Tēnā koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te kura o Amesbury. Welcome back to Term 3 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.

This article contains some basic admin information for Term 3, along with details about our Module 3 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

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 3 2024 are:

Koru Hub new entrant group (Māwhero & Kikorangi): Angela Herman-Childs, Wee Ai Teh, Amelia Prendeville, 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, Gerri Ng (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, Rachel Hosnell

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

Release teachers: Brooke Kent & Katherine Somcio (Koru Hub), Maura Stewart (Pōhutukawa Hub),

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 3 Learning -The Physical World

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 term/s is taken into the next inquiry and built upon.

Term 3: Our material world: Alongside the living world and natural world, the material world consists of common materials that have chemical and physical properties. In this inquiry, ākonga will explore three key ideas:

The properties of materials change when they are heated, cooled or mixed.
Humans have adapted heating, cooling and mixing processes over time.
Our bodies are engines. What we put into them impacts the way they run and how we thrive.

Both hubs will move through three learning modules as part of this inquiry. The first two modules will focus on what happens when materials are heated (module 1) and when they are cooled (module 2). Both modules will focus on how materials change with heating or cooling, and how changes in state (solid, liquid or gas) can occur. Ākonga will also explore the timeline of methods of heating and cooling, and they will look at how advances in technology have impacted this. Our third module builds on this learning, and looks at our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and how this is impacted by what we eat -the fuel we put into our bodies. This ties into the technological advances in heating and cooling our food, and how this impacts the food available to humans worldwide today.

In the last two weeks of term, the Life Education van, complete with Harold the Giraffe, will be at Amesbury School, delivering a learning module for all ākonga (at age appropriate levels) about healthy eating, the food pyramid, and how our bodies get energy from the food we eat. All students will have two learning sessions in the Life Education van, which is always a great experience.

Learning Celebration

Our term 3 learning celebration will be a shared Buddy Breakfast in buddy whānau groups on Thursday of the last week of term (26th September). Throughout the year, each whānau group from Pōhutukawa has been paired up with a Koru whānau group. They meet up every Friday afternoon, and on alternate Fridays they attend our school Share and Celebrate together in their buddy groups.

Having explored different methods of heating and cooling, and having looked at healthy foods for our body, our buddy whānau groups will work together to prepare tasty breakfast treats to share with their buddies. Given that it is a breakfast picnic, pyjamas can be worn for the day.

Throughout the term we will be asking families to send in their favourite snack or meal recipe to add to our Amesbury Kai Compendium, which will be sent out in digital format at the end of term as part of our learning celebration. We will be sending out more information about this shortly.

Term 3 Health Module

This term, the focus in health is on personal growth and development.

In year 1 and 2 students will be learning about things they do and don’t share online, what they do if they come across unwanted content online, and where to go for advice. They will also learn about how their body changes over a lifetime as it grows, and they will learn the names for their body parts, including their private body parts.
In year 3 and 4 they will start off the term looking at their online communities and how they connect with people online,and they will end the term exploring how to give credit for online content they use, and they will start to explore how online images and content can be altered / false. In the middle of the term they spend a number of weeks learning about human bodies. They will explore what they like about their own body, what bodies need for health growth and development, and also how bodies change and develop as they grow and go through puberty.
In year 5 and 6, again students focus on keeping themselves safe online - how to stay safe in online connections and friendships. They then move into the different stages of human life, leading to learning about pubertal change, menstruation and conception.

Our full planning for Health for Term 3 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 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.

Term 3 Swimming Lessons - Pōhutukawa Hub

Pōhutakawa swimming lessons will be held in Term 3 on Thursdays from weeks 1 -8.

The year 5 and 6 lessons will be held at Keith Spry Pool (in Johnsonville) in the mornings and the year 4 lessons will be held at Rewa Rewa School Pool in the afternoons. Easy Swim will be running the swimming lessons. Students and staff will travel to the pool by bus. Students can get very hungry after swimming, so we recommend packing a big lunch to keep up their energy!

What do students need?

Students need to bring togs, a towel and a swim cap, all in a named swimming bag. Goggles are also very useful, but not compulsory.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to get in touch with your whānau teacher, or Hannah (hannah@amesbury.school.nz).

Mihi Whakatau

Our Term 3 mihi whakatau to welcome new students will be held on Friday 26th July (first Friday of the term). Whānau are welcome to attend. This will begin at 2.15pm in the hall.

New Families Information Session

We will hold our New Families Information Session on Friday 26th July from 3:30pm-4:00pm. This is an opportunity for parents and children to come along and meet some of the teachers in your child’s team. The two hubs will split off and talk about how the hub works - where to find information, how the day/week is structured, and some key information about what is happening this term. It is a good chance for you to ask questions about how the hub operates.

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. We have teamed up with Precious Labels who offer a small commission to the school for every order placed (orders should be placed through Kindo)

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 3 Hub Admin
School begins for the term on Monday 22nd July 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. We are noticing a growing number of children arriving at school before 8:30am, which is particularly problematic as it becomes more cold and rainy in winter. Learning spaces are not open prior to 8:30am and children are not supervised, so please ensure your tamariki do not arrive prior to 8:30pm, 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 3 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 22 July First Day of Term 3
Fri 26 July Mihi Whakatau
Wed 31 July BoT Meeting
Thu 1 August Newlands Intermediate School in Action Morning 9:00 - 11:00 am
Tue 6 August ICAS - Digital Technology 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Tue 6 August NE/Year 1 Focus Group meeting 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Tue 13 August ICAS - English 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Mon 12 August Rāroa Intermediate Parent Information evening 6:00 -7:00 pm
Wed 14 August Rāroa Intermediate Open Morning 9:00 - 10:30 am
Tue 20 August ICAS - Science 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Tue 20 August Year 2 Focus Group meeting 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Tue 27 August ICAS - Maths 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Wed 28 August BoT Meeting
Mon 9 September Structured Literacy Parent Information Session 6:00 - 7:00 pm
Fri 13 September Onesie Day
Sat 14 September Kapa Haka Festival - St Brigid’s
Tue 24 September Year 3 Focus Group Meeting 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Wed 25 September Reports go live on HERO
Thurs 26 September Inter regional cross country
Thurs 26 September Learning celebration pyjama breakfast 9:30am – 11am
Thurs 26 September - Learning celebration: Buddy Breakfast (can wear pyjamas to school)
Fri 27 September Last day of Term 3

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

Warm regards,

The Amesbury Team