Tena koutou nga whanau, nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa,

Even though we are only in week three those long holidays are already seeming like a distant memory. Over the last couple of weeks school has been a hive of activity, both off-site and on-site. Classes are well into their learning programmes for the year, the swimming pool has been a constant hive of activity and the garden has been producing large amounts of produce for tasting and creating our school lunches on Fridays.

Last week, our year 5 students, made the most of our local environment with their two day camp at Orton Bradely. I would like to thank the many helpers from the community who supported this by taking time out of their own busy lives to assist. On Monday, our year 6 and 7 students head up to Hanmer Springs for the year 6 and 7 camp. Thank you also to the parents who are assisting with this. We are fortunate to have such a range of camping options for our students, both within our local environment, and further afield.

Classes have been engaging in a range of wellbeing activities including exploring their character strengths. One very important character strength, that has a strong connection to wellbeing and is easy to overlook, is gratitude. At school, and in our community, we have so much to be grateful for: the school pool on hot days, the beautiful garden, wonderful skilled and caring staff, stunning surroundings, the bike track, excellent (nearly finished!) buildings …. the list just goes on.

One of my favourite activities is the gratitude circle, where children reflect and share something they are grateful for. This is also an easy activity to do at home, whether it be around the dinner table, in the car, or out on the water. When I tried this with my partner, it should have been no surprise that the thing he reflected on as being most grateful for was Harvey, the dog! ‘Seven ways to foster gratitude in kids’ is a useful article if you wish to find out more about this.

Staff have also been engaging in new learning. Last week, we headed into the Botanic Gardens (yet something else to be grateful for) and participated in Nature Agents training. This is the stream monitoring programme the school is involved in, using Te Wharau stream in Orton Bradley park. This was an opportunity for the teachers who hadn’t done the training before to develop their skills in aspects such as identifying invertebrates and measuring water clarity.

This week, as part of the same programme teachers headed over to the University of Canterbury to explore e.coli bacteria.

This is a collaboration between Nature Agents and the University of Canterbury with the focus on supporting schools. The first part of this was the teacher training and provision of resources. Later in the year scientists come and work with students on collecting water samples, which will be processed at the University of Canterbury.

As a school we are very fortunate to be able to access so many professionals from outside the school to support teachers and enhance the curriculum.

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the next couple of weeks. If you are heading away on camp with the year 6 and 7 students we wish you all the best. Have a wonderful time.

Ngā mihi, Jill