Newsletter # 3 - W/E 08/03/2024

Kia ora koutou

It’s hard to believe that we are in Week 6 already! All the best to our Year 9’s who are heading out to Windy Point for their camp this week. I’m sure they will have an amazing time together. A reminder that at the end of next week (Friday 15th March) is a teacher only day and school is closed for instruction. We will be joining other schools from our Community of Learning (KāhuiA ko) for a day of professional development.

Communications: I have recently been chatting with some parents about how we communicate with the community. Below are the main ways we communicate:

1. School App: This is useful for brief pop-up alerts as well as longer communications. The App is available for both IOS and android and we encourage all parents to download it. Once you have downloaded the app, search for Amuri Area School and sign up for the parts of the school that are relevant to you.

2. School Facebook Page: This is called ‘Amuri Area School’ and is a private group. As a current parent / caregiver, you are welcome to request access and one of our admins will check this and approve it. Posts may not automatically pop up on your page so it’s a good idea to regularly check the page for posts and updates.

3. Email: We will often email information out to our parent community. It might be a good idea to check that you are receiving emails and if not to ensure that your details are correct by ringing Janine in the school office.

4. See-Saw: Our Year 1-8 teachers will use this form of communication for information that is relevant to your child’s class. While some school-wide information or updates may come through See-Saw, they are more likely to come via the three methods outlined above.

NB: In cases requiring urgent communication, we will use the School App and Facebook in the first instance.

3x60 mins per day:
In addition to the ‘phones away for the day’ policy that was recently introduced, the coalition government have also made it mandatory for schools to explicitly teach Reading, Writing and Maths for a minimum of one hour each per day in Years 1-8. This is something that is largely already happening here at Amuri Area School. We encourage you to support this with getting your children to read and write at home, along with completing things like spelling or maths sheets that teachers might set for homework. This will compliment the hard work that is happening in class.

CASAfest Billets: In the last week of the term, we are hosting the annual CASAfest tournament. We need as many host families as possible to take billets. We would appreciate you considering hosting even if your son / daughter isn’t involved in the event. Please check your emails for information about this and thanks in advance for supporting us.

Achiever of the Month: Well done to Sophie Downs-Diack who is the recipient of Achiever of the Month for February. You can read about Sophie’s achievements further on in this newsletter.

Kia kitea toikaka Matt Barlow Principal

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Primary School News

Kia ora parents and whanau

We were delighted to hear so many positive and kind comments about our Amuri Show art this year! It certainly adds a bit of extra pressure to our timetables in the first month of school and the children get so much enjoyment of taking their family to show them what they have been working on.

Congratulations to all our Year 1 to 6 staff and students for their efforts for this year, Dr Seuss provided a very good theme to get the creative flow going.

We have welcomed a number of new Amurians to Year 1 to 8 since our last newsletter. Zaki has joined Room 6 with Miss Paterson. He is new to the area from the Phillippines and his younger brother will join us later this year. Ms Jamieson continues to be the most popular teacher and her class is growing quickly. We have welcomed Niko, Zoe and Julia to our school whanau as they have all turned five in the last fortnight.

Thank you to all the parents and whanau who joined us to watch the swimming skills in action at the Primary Splashtacular. The weather was sweltering but in hindsight, how lucky we were to have a day like that! It would be a different story with our current temperatures, so we are grateful that it happened earlier rather than later. Please continue to send swimming things to school, the teachers will decide when it is too cold to swim. We usually see swimming end around mid-March but have been known to go for longer, it really is weather dependent. Please continue to communicate with your child’s class teacher if your child is finding the water too cold.

There continues to be numerous sporting events in our calendar, there hardly seems to be a full week for some students. This week we have had a number of swimmers at HPSSA (Hurunui zone) swimming at Hanmer with Mrs Shaw and from there we may have some swimmers qualify for the CPS (Canterbury Primary School) level event. Last week we also had our senior school athletics and there will be some Tapuae-o-Uenuku (Year 7/8) students who will qualify for CHS (Country High Schools) events from this. Please keep checking the calendar in the school newsletter for dates of events happening both in and out of the school and remind your child to return their permission slips to the office as soon as possible so we can proceed with our planning to take them out of school.

Thank you for all the responses to our parent surveys for our class teachers. We have closed the survey for 2024 and we have found the information we received to be very helpful for getting to know our students. We appreciate the input from whanau at home, thank you.

Ngā mihi nui
Kylee Habgood
Deputy Principal - Primary School

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Secondary School News

As we reach the mid-point to Term 1, I ask each and every student in the senior school to balance both their academic work alongside the many wonderful opportunities for education outside of the classroom. Letting the work pile up this early in the year will make it extremely difficult to manage later in the academic year when external exams are under way.

Homework completion regularly will help you to keep on track. All students will have at least 30 minutes of homework for every subject each week.

Whanau, if you are not seeing this, feel free to reach out to the teachers for further information.

As a school we are incredibly grateful to have the use of the facilities at Windy Point. It enables our students to have a base for outdoor adventures in a school camp environment. The setting is beautiful, and the area offers an amazing range of activities that students at different ages can undertake. This week we have seen our Year 9 students off on an outward-bound adventure.

The weather has been great despite the chill off the snow-capped mountains surrounding Lewis Pass.

A big thank you to the staff, parent support and senior students under the guidance and organisation of Sarah Helmore for enabling this camp to happen.

The camp is designed at the beginning of Year 9 to build relationships between the students new to Amuri and those that have been with us in Year 7 and 8 as they come together in Year 9.

On my early morning visit on Thursday, the Year 9 students were fully embracing the opportunities with outstanding positivity. Testament to the awesome group of students that they are.

Congratulations to Olivia Ferguson who will be flying to Rotorua to play netball in the Aotearoa Maori National tournament representing Te Waipounamu over Easter.

The colder weather is on its way, as we have seen over the last week. A reminder that senior students must be in correct uniform onsite. The student leaders from 2023 did a fantastic job of putting forward student voice around the need for a WARM alternative to non-uniform items for the winter months. We managed to source a bulk order of Backroad style jerseys with the insulated lining from MKM (Manawatu Knitting Mills) at the wholesale price for the first year and they have kindly extended this offer to us again.

If you wish to order, please do so at the front office. The cost is $99 per jumper. Payment is up front and we will send through orders every week. They are pretty quick to deliver (approx. one week).

Size XS / S / M / L / XL / 2XL / 3XLFabric Outer: 100% Pure NZ WoolInner: 100% Polyester Lining

Nicole PetersonDeputy Principal Secondary School

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Achiever of the Month - February

Sophie does her best to learn each and every day, including regularly trying to take responsibility for her own learning. Sophie is very respectful to both adults and her peers. She is kind to everyone and helpful in the classroom and playground and responsible with her own belongings and school equipment. Sophie also demonstrates integrity. Sophie is a worthy recipient of our Achiever of the Month award for February 2024.

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Dates for Your Diary

March 6th-8th Year 9 Camp to Windy Point
8th-10th CSS Senior Volleyball Champs - TBC
12th PTA Meeting at 7:00pm in the School Staffroom

13th CCHS Athletics
13th Year 12/13 Field Trip to the Grampians
15th TOD - SCHOOL CLOSED
20th HPSSA Duathlon - Hanmer Springs
20th Board of Trustees Meeting
21st HPSSA Duathlon Postponement
21st Change Makers Leadership trip
21st-23rd SI Skoda MTB - Queenstown - TBC
22nd Bible in Schools starts for Years 1-6 students
24th-29th Year 12 Geography SIHC Trip
26th CSS Athletics Prelims
27th CPS Champs - Selwyn Aquatic Centre
27th CSS MTB Cross Country - TBC
27th Caverhill Assembly @ 2:00pm
28th CSS Athletics Finals
29th Good Friday - SCHOOL CLOSED

April
1st-2nd Easter - SCHOOL CLOSED
4th CSS Swim Champs at Jellie Park
5th-7th SISS Athletics - Timaru
7th-11th Year 12 OE trip - Marlborough Sounds
8th Years 3-6 Teeball/Volleyball - Scargill/Cheviot
9th-11th CASAfest @ AAS
10th Years 3-6 Teeball/Volleyball Postponement
12th End of Term 1
29th Term 2 begins
30th-1st Year 7 Camp to Hanmer Springs

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Strive Rewards

Roll of Honour

Lily Black
Phoenix Bunt
Jack Cater
Ashleigh Clegg
Wikitoria Collins
Kassy Frias
Alysha Hepi-Te Hepia
Tom Jackson
Eva Johns
Akeila McIntyre
Greta Reed
Penelope Schuurman
Elliette Williamson
Freddy Whittle

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Year 1 and 2 students being taught by Ms Jamieson how to use life jackets.

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Two Year 13 Geography fundrasing events at the Amuri A&P Show last weekend raising funds for their upcoming trip to the Gold Coast in Australia June/July this year.

Here, our very own Dorz, won the women’s section at the Hanging Challenge. Go Dorz!!

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We would like to acknowledge the sporting achievement of all of our students that attended CCHS Swimming last week.

For our U12.5's, this was their first high school experience representing our school in a sport which they are great at.

Bob Thompson broke three records, 50m Freestyle, Breaststroke and Backstroke.

Once again thank you to our families and supporters.

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Around 40 Year 4-8 swimmers showed great enthisiasm participating in the Hurunui Primary Swimming Championships at the Hanmer Thermal Pools on Wednesday 5th. Thank you to those parents that came and supported our swimmers and especially those that helped with jobs on the day Kathryn, Olivia, Bex and Holly and our awesome timekeepers Melissa, Phil and Kathryn.

Congratulations to these students who have qualified for the Canterbury Primary Swimming Champs later in the month; Emily Colombus (Open girls100m IM and Year 7 girls 50m Breaststroke), Paige Jopp (Open girls100m Freestyle), Ellie Thompson (Year 7 girls 50m Backstroke) and Jake Van der Heyden (Year 7 boys 50m Freestyle).