Newsletter # 2 - WE 23/02/2024

Janine Jack

— Feb 23, 2024

Kia ora koutou

I hope that the start of year has gone well for you and your children. It is never easy getting back into the routine of school! It has been awesome to visit different parts of the school and see smiling faces and students who are engaged in the learning opportunities that are presented to them here at Amuri Area School. A good example of this was a visit to our Year 7/8 modules who had their first lesson for the year on Tuesday. In each of the five classes there was a vibrant hive of activity with students sewing, cooking, sanding, planning robots and creating animations.

One of our aspirations as a school is to “select pedagogies and programmes that are engaging, foster progress and develop curiosity” It is awesome to see this in action through the likes of the modules classes described above; the gateway and work experience pathways we provide, the field trips that students enjoy and in the everyday learning opportunities that our class teachers provide.

Thank you to those parents who have completed our junior (Year 1-8) surveys. These provide valuable information to us to consider as we start the year off and work with your children.

You may have seen some publicity about the Government’s 100-day plan and some direct implications for education. The first is the ‘phone away for the day’ plan. This is a good opportunity for me to remind parents and whānau that this is something we already do at Amuri Area School. Some students bring phones for use on the bus; however, at school phones should be turned off and in bags. Please remind your children of this expectation and if you need to contact them during the day, please do so via the school office. There are some exceptions – for example, a teacher may ask a senior student to collect photographic evidence for an assessment. Specific permission will be given for this should the teacher require a student to use their phone to do so. You can read more about this by accessing www.education.govt.nz/school/digital-technology/cellphones/

We had a superb swimming sports day last Tuesday with lots of fun, competition and house spirit. Thanks to parents who came and supported this event and to those who helped. A highlight was the final race of the day, a relay between Year 13, Parents, Staff, Police, Fire and Ambulance officers. The event finished in that order – though we acknowledge the emergency services who competed in their overalls! Our next events are the Primary Splashtacular today. Senior athletics next Wednesday 28th so come along and support the students and grab a coffee from Pams Coffee cart. In our next newsletter I will share some information about another 100 day initiative – an hour a day of reading, writing and maths.

A reminder that we have a Tipu Māia Kahui Ako teacher only day on Friday 15th March. School will be closed for instruction on that day with our staff travelling to join the other schools in our Community of Learning for the day. All the best for the next two weeks.

Kia kitea toikaka
Matt Barlow
Principal

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Primary School News

Kia ora parents and whanau

A reminder for parents that school starts for Year 1-6 at 8:55am each day. The buses start arriving at 8:30am and there should be no students on site before then as it is a Health and Safety issue. Teachers are not available to supervise children before 8:30am so if you are bringing children to school, please wait until 8:30am before dropping them off at school.

We can’t help but notice lunchboxes when we are on duty and we are pleased to notice that you are all doing your best to provide a healthy lunch for your children. We appreciate this for two reasons. Firstly, it helps the children to keep their concentration and thinking when they are fuelled with healthy food and therefore, learning comes much more easily to them. Secondly, we appreciate the fact that there is less rubbish in the playground. Packaged food items make up a large proportion of our rubbish. We would like to ask that when you are replacing lunchboxes, you consider some of the compartmentalised options that allow food items to be separated and put in without packaging. Thank you for your continued support in this area.

Swimming is coming very quickly to an end as we are already experiencing cooler overnight temperatures and that affects the pool temperature. As swimming is part of our curriculum and must be taught, we will continue until the water is too cold. We value swimming confidence and skills highly here at Amuri. Many of us are off farms and have many waterways around us and at the very least, we would like to be able to teach children how to float on their backs, so they have the skill if they do get into trouble in the water. We usually finish swimming in the first or second week in March and we will let you know when we are done. Please continue to send swimming things each day and communicate with your child’s class teacher.

It was fantastic to see so many swimmers competing in our recent swimming sports. These sports were for length swimmers and above and were the avenue for qualifying for the Hurunui Zone for Year 3 to 8 or Country High Schools which is Year 7-13. Our very lucky Tapuae-o-Uenuku students get two opportunities to move forward to compete at a higher level.

Next week we have our Year 7 to 13 Senior School athletics on Wednesday, another opportunity for our Tapuae-o-Uenuku students to qualify for Country High Schools zone. These students also get an opportunity to participate in the Amuri Primary School athletics in Term 4 and their participation here qualifies them for Hurunui Primary School zones athletics (HPSSA) which are held in November.

Year 1 to 6 students are all putting their final touches on their show art ready for the Amuri Show on March 2nd. We have a theme again this year and you’ll have to pop along to the shed to see our display. We look forward to ‘wow-ing’ you with our show art this year!

Ngā mihi nui
Kylee Habgood
Deputy Principal - Primary School

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Secondary School News

Tēnā koutou

For me it is a welcome back to 2024. Unfortunately an accident took me out of action for the first two weeks of this school year. A big thank you to all the staff in the secondary school who worked hard to ensure that on start up students received the support that was needed to sort their courses and timetables as quickly as possible.

Term 1 is shaping up to be full of rich learning both inside and outside of the classroom.

We have Year 9 camp coming up on 6th-8th March at Windy Point. More information will be shared with parents shortly.

Crash Bash a Ministry of Youth Development and Christchurch City Council funded travelling stage show, stopped by to present to our year 9 to 13 students today.

In 2024 we have selected an amazing group of students to be part of our Kairahi Student Leadership Team – Laura Cundy and Olivia Adcock (Head Students), Isla Bloomfield, Brody Marris, Hananiah Samera, Michaela Lamont, Catherine Paragas, Olivia Fergusson our (Prefects). They have already made a big impact with their presence at events across the school and their organization for upcoming fundraisers. Each of the leaders will be running their own community or school impact project across the year so watch this space… I look forward to sharing these with you.

A big thank you to our community businesses that are hosting some of our senior students one day a week for gateway work experience. It is a big undertaking to mentor a young person in the valuable skills of work efficacy alongside discipline specific skills. Giving a young adult an opportunity such as this has been proven to support work ready skills that see the young person succeed once they join the workforce after their schooling.

Our senior students will be starting their placements this week in industries ranging from agriculture and farming, retail service, early childhood education, hospitality, engineering, landscaping and construction.

A further opportunity to offer pathway choices to our students is through our dual enrollment programmes where students spend part of the week at another provider learning courses that we do not offer at Amuri. The numbers of students wanting to participate in these courses has risen over my short time at Amuri as many of our students seek trade qualifications as part of their career pathways. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our community members, Steve and Colin, who safely drive our students every week to town and back, leaving at 7:00am and returning some weeks by 5:00pm. Their contribution is essential to the continuing ability to offer these opportunities to our students.

We have an unprecedented number of Amuri and Hanmer Year 7 and 8 students for modules on a Tuesday afternoon, so we have had to add a fifth class to ensure that the groups are at a safe number for the technology rooms. To cater for this, we have been very lucky to employ Mrs Sarah Black to undertake a soft materials option. Really looking forward to the outcomes that they produce, I hope to highlight these in upcoming newsletters.

Make sure you keep an eye on our Facebook page and note the dates in the school calendar for upcoming events as there is a lot still to come in Term 1.

Nicole Peterson
Deputy Principal - Secondary School

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Dates for Your Diary

February

27th CCHS Swim Champs
28th Senior Athletics

March

1st Girls’ Self Defence - Years 7/8
2nd Amuri Show - Rotherham
5th HPSSA Swimming - Hanmer Springs
6th HPSSA Swimming Postponement
6th Mitchell Assembly @ 2:00pm
6th-8th Year 9 Camp to Windy Point
7th Senior Athletics Postponement
8th-10th CSS Senior Volleyball Champs - TBC
13th CCHS Athletics
15th TOD - SCHOOL CLOSED
20th HPSSA Duathlon - Hanmer Springs
21st HPSSA Duathlon Postponement
21st-23rd SI Skoda MTB - Queenstown - TBC
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

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