Nau mai, haere mai. A warm welcome to Term 3 2023 to all returning ākonga and whānau, and a special welcome to all our new students and their families. We are looking forward to connecting with you all over this term. We hope that you have all had a lovely time with your whānau over the school holidays.

This email contains some basic admin information for Term 3, along with details about our Module 3 inquiry and main events for this term.  

Whānau Groups

This term Koru has six whānau groups, Harakeke has five whānau groups and Pōhutukawa has four 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.

The following information 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!

Our teaching teams for Term 3 2023 are:

Koru: Sonali Singh Nandra (team leader), Angela Herman-Childs (learning leader), Davina de Witts, Gina Quintero, Hannah Sadler and Sophia Hughes.

Harakeke: Natalie Douglas (team leader), Jemima Colquhoun (learning leader), Eilís Ni Chaiside, Rupert Webb and Kirat Singh.

Pōhutukawa: Onaitta Setefano (co-team leader and learning leader), Gar Kee Wu (co-team leader), Brent de Saxe, Ciara Lynch and Lisa Bengtsson (learning partner)

*Lauren Brown is a student teacher from the Masters of Teaching and Learning programme at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University. She has been working in Koru Hub with Sonali as her mentor teacher. Lauren will be in Koru Hub for the remainder of the year, coming in 2 days a week and teaching full time for 8 weeks between the end of Term 3 and beginning of Term 4.

*Navy Ny is one of our teacher aides. She works in the hubs, supporting students and teachers. You will see her on road patrol with the Year 6 students, one of her many other roles around the school.

*Nicola Love is also one of our teacher aides and she will continue to be based in Kōwhai, supporting teachers and students.

*Yamama Abdulqadir, our Arabic bilingual support worker, provides support to our Arabic students and their families.

*Liping will continue to work across all hubs in her Mandarin Language Assistant role.

*Jenny, Demelza and Lisa will continue to support teachers in their role as learning partners.

Communications

We use LINC-ED Hero for all our communication, learning and administration. Here is a link to more information about this platform and how you sign up. Hero will be regularly updated with information about school admin, events and general educational information, along with information about events in our local community. Any notices that can be public will also be published on our school website.

We have a school planning site, where planning for all teachers is stored and can be accessed by everyone. 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 planning site.

Module 3 Learning

This year we have three learning modules. In Term 1 we explored ‘living as my best self’ and in Term 2 we explored ‘living as kaitiaki’. ‘Living together’ will be the focus for module 3 (Terms 3 & 4). The following is a brief overview of our third learning module.

This term we will be looking at what it means to be a citizen. Students will explore different examples of activism and social justice through speeches and historical events about equality, social justice, social change. We will look at how communities support each other, and what our roles & responsibilities as a citizen in a community are. Students will create either a visual art, musical or dramatic performance to share their learning.

Learning celebration

Our Term 3 learning celebration will happen on Thursday 21 September 2023 from 1:50pm. Specific details about how the learning celebration will run will be shared closer to the date.

Trip

We are currently exploring options for a trip linked with our module 3 learning. We will let you know once the dates and details have been confirmed.

Term 3 Health Module

For our health module this term, students will be exploring how we grow and change overtime. The specific content is dependent on the age of the students.

For students in years 1-2 (Harakeke year 2s will join Koru for these sessions), they will begin by exploring how their bodies move and the benefits of physical activity. They will then look at the stages of growth from birth to adulthood and the impact of this on our ability to do things. Finally, they will learn the correct terminology for all body parts, including private body parts.

Students in years 3-4 will also explore how their bodies have changed overtime and how they can best support this growth and development. They will identify the stages of development from birth to old age and also explore some of the changes that occur during puberty. They will finish with thinking about how they can best take care of their bodies.

The years 5-6 students will explore the stages of life in more depth and use the correct terms used to express these stages. They will explore pubertal change, the reproductive system (including the correct terms for the internal and external reproductive parts), menstruation and conception.

All students will also have two or more sessions of digital technology.

For a brief overview of each of the eight sessions we will be teaching in the health module this term, please click on the link for our Health Overview Term 3. If you do not want your child participating in any particular session, please let your child’s whānau teacher know.

Mihi Whakatau

Our Term 3 mihi whakatau to welcome new students will be held on Monday 24 July. Parents and whānau are welcome to attend. This will begin at 2.15pm in the hall.

New families Information Session

This will be happening on Monday 24 July from 4:30pm-5:30pm. This session is for all families who are new to Amesbury School. For parents who have children starting in Koru, you will meet in Kōwhai (the space with the yellow carpet in Koru). If your child has started in Harakeke or Pōhutukawa, you will meet in Māwhero (the pink carpet in Harakeke).

School Swimming Sports

The years 4-6 school swimming sports is happening on Tuesday 18 July (Week 1) and the years 1-3 school swimming carnival is coming up on Thursday 20 July (Week 1). Details about these events can be found by clicking on the links above.

Amesbury Speech Competition

The Amesbury Speech Competition is coming up later this term. At this stage, the heats will be happening in weeks 7 and 8. Kirat has put information here and will send out further information during the term. We look forward to hearing all the amazing speeches.

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. If you would like to purchase a Chromebook so that your child can use it at home and at school, please contact Gar Kee Wu (garkee@amesbury.school.nz).

Clothing and lost property

Named items within hubs 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 on 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 iron-on name tags to make ownership of items very clear. Here are a couple of label companies to consider: Stuck on You Name it

Toys/Belongings at school

While we do not recommend that students bring toys to school, we do not have a ban on this. 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. Therefore, we do recommend that your child leaves any treasured possessions at home.

First Day of School

School begins for the term on Monday 17th July at 9:00am. Please read and follow the information below to ensure your child has a great start to their new school term. We ask that all students take their shoes off when entering our learning spaces, put their bags away and sign in. Teachers will be available at this time to support students. In Harakeke and Pōhutukawa, a timetable will be displayed for students to see where they need to be. In Koru Hub, there will be activities set up for students to engage with throughout the morning.

At the end of the day students in Hannah and Angela’s whānau can be picked up from Kōwhai by parents, guardians or older siblings. The rest of Koru Hub will continue to be picked up outside on the basketball court. Harakeke and Pōhutukawa students will be released from their classrooms and go to Kelly Club, wait at the pick up zone or walk home.

Sunhats are not required in Terms 2-3, however, students are required to wear a named Amesbury School sunhat when outside during Terms 1 and 4, so this might be a good time to make sure that you have one ordered for next term.

Sunhats are $15.00 and can be purchased via Kindo/the online school shop.

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.

Term 3 Dates 2023 

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:

• Mon 17 Jul First day of term 3

• Tue 18 Jul Senior Swimming Sports

• Wed 19 Jul BoT Meeting

• Wed 19 Jul Co Curricular lessons begin

• Thu 20 Jul Junior Swimming Carnival

• Thu 20 Jul Playhouse Theatre Show

• Mon 24 Jul Mihi whakatau

• Mon 24 Jul New families information session

• Tue 25 Jul School Photos

• Thu 27 Jul School Photos

• Thu 3 Aug Year 3 Focus group session

• Tue 8 Aug Raroa parent information evening (for year 6 parents)

• Wed 9 Aug Raroa Open Morning (for year 6 parents)

• Tue 15 Aug Netsafe parent and whānau evening

• Wed 16 Aug BoT Meeting

• Thu 24 Aug Year 2 Focus group session

• Thu 31 Aug Year 1 and New Entrant Focus group session

• Thu 7 Sep Year 6 Focus group session

• Thu 14 Sep PSW Interzone Swimming Sports (for year 4-6 students who qualify)

• Fri 15 Sep Road Patrol Parade

• Fri 15 Sep  Speech Finals

• Wed 20 Sep BoT Meeting

• Thu 21 Sep Term 3 Learning Celebration

• Fri 22 Sep Amesbury Celebration

• Fri 22 Sep Last day of term 3

*The St Brigids Kapa Haka Festival will also take place this term and more information will be sent out closer to the time.

*Student Conferences will be held in week 10.

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

Warm regards,

The Amesbury Team