the snowfall at home. However, our big focus for speaking, writing and presenting was our speeches, culminating with the competition in the Albury Hall. I was really impressed with the quality of our students' ideas, creativity and perseverance in crafting their speeches.
Thank you for all your hard work and support in helping us all ride out the lockdown. Our students seemed to take the changes in their stride, engaged with the learning that they needed, and returned to school ready to carry on with the term.
Our work with the Wonder Project has had our students thinking hard about what makes rockets go and how to improve their performance. We have looked at safety rules, organised ourselves into groups and determined roles: chief scientist; chief engineer; safety officer; and mission command. Some groups are rotating roles so that everyone gets different experiences.
A key lesson that we have been learning from engaging with the Rocket Challenge has been to keep our experiments fair by only changing one variable at a time (air pressure, quantity of water, weight, etc.). All this has aligned well with our learning for the science fair. Our finished science projects have been displayed and judged at the Mackenzie College hall. We are planning to have a second display at our upcoming Pet Day, where students will be able to talk about their science projects with friends and family.
Take care,
Mr K Murray
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE RECIPIENTS OF AWARDS AT Our Mini-ASSEMBLY THIS WEEK:
Citizenship Award Tui
Citizenship Award Piwakawaka
Academic Award Tui
Academic Award Piwakawaka
Speech and Poetry Day
You all did a wonderful job getting up on stage and presenting your speeches and poems, we are so proud of you!
The results are:
New Entrants + Year 1:
1st place: Edward
2nd place: Jack Mc
3rd place: Paige
Highly Commended: Lennox
Year 2:
1st place: Meila
2nd place: Soren
3rd place: Natalie
Year 3:
1st place: Olivia Mc
2nd place: Maddison
3rd place: Scarlett
Highly Commended: Ana
Year 4:
1st place: Charli
2nd place: Jack F
3rd place: Ben
Highly Commended: Jack M
Year 5:
1st place: Blake
2nd place: Daniel
3rd place: Olivia M
Highly Commended: Hayley/ Tilly
Year 6:
1st place: River
2nd place: Lachie
3rd place: Ted
Highly Commended: Mia
Mackenzie District Schools Speeches
Congratulations to the winners and a special shout out to our two representatives, River and Lachie, they were both amazing!
1st place: Lucas, Fairlie Primary School
2nd place equal: Damian, Fairlie Primary School and Xavier, Lake Tekapo School
3rd place: Lachie, Albury School
Student Choice Award (awarded by Jack M and Tilly): Xavier
School Disco
Science Fair Awards
Congratulations to Hayley and Jack M!
Hayley was awarded 2nd place in the Year5/6 category with her science fair experiment
"Liquid Freezing" and
Jack M was third in the Y3/4 category with his experiment "Parachutes with Jack".
school Photos
The access codes have been sent home with your children so you can view the photos online.
Here is some information from PhotoLife on how to order you photos:
This year photographs will be available for you to view and order OnLine with PhotoLife Studios.
Your child will shortly bring home an OnLine slip with their unique Access Key detailed on it. This Access Key will display all the photographs of your child. It is then an easy process for you to shop on-line and purchase the photographs you want.
If you place your order within three weeks of receiving your Access Key you will receive free delivery for your photo orders. PhotoLife has agreed to despatch all the orders back to the school and your child will bring their photographs home.
Any orders placed after this three-week period will be sent directly to your specified delivery address and will incur a $6.00 Postage & Packing charge. You will see this message when you go Online to view and order your photographs.
Albury School Winter optional- Roundhill Ski Programme
A big thank you to Annabelle for organising our Winter Optional again this year, we appreciate all your work!
It has been a great success - 20 Albury Kids took up the Friday Ski option and every single one of them has made amazing progress!
The snow conditions have been fantastic throughout the season. Sadly lockdown meant less time on the mountain, but the children made sure to make up for lost time- most of them keeping on skiing until the lifts were turned off each Friday after their lessons.
Community Dental Service
Dental Care during the School Holidays
The Community Dental Service will be providing dental care for children enrolled with our service during the upcoming school holidays. The clinics will offer check-ups, treatment and relief of pain sessions by appointment only. To make an appointment please call/email our Contact Centre which operates between the hours of 8am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday throughout the holidays.
If your child has dental pain because of an accident, please contact your dentist in the first instance.
To book an appointment at one of our clinics please call 0800 846 983 or email commdental@cdhb.health.nz
Baby teeth matter
futsal is back for term 4
South Canterbury Futsal are excited to confirm that futsal is back for Term 4.
The leagues will start on Wednesday the 27th of October and run for 8 weeks.
For more details see: https://www.facebook.com/footballsouthcanterbury , https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Futsal42021
Or contact James for more info! 021 245 0499 or james@ymcasc.org.nz
Cricket season is about to start
Concerns and Complaints Process
School Policies
Concern and Complaints
Behaviour Management
Albury School Policies are located online at School Docs.
User name: albury
Password: queen
Contact Us
Piwakawaka teacher- Heather van der Heyden: Heather@albury.school.nz
Tui teacher- Kent Murray: Kent@albury.school.nz
Email: office@albury.school.nz
Website: https://www.albury.school.nz/
Location: Albury School Station Street, Albury 7984, New Zealand
Phone: 03 685 5844
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alburyschool