Principal's Weekly Update
RAISE Goal: to greet adults and staff
Te reo phrase of the week: te ātaahua hoki (that’s beautiful)
Kia ora,
It has been all go at school this week. Our new Makerspace (Aumangea Taima) area is currently under construction. Yesterday we had the main pole installed for our new umbrella and during the summer holidays a deck will be built below the umbrella, with a shed to the side of the deck due to be built over the Term 1 2022 holidays. The shed will house workbenches and tools such as hammers, saws, and drills. These are exciting times for our students and staff as a purpose built area where our students can use their creative skills to practically solve solutions to problems has been a major priority for quite some time. To see it start to take shape is fantastic. A massive thanks to all of the people from the following organisations and initiatives who have been involved to make this happen: Board of Trustees (Rear-a-bull scheme), Toi Foundation (previously TSB Community Trust), and the SPA Committee. Please see an artist’s impression of what our Makerspace area will look like once it is completed.
Accessibility Car Parks
Our accessibility car parks are for the sole use of our families who have students with special needs at Matapu School. Please do not park in them at any time of the day, as our identified families have been trying to use them, but others have parked there. Please see the photo below, which clearly shows our accessible car parks.
Values Awards
Room 1 - Jasper for always being ready and willing to lend a hand when needed.
Room 2 - Regan for displaying excellent leadership and stepping out of her comfort zone!
Room 3 - Andie for consistently showing this week's RAISE goal;
Room 4 - Leah for always using integrity in games and putting your best effort into your class tasks.
Room 5 - Breana for making amazing progress in reading.
Room 6 - Calais for enthusiasm and effort learning words and actions for our prize giving item.
Room 1
It is an exciting time in Room One at the moment as 20 of our students are getting excited about their move to High School next year. We have started transition visits and meetings with the schools already and still have a few more to come over the next few weeks.
This week Chris Robinson the Year 9 Dean for 2022 at Hawera High School came to meet the kids heading that way next year. On Monday the 22 November these same students have been invited to A Day In The Life of a Year 9. This promises to be a fun packed day. Lucky kids!
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Room 3
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Room 6
Another busy week at Matapu School!
We have been writing letters to Santa this week so we can send them off to The North Pole pronto...we don’t want to miss the chance of a reply because the mail was late. We know Santa had lockdown and the elves couldn’t work so we have made sure to only ask for one big item this year!
This is our week for checking progress with letters/sounds and word rings. It is heartening to see the progress being made and we really want to keep it going, so can we please ask you to continue using the trackers in the back of the homework books to check retention and make sure your child is using their alphabet and/or blend chart regularly.
We are working hard to perfect our item for the prize giving. We have been creating our individual kākahu (cloaks) and are now practising our waiata in the hall- a new experience for most of us. Don’t forget to tune in next Friday morning to watch Room 6 in action!
Yesterday we were lucky to have a visit from a tech expert to watch us try and design and build a stronger straw house for Pig no. 1. Our main focus is communicating and working together to achieve our end product and it was wonderful to have Mark’s input in the process. Everyone had a great time and there were lots of smiles!
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