Updated: Tuesday, February 07, 2012

 

 WHAT’S HAPPENING:

20th February  BOT meeting, parent are welcome to attend.

22nd February “Meet the Teachers” - Literacy evening and parent consultation. Start time 5.30pm.

1st March Our School swimming sports

WELCOME

Welcome back to all those families whose children attended our school last year, we hope you had a wonderful holiday time with your children.

Also a big welcome to those families who are joining us for the first time, we hope your children will enjoy their time at Oruaiti School and will make excellent progress.

OUR VIRTUE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS WILL BE:

CARING/ MANAAKI

Each fortnight we have a new virtue that we work on at school. At the end of each week at our Friday Assembly we award a certificate in each class for someone who has been seen to be displaying that virtue during the week.

Parents tell us that they also work on the same virtue at home and this is helpful to their children’s development.

Caring is giving love and attention to people and things that matter to you. When you care about people, you help them. When you do a careful job, you give it your very best effort. You treat people and things gently and respectfully.

We are always pleased to have parents join us on Friday afternoons for our assembly time. Each teacher gives a number of certificates to the children in their class for work well done. Assembly usually starts at 2.00pm though sometimes at 1.50 if a class has something to share with us.

BUS CHILDREN

If your child/children usually catch a bus home and you decide to pick them up one afternoon please make sure that the teacher doing the bus duty knows that you have taken them.

We often have to hold buses whilst we look for a child who has not turned up in the bus line only to find out that they went home with their parent. These checks are all for your children’s safety so please support us in this matter.

NAMED GEAR

Please make sure that all your child’s clothing and equipment is named. It is very hard to match up a child with an item of clothing that many children wear the same size of.

Likewise it is hard for the teachers to sort out who owns other items such as books, pencil cases or swimming towels if they are not named.

PARENT EVENING 22ND FEBRUARY 5.30pm

This year we plan to run this a little differently, we are aware that for many parents who have more than one child at the school that they cannot physically be in two classrooms at once.

So, we will all meet together. This year we are highlighting Reading as the area of our major focus for development so at the Parent evening we will go over the progressions of learning to read at the various class levels, sharing with you what the focus is at each level and how you can work with us to achieve the best possible results for your child/children.

We would also like to have your opinions and suggestions concerning the new report format we used at the end of 2012 so, dig out the reports and have another look and bring along your thoughts to share with us.

This is not an evening for one-to-one interviews with the teachers. If you have a need to discuss your child individually please ask at the office and an interview time will be arranged.

SYMPATHY

I am sure you will all join me in offering our sympathy to Mr Lyons whose mother died during our first day of school. We thank  Mr Lopes who has been relieving in his class.

LIFE EDUCATION CARAVAN

The caravan will be visiting our school next week on 9th and 10th of February. All classes have two sessions in the caravan at a cost of $3.50 per child. I apologize for being unable to let you know about this sooner but some school has to be the first of the year and this time it’s us !!!

These lessons are usually stimulating for the children, providing a different learning environment.
Please pay at the office as soon as possible.

WATER SAFETY

In 2011, 123 people drowned in New Zealand, 80% of them being male. On Tuesday the teachers all took part in training to teach children survival skills around water. The lessons we provide at school are not to produce star swimmers, that is what after school swim clubs are for, we aim to teach your children to swim in a safe way encouraging them to learn to assess situations for themselves.

We need parent support firstly in making sure the children have their swim suits every day and if there is a valid reason for them not to be going swimming please send a note so that the teacher knows why, this is a matter of courtesy and saves your child being growled at!

Whilst we teach the children to swim in a pool there are other environments where the children often swim such as the beach, ponds and rivers. Please teach your children all that you know about rips and currents and about how difficult it can be to get out of a pond.




ALL LUNCHES ARE HEALTHY CHOICE OPTIONS OR HAVE THE HEART FOUNDATION TICK