Newsletter 7, Term 3 Week 3 2023

Welcome to Term 3! Several new families have joined us in the last few weeks from across the world, including Nigeria, Sri Lanka, South Africa and India. Many of our families, have no other family here in NZ and we have been busy thinking of ways to help them make connections within our school community. If you have any ideas or would like to meet other families in our community, please come along our next hui (details coming soon).

Thank you to all of our families who helped make last term’s Matariki performances such a success. Listening to students talk about how the audience was watching them and how proud they felt of themselves really emphasises how important it is for all of our students to have the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience. Thank you also, to those who are helping to raise funds for our school – eg. Bike & Athletics Track and Year 6 camp – we really do appreciate this community support.

Curriculum Learning Opportunities

I want to begin this newsletter by acknowledging the amazing teaching team we have at our school, as they go OVER and ABOVE their usual duties to grow confident, connected learners. During the last 2 weeks the team has organised many extra-curricular opportunities for your children, including performing in the FIFA Women’s World Cup opening event, creating The Resilience Project videos to teach how we can be kind, teaching sign language, arranging school trips to learn about local stories connected to Wellington Harbour, DanceSplash, Otago Maths Competition, participation in Paparangi School’s Swimming Sports last week for 26 students and the Yr 5-6 EPro8 challenge. We also have Science kits arriving at school each fortnight – volcanoes this week for the juniors! Goodtime Music Academy lessons at Rewa Rewa School are proving to be a huge hit! All of these experiences add a special dimension of choice, enrichment, challenge and fun to our students’ learning.

Student Leaders and Role Models

Our student leaders ran an amazing Wacky Hair fun day for all students at the end of last term. This included face painting, presentation of certificates, as well as a “dance spot” in the playground. Thank you to Isaac D, Isaac L, Chloe, Arlo, Mia, Dash and Indie, as well as all the students (and parents) who took the time to create some amazing hairstyles.

Cross Country Achievement

Curtis (in the light blue school t-shirt), recently represented our school at the Regional Cross Country held in Masterton. He achieved a very impressive 14^th place. We are so proud to have such a running superstar at our school.

Camp Fundraising

Thank you to those who are helping to raise funds for the Year 6 camp in term 4. We really appreciate the generosity of both time and money from supporters for this very worthwhile EOTC week. Last term the movie night raised nearly $1000 towards costs. This term our Year 6 whanau, under the leadership of Ian Svela (DP, Seniors and Ahi teacher), hope to hold another couple of fundraising events – watch this space for future advertising.

BOARD NEWS

Classroom Learning Spaces

The Board has now met twice with the Ministry (in the last week of Term 2 and the first week of this term), to find an urgent solution to our need for more classroom spaces to support the schools roll growth. Ministry representatives took a tour of school buildings and listened to the Board’s discussion of the problem and suggestions for a good solution. They have taken these ideas back to the Ministry for urgent consideration and we will keep our community informed as new developments arise. In the meantime, with the rearrangement of junior classes, Avi and her class have created a warm and welcoming learning space in the hall.

School Property

A huge thank you to all our whanau who joined Al Pearce (Caretaker) and his son Max with their shovels to refill the trench leading up to the top field. This trench allows us to connect security, lighting and water to the top field. Completion of the Bike & Athletics Track is presently being held up by poor weather and soft soil – the concrete truck only narrowly avoided sinking into the water-logged ground, but hopes to be back next week to continue pouring the track. The new steps up to the field have also been completed, as well as the covered decking outside Ahi classroom. We desperately need volunteers to help get our vege and flower gardens back in shape. So, if you have some time and basic skills, please let us know.

School Policies

Remember, if you wish to access our school policies please email office@rewarewa.school.nz for login details to www.SchoolDocs.co.nz. Parents and caregivers are able to review regularly scheduled policies at the end of each term. The latest policy to be added to our policies is a Physical Restraint Policy. All NZ schools are expected to have staff who are trained on how to undertake this, if necessary.

Naomi Godfrey (Presiding Member), David Nowak, Tanya Radford, Jared Simons & Miranda Zander

Celebrations – FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony

Eleven Yr 2-6 students represented our school at the opening of the FIFA Women’s World Cup opening in Wellington recently. Under Whaea Danielle’s leadership, they attended a number of rehearsals during the holidays to learn the specially composed waiata and poi. On the evening, it was so exciting to watch three ceremonial waka paddle in front of them where they stood on the wharf, stop and salute them as they sang. Many people commented on how well-behaved and extremely professional our students were. Ka pai!

Help Needed Please!

We need someone who can help one of our lovely mums from New Entrants (with a new baby and a broken hand), by picking up their 5 year old each morning for the next few weeks to bring them to school.  They live within a 2 block radius of school and pick-ups in the afternoon are covered.  If you are able to assist, please email office@rewarewa.school.nz with your details.

Parent Drivers – Dangerous Behaviour

Dangerous behaviours continue – so much so, that even Al, our caretaker, is fed up! Whilst on patrols last week, in the pouring rain, car after car drove at speed into the staff carpark to drop children off – a child will be run over if this continues! Al has initiated a plan to stop this, so expect changes very soon. In the meantime, he has spoken to our community constable who will be driving past our gates ready to issue tickets. The safety of our students is paramount – we will not tolerate this poor behaviour any longer!

ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) School Hui – Meet and Greet

An RSVP flier will come home shortly with the date and details for this event, another of our regularly held community hui.  All families are welcome, but we are especially inviting families who are speakers of another language.  This is a chance to meet and connect with others who speak your language and may share some of the same experiences.   You may be new to New Zealand, new to our school or you may have been here for a while – please come along, we want to use your ideas to help us understand how best to support you within our school community. Last year we had a great turnout to this evening and we are looking forward to meeting up with many of you again.

In the last week of term 3 we underwent a very thorough 3-hour audit with the Ministry of Education’s ESOL team and passed with flying colours! The Ministry was very impressed with the work we are undertaking to support our ESOL learners and their families at school. A copy of this audit can be requested from office@rewarewa.school.nz if you would like to read this.

Term 2 Community Consultation – Reporting to Parents

Thank you to the 81 people who responded to last term’s Survey Monkey about our Mid-Year 3-Way Conferences. We had a 91% turnout at these meetings, which was fantastic! We really appreciate your honest feedback and will be using those ideas to help us continually improve how we report to parents. Key ideas that came through include:

• Some parents want more than 10 minutes for their conference. This is an area we are looking at, alongside the needs of all stakeholders.
• Some parents would like to have a meeting without their child present some/all of the time
• Parents appreciated hearing face-to-face from the teachers about the PaCT reporting tool
• Some parents want to hear about their child’s social interaction, engagement and participation at the Mid-Year reporting time, as well as at the end of the year
• Some like the graphs and some do not. As this was the first one shared, progress can now be shared at 6 mthly intervals.
• The majority of respondents do not want conferences to start at an earlier time of 1.30pm unless there is a child-minding service provided
• Some would like more written comments to support oral conferences. N.B. This year we chose to replace written comments with face-to-face conversations so that teachers could clearly explain and parents could ask about the new PaCT reporting tool on progress. We believe that this was a justified action because it resulted in such an amazing turnout of parents to find out more about it!

Our congratulations to the winner of the Countdown voucher for survey participants: Shona A.

A reminder to read your child’s class newsletter for information about what is being taught each term. These are sent out regularly – either weekly, fortnightly or twice per term. If you wish to know more at any time, your child’s teacher is more than happy to have a chat with you.

Goodtime Music Academy

Many thanks to Ian Svela (DP, Seniors), for organising this opportunity for our school. The Goodtime Music Academy van is now arriving each Monday to provide private group lessons in drums, guitar, keyboard and ukelele. The introductory (very loud!) show was a huge success and there are now over 30 of our students taking lessons, as well as a waiting list for the next round.  See the ad below for contact details.

We welcome Ayman, Bentley, Flora, Hanling, Izzy, Leo, Mercy, Mitchell and Prisha, along with their families, to Rewa Rewa School.  We hope you enjoy learning with us!

Tue 12 – Fri 22 September

Thu 14 September   5pm

Mon 09 – Wed 11 October

Tue 24 October

Bee Healthy Region Dental Service Onsite

Dancesplash, Michael Fowler Centre

Bee Healthy Region Dental Service Onsite

Teacher Only Day – School will be CLOSED

Term 1

Tuesday 31 January—Thursday 06 April

Monday 06 February – Waitangi Day Observed, School Closed

Friday 07 April—Good Friday, School Closed

Term 2

Wednesday 26 April – Friday 30 June

Monday 24 April – Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Tuesday 25 April—ANZAC Day, School Closed

Friday 02 June—Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Monday 05 June—King’s Birthday, School Closed

Term 3

Monday 17 July – Friday 22 September

Term 4

Monday 09 October – Friday 15 December (School closes at 1pm on the last day)

 Monday 23 October—Labour Day, School Closed