Tēnā koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te kura o Amesbury mo te rua mano rua tekau ma wha. A very warm greeting to you all. Welcome to Amesbury School for 2024. We are really looking forward to seeing each of you again or to meet you for the first time. Our teachers have been hard at work preparing learning for all our ākonga and we are excited to get back into school and to continue supporting students in their formal education journey.

This article contains some basic admin information for Term 1, along with details about our Module 1 learning and the main events that are coming up this term. It is relevant for all students throughout the school. If you have more than one child at school, you will receive an email for each child. However, you only need to read the following information once!

Whānau Groups

This year, we have two hubs - Koru (Year 0-3) and Pōhutukawa (Year 4-6). Koru Hub has eight whānau groups and Pōhutukawa Hub has six whānau groups.

The role of your child’s whānau teacher is to act as a learning advocate for your child at school. They are your first port of call if you have any questions, comments or concerns about school or your child. The whānau teacher is not your child’s overall ‘class teacher’, most students will work with multiple teachers throughout the year, but the whānau teacher will have particular oversight of your child.

Our teaching teams for Term 1 2024 are:

Koru Hub new entrant group (Māwhero): Angela Herman-Childs, Wee Ai Teh, Navy Ny (learning support)

Koru Hub main group: Amaria Picard (team leader), Hannah Sadler, Aleesha Majaw Monisse, Lily Patrick-Duncan, Sophia Hughes, Kate Dammer, Lauren Brown, Nic Love (learning support)

Pōhutukawa Year 4 whānau groups: Rupert Webb, Sarah King

Pōhutukawa Year 5+6 whānau groups: Emma Murdoch (team leader), Gar Kee Wu, Brydon Gillam, Charlotte Montu

Pōhutukawa additional teachers in Term 1: Lisa Bengtsson, Jemima Colquhoun

Release teachers: Amelia Prendeville (Koru Hub), Rachel Hosnell (Pōhutukawa Hub)

English Language Support teacher (working in both hubs): Kirat Singh

Learning support: Navy Ny and Nic Love are our teacher aides in Koru Hub, supporting a number of our younger students.

This year we will once again be hosting a Mandarin Language Assistant. We will update you when we have confirmed details about our MLA for the year. Once they arrive in early March, they will be helping to run Mandarin and extension Mandarin learning across the school.

First Day of School
School begins for the term on Tuesday 30 January at 9:00am. Please read and follow the information below to ensure your child has a great start to their first day of school in 2024.

Koru:

Our Hub will be open from 8.30am. Ākonga (students) from Wee Ai and Angela’s whānau will be based in Māwhero (pink carpet) and can enter by the large sliding doors next to the library. Ākonga will need to take their shoes off before coming into the space. Kaiako (teachers) will then be available to show your child where to put their bag and how to sign in.

We ask that ākonga from Hannah, Lily & Aleesha’s whānau leave their bags outside the KāKāriki (green) carpet doors (at the far end of Koru Hub). Ākonga from Sophia, Lauren & Kate’s whānau will leave their bags outside the Kōwhai (yellow) carpet doors. Ākonga will take their shoes off before coming into the learning space and signing in. Kaiako will be available at this time to support students to sign in. There will be activities set up for students to engage with throughout the morning.

At the end of the day students in Wee Ai and Angela’s whānau can be picked up from Māwhero by parents, guardians or older siblings. The rest of Koru Hub will continue to be picked up outside on the basketball court or at the drop off zone as usual. If your child is being picked up by someone at the drop off zone, please let them know, so they know to head to the drop off area

Pōhutukawa:

Our hub is open from 8.30am and kaiako will be here to welcome all ākonga for their first day. We ask that ākonga enter in through the door closest to their whānau space (we will show them where to go if they don’t know). Ākonga do need to take their shoes off and neatly put them outside their whānau space on the shoe rack before they enter the hub. School bags will need to be placed in their whānau area also.

Every morning ākonga will need to sign themselves in: Year 4 will sign in upstairs and Year 5 & 6 will sign in downstairs. We will have a ‘What’s On?’ projected on a big screen telling ākonga what to expect throughout the day as well as any other notices they may need to know. At the end of the day, ākonga are released at 3pm from the hub.

*Please note that it is a sunhat term. Students are required to wear a named Amesbury School sunhat when outside during Terms 1 and 4 - this includes during all breaks and while outside during school time. Sunhats are $15.00 and can be purchased via Kindo/the online school shop. Orders can't always be processed and issued overnight or the same day so best to order in advance so there is time to collect and clearly label before they are needed. Children without sun hats will need to stay in the designated shaded areas during break times.

*We ask all students to take their shoes off before heading inside - there are shoe racks outside each hub to put shoes on.

*Hubs are open for students from 8:30am onwards. We ask that students do not arrive at school prior to 8:30am, as they are not supervised by teachers at this time. Kelly Club operates a care programme before school for students who need to be at school before 8:30am. Please see the Kelly Club information page on our website for more details. We encourage all students to be at school by 8:45am as this allows children time to settle in, put their bags away, read the timetable for the day and then say ‘hello’ to friends and teachers before the bell goes.

Communications

We use LINC-ED Hero for all our communication, learning and administration. Here is a link to show the steps for setting up a new Hero parent account. Hero will be regularly updated with information about school admin, events and general educational information, along with information about events in our local community. This link here has information for tips and tricks that can be useful for using Hero. Any notices that can be public will also be published on our school website.

Each hub has a hub website which has access to the hub timetable overview, with links to planning. This can be accessed by anyone. No personal student information or names will be included in this planning. Any documents or planning including specific names are kept as private documents and cannot be accessed by anyone except Amesbury staff. Here is the link to our learning sites. The article here also explains how to find these from the school website.

Module 1 Learning

This year we have four learning modules, all based around the overall big idea "how does our world work?"

Term 1 - Module 1: The Living World

Term 2- Module 2: The Natural World

Term 3 - Module 3: The Physical World

Term 4 - Module 4: Beyond Planet Earth

All learning modules this year have a science focus. This article contains a brief overview of our first learning module.

The focus for our first learning module is The Living World. Students will explore what animals need to thrive, the impact of external forces, and how to be a kaitiaki (guardian). They will consider how living things can be grouped in different ways (e.g. native, endemic, introduced, pests, invasive, predator). We will look at how we can protect, preserve and advocate for particular aspects of our living world. Tamariki will also create a habitat for an animal. A big idea that students will be focusing on is understanding that the land is borrowed from future generations, and therefore how we can protect and preserve it, and advocate for it in our time.

Sharing and celebrating learning

As we go through each term, kaiako (teachers) will upload learning posts to students’ Hero profile. These will be examples or explanations of learning that your child has done. You will receive a notification through your Hero account when a post is uploaded. If you have any difficulty setting up or accessing your Hero account, please contact your child’s whānau teacher.

Each fortnight both hubs will meet together on Friday to share and celebrate different things we have noticed happening. Our share and celebrate times will be informal and a great way to share a wide range of fabulous things happening across the school. The final share and celebrate event each term will also include our termly Amesbury Awesomeness award from the hubs.

Our Term 1 Learning Celebration will happen on Thursday 4 April (Week 10). This is where all teams will share some of the learning that has been happening through the term. More information about this will be sent out closer to the time. All parents and whānau are welcome to attend to share in their child(ren)’s learning from Term 1.

Trip

All hubs will be heading to Te Papa for Ngā Taniwha o Rūpapa | Dinosaurs of Patagonia, which provides a rich and highly-engaging context to explore several areas of the New Zealand Curriculum, particularly in the Science learning area.

Learners will explore the age of the dinosaurs, and understand how the earth changed across the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods and the effects these changes had on life. They will see the scientific process in action and learn how our understanding of dinosaurs changes over time as new discoveries are made. They will also meet Tuatara and learn about the connections between the dinosaurs of Aotearoa and Patagonia.

Koru Hub will visit Tuesday 20th February and Pōhutukawa will visit on Thursday 22nd February.

Term 1 Health Module

Our term 1 topic will be “keeping myself and others safe”. Through this topic, students will cover bullying (both in person and online), unwanted behaviour and touch and where to seek help when I am feeling worried for myself or another person. By the end of the term, students will be clear that they are the boss of their bodies and that they say what happens to them. Students will also be able to identify safe, unsafe and confusing touch as well as behaviours and situations that may make them feel uncomfortable, and they will have a repertoire of strategies to deal with these situations, including identifying safe people to talk to.

*For students in years 0-2, they will learn that they are the boss of their bodies and they decide what happens to it. They will also explore safe and unsafe touch as well as behaviours that may worry or confuse them. Throughout this topic, they will be given a range of strategies to keep themselves and others safe, such as saying no, moving away and talking to a trusted adult.

*Students in years 3-4 will look a bit more in depth at unwanted behaviours and touch, including secrets and tricks. They will also learn about consent and different strategies that they can use to keep themselves and others safe.

*Our year 5-6 students will learn about the different types of abuse and where they can access support if they find themselves in an unsafe or uncomfortable situation. They will also learn what to do if another person discloses information about abuse or an unsafe situation.

Our full planning for Health for Term 1 can be found here.

*Please note:

• Because these topics are sensitive and the content needs to be age appropriate, we will teach them in year levels (years 0-2, years 3-4 & years 5-6) rather than hubs.

• If you would prefer that your child did not learn particular aspects of this information at school, please let your child’s whānau teacher know which sessions you would prefer they were not involved in as soon as possible.

Sports in Term 1

All students will complete PE sessions on a weekly basis, along with daily fitness / movement.

• In term 1 this year we have Kelly Sports instructors working alongside our hub teachers to deliver a module of eight sessions learning the skills of Ki-o-Rahi, a traditional Māori team game. In year 1-2 they will learn basic movement, throwing and catching skills needed to build up to the game of Ki-o-Rahi. In year 3-4 they will extend on these skills and learn more of the movements needed for the full game. In year 5-6 they will learn to play the full game of Ki-o-Rahi.

• Year 5 and 6 students will also be taking part in the Pedal Ready cycle programme, learning to ride and manage a bike safely and extending these skills to riding on the road. More information will be sent out to year 5 and 6 families a little closer to the time about this.

Mihi Whakatau

Our Term 1 mihi whakatau to welcome new students will be held on the first day of term, 30th January. Parents and whānau are welcome to attend. This will begin at 2.15pm in the hall.

Meet the teachers at Amesbury

We will hold our Amesbury Meet’n’Greet on Friday 2nd February from 4.30-6pm. This is an opportunity for all parents and children to come along and meet new teachers or reconnect with familiar teachers. Each hub will also talk about what they do so you have a greater understanding about how your child’s hub is organised.

Both presentations will be held in the hall. Tamariki are very welcome to come and play in the school grounds, and teachers and leaders will be supervising.

4:40 - 5:10 pm Koru Hub

5:15 - 5:45 pm Pōhutukawa Hub

Reporting to parents

This year our reporting structure will look a little different.

• Term 1: Student conferences - parents and whānau have a 20 minute in-person conference with their child’s whānau teacher.

• Term 3: Written report for each child will be available on their Hero learning profile

• Ongoing throughout the year: As we go through each term, kaiako (teachers) and older students will upload learning posts to student Hero profiles. These will be examples or explanations of learning that your child has done. As students achieve learning goals and progress in their learning, their goals will be updated as achieved, and new goals will be set. There will be a statement in each key learning area (reading, writing maths) that states where your child is currently working. At any time you can go on to their learning profile (the page with the large green dials) and see your child’s current learning levels and goals. This document gives you more detail about how to access information on your child’s learning profile.

Stationery

Your child will be issued with everything they need for the year, including books, pencils and felts/colouring pencils. There will be a cost of $45 for the year for this. This cost is charged to school accounts at the start of the year.

If students have their own personal stationery that they would also like to use, they are very welcome to bring it in and keep it in their tote tray or bag. All students in Years 5-6 will be issued with a Chromebook and all Years 3-4 will have access to their Chromebook when necessary at school. Younger students will have access to a range of devices.

Clothing and lost property

Named items will be handed directly back to your child. There will be a small lost property box in the main school office for any unnamed items, but no items with clear names in them will be held here.

In order for all items to be returned to their owners quickly and easily, please ensure that all uniform items are very clearly named with your child’s name before the first day of school. Please be aware that children will often be the people reading the names on clothing, so ensuring that names on all items are clear and easy to read is important. Thanks for your help with this. We recommend purchasing fabric label pens, name stamps or iron-on name tags to make ownership of items very clear. We have teamed up with Precious Labels who offer a small commission to school for every order placed (orders should be placed through Kindo).

Toys/Belongings at school

We do not generally recommend that students bring beloved items or toys to school. However, we also recognise that there can be good reasons for some students to bring personal items to school. If your child chooses to bring a toy or another item of interest to school, it will need to be put away in their bag during learning time and we cannot take responsibility for lost, traded or broken toys/items.

Absences

Schools are legally required to account for the safe whereabouts of each child every day, so notification to the school office should be before 9am if students will be more than 15 minutes late or not be attending school.

Please provide a reason for a late arrival/absence as schools are required to record this information. Absence notifications can be made by:

• Absence notification through the Hero app (preferred way - most efficient)

• Email – office@amesbury.school.nz

• Telephone – 04 477 3423

• Text – 021 86 55 28

If your child arrives at school any time from 9:00am, they must sign in at the office, not in the class/hub.

All absences are to be advised to the office, with extended leave requests of more than a week copied to the Principal.

Term 1 Dates 2024 

As always, our school events are all added to our school calendar as soon as we become aware of them. Please follow this link to our school calendar, housed on our school website. Some events may be added to our calendar as we go through the term, so please keep an eye on the weeks coming up on the calendar. Here are the main school events to date:

• Tue 30 Jan First day of Term 1 2024

• Tue 30 Jan Mihi Whakatau

• Wed 31 Jan BoT meeting

• Fri 2 Feb Amesbury Meet’n’Greet

• Tue 6 Feb School Closed - Waitangi Day

• Mon 12 Feb Year 1 Parent Focus Group Session

• Wed 14 Feb Co-curricular lessons begin

• Fri 16 Feb Co-curricular lessons begin

• Tue 20 Feb Te Papa Trip - Koru

• Thu 22 Feb Te Papa Trip - Pōhutukawa

• Wed 28 Feb BoT meeting

• Thu 14 Mar Year 2 Parent Focus Group Session

• Wed 27 Mar BoT meeting

• Fri 29 Mar School Closed - Good Friday

• Mon 1 Apr School Closed - Easter Monday

• Tues 2 Apr School Closed

• Thu 4 Apr Learning Celebration

• Thu 4 Apr Year 3 Parent Focus Group Session

• Wed 10 Apr Student Conferences

• Thu 11 Apr Student Conferences

• Fri 12 Apr Last day of Term 1 2024

Enjoy the last few days of the school break and we look forward to seeing you all next week.

Warm regards,

The Amesbury Team