Tēnā koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te kura o Amesbury.

Welcome back to Term 4 at Amesbury School. We extend a warm welcome to whānau (families) who are joining us for the first time. After a well-earned break, our kaimahi (teachers and support staff) are looking forward to seeing ākonga (students) again and getting into the exciting learning opportunities they have planned for the 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

Koru Hub has nine 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 4 2024 are:

Koru Hub new entrant group (Māwhero & Kikorangi): Our kaiako are Angela Herman-Childs, Wee Ai Teh, and Amelia Prendeville, with Navy Ny and Charlene Laing as learning support.

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

Pōhutukawa Year 4 whānau groups: Rupert Webb (team leader), Sarah King

Pōhutukawa Year 5 & 6 whānau groups: Brydon Gillam (team leader support), Charlotte Montu, Rachel Hosnell, Gar Kee Wu.

Nic Love, Caylie Robinson, and Akane Sandom (learning support) work across both floors in Pōhutukawa

Release teachers: Brooke Kent & Katherine Somcio (Koru Hub), Maura Stewart (Pōhutukawa Hub), Khadeeja Kidwai (part time release kaiako)

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

Mandarin Language Assistant: Yingfei (Fei) Chen will continue to deliver Mandarin and extension Mandarin learning across the school.

Communications

We use LINC-ED Hero for all our communication, learning and administration. Here is a link to more information about how to sign up to Hero and how to view learning information about your tamariki (child/ren). Our weekly communications are sent out as a digest each Friday. These are housed on Hero, and you will be sent an email notification when the digest has been published. Any notices that can be public will also be published on our school website.

We have a school planning site, where planning for 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 4 Learning -Planet Earth and Beyond

Last year we collected student voice about what our ākonga were really interested in learning about. We had lots of different ideas, as you can imagine, but by collating the information and pulling out key themes, it was clear that our tamariki are keen to learn how the world works. As such, we planned our four inquiry themes for this year to explore how our world works: Term 1 = How our living world works. Term 2 = How our natural world works. Term 3 = How our physical world works. Term 4 = Beyond our world (space and how the universe works). Each inquiry builds on each other, and we will look to integrate the inquiries so that the learning from the previous terms is taken into the next inquiry and built upon.

Term 4: Beyond our world : In this inquiry, ākonga will explore three key ideas:

The Sun is the ultimate source of energy for life on Earth
Our theories about the Universe and Earth's place in it are limited by what we are able to observe and think about
Earth's system is a small part of a solar system within the vast system of the Universe

Both hubs will move through two learning modules as part of this inquiry. The first module called The Sun at the Centre will focus on

-Life on Earth depends on the light and heat given out by the sun

-Everything in our solar system revolves around the sun

-That amounts of heat and light that reach the Earth's surface vary according to the time of day, the time of year, and the place.

The second module called Our Solar System in the Universe will focus on

-Earth is part of a solar system made up of many components

-Scientists now believe that our solar system is only a tiny part of the Universe

-The use of technology to observe space objects enables humans to develop new ideas about Earth's place in space.

Most groups will also go on a trip to Space Place at the Observatory in Wellington, to help further their learning around the movement of the sun, moon and Earth to create day and night, seasons and years (Koru), and the solar system and planets, and the significance of particular planets in Te Ao Māori (Pōhutukawa).

Learning Celebration

Our term 4 Learning Celebration will be Thursday 6 December 8.30am - 9.30am. Students will be creating a physical representation of at least one aspect of their learning that they can share with and explain to you. This timing will hopefully allow whānau to call in and share their learning on the way to work or other places.

The sharing will be in the hubs, followed by a full school short break for kai (snacks) out on the courts (weather permitting) at 9.15am. You are most welcome to join us for this if you are able.

Term 4 Health Module

This term, the focus in health is varied for the different year groups. The session topics for each year group are listed below as an overview.

Year 1-3 Sessions

Session 1 - Caring for our bodies

Session 2 - Zones of Regulation

Session 3 - Emotions in our bodies

Session 4 - Kind Heart, Happy Heart

Session 5 - We are all connected

Session 6 - Relating to others

Year 4 Sessions

Session 1 - 3 : Needs and wants

Session 4: Moving my body

Session 5: Caring for my body

Session 6: Healthy lunchbox

Year 5 and 6 Sessions

Session 1: Online safety: A creator's rights and responsibilities

Session 2: Reading news online

Session 3: Looking after our bodies

Session 4: Truths and myths about hygiene

Session 5: Exercise

Session 6: Healthy eating

*Please note:

If you would prefer that your child does not learn particular aspects of this information at school, please check the term plan here and let your child’s whānau teacher know which sessions you would prefer they were not involved in as soon as possible.

Mihi Whakatau

Our Term 4 mihi whakatau to welcome new students will be held on Friday 18 October Whānau are welcome to attend. This will begin at 2.15pm in the hall.

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.

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 form on the Hero app
Email – office@amesbury.school.nz
Telephone – 04 477 3423
Text – 021 86 55 28

If your child arrives at school any time after 9:00 am, 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 copied to the Principal.

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. 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.

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

Phones at school: Students must not use their phones during the school day. If a child needs to have their phone with them to use after school, the phone must stay in their bag until they leave school. Please see this article for more information about use of phones at school.

Term 4 Hub Admin
School begins for the term on Monday 14 October at 9:00am. Please read and follow the information below to ensure your child has a great start to their new school term.

Koru:

Our Hub will be open from 8.30am. We ask that ākonga take their shoes off before coming into the learning space, put their bags in their bag spaces and sign in. Kaiako will be available at this time to support students.

At the end of the day, ākonga in Angela, Wee Ai and Amelia’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. A kaiako will take a group of ākonga to the drop off zone. Please let your child’s whānau teacher, if you haven’t already, that this is your preference.

Pōhutukawa:

Our Hub is open from 8.30am. We ask that ākonga take their shoes off before coming into the learning space, put their bags in their bag spaces and sign in. Kaiako will be available at this time to support students.

Every morning we will have a ‘What’s On?’ projected in the hub 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.

*Hubs are open for ākonga from 8:30 am onwards.

Learning spaces are not open prior to 8:30am and children are not supervised, so please ensure your tamariki do not arrive prior to 8:30am, unless they are attending before school care.

Kelly Club operates a before school care programme ākonga 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 ākonga to be at school by 8:45am as this allows them time to settle in, put their bags away, read the timetable for the day and then say ‘hello’ to friends and kaiako before the bell goes.

Term 4 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:

Mon 14 October - First Day of Term 4
Thurs 17 October - Smash Play Cricket Sessions (Y0-3)
Fri 18 October - Mihi Whakatau - 2.15pm
Mon 21 October Koru Hub Swimming Carnival
Tuesday 22 October - Road Patrol Training Y5s for 2025
Friday 25 October - Staff Only Day: School closed
Monday 28 October - Labour Day: School Closed
Wed 30 October - Board of Trustees Meeting 5:30 – 7:30pm
Thurs 31 October - Senior Athletics
Mon 4 November Northern Zone Athletics (PPT 11 Nov)
Mon 4 November Children's University Graduation
Thurs 7 November Space Place (Kākāriki)
Thurs 7 November Year 5 Focus Group meeting 5:00 – 6:00pm
Fri 15 November- Cultural Festival and community gathering 4:00 – 6:00pm
Tues 19 November - Inter Zone Athletics (PPT 21 Nov)
Thurs 21 November Year 6 Focus Group meeting 5:00 – 6:00pm
Mon 25 – Fri 29 November - Year 5 and 6 South Island Camp
Tues 26 November - Koru Sports Carnival
Thurs 28 - Fri 29 November Year 3 and 4 overnight camp
Mon 2 - 4 December - Pōhutukawa Space Place Trips
Wed 4 December - Board of Trustees Meeting 5:30 – 7:30pm
Fri 6 December Learning celebration: Space Showcase 8:30 – 9:30am
Mon 9 - Wed 11 December - Hub Transition days
Thurs 12 December - Water play fun (10-11:30)
Mon 9 December Year 6 graduation dinner 5:30 – 8:00pm
Tues 10 December Year 6 trip into town
Fri 13 December - Farewell assembly 9:15 – 10:00am
Fri 13 December - Last day - School closes 1pm

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

Warm regards,

The Amesbury Team