Kia ora e te whānau, welcome to the start of week 5. I hope your weekend was restful and that, if your children were playing sport, they had a good day out and a good result. Please remember that if you have any photos of your children from their sports or any other events that they may participate in, you can email these to me as I would love to use these in our assemblies.

This week is a big week for our Year 7 and 8 students as they head off on camp for 4 days to Hanmer Springs tomorrow. I would like to wish them all the very best for this event. I know that they are going to have a great time. I would like to thank all of the parents who are attending as parent helpers. Thank you for giving up your time. I am hopeful of getting to Hanmer on Thursday for all or part of the day. 

We also have our Year 4-8 students holding an adventure day on Wednesday. This looks like an exciting event that I am sure our students are eagerly anticipating. They have many greta activities to enjoy on the day.

Hopefully the weather is kind for both of these events. 

Ngā mihi nui.

Darryn Ward

Enviro Leaders

We had a great first session on Wednesday with the new group of Enviro Leaders. We were fortunate to have Siobhan Culhane from Ecan and Dr Bex Dollery from the WDC come along and work with the group. 

We started by exploring the area at the back of the field where we are going to be planting some native plants. We then stopped and chatted with Simon who was screening the compost that he has gathered from around the school. Finally we went looking to see where we could plant the ferns that we have in the school to create our fern garden. 

Tomorrow, the 4 Year 6 members of the group will be visiting North Loburn School for an Enviro Schools hui. They will be meeting a large number of students from other schools and spending the day sharing stories of what each school is doing. 

We took the photo below in one of the areas we want to plant. This is where we hope to create an environment that will allow the Boulder Copper Butterfly to flourish. Missing from the photo are Joe, Isla J and Georgia W. They are all a keen group of students who want to make a difference. 

Aiming to reduce our rubbish

We are going to be having a push on trying to reduce the litter that we find around the school. This is just one small focus area for us as an enviro school however it is one that we are noticing needs a lot of attention. We know that our caretaker Simon loves to keep our grounds looking tidy and he is doing an amazing job. His job does get harder if he has to keep collecting rubbish from in the gardens and around the buildings. We want to help him.

All of our classes have been tasked with keeping their areas outside their rooms litter free. Not only will this help to make our environment look tidy but it will help to keep the mice and rats away as we are noticing more of these little critters around.

We would greatly appreciate your support in reducing the litter we have here at school. One way of doing this is to remove food from the packets or wrappers before it goes into your child's lunchbox. Small containers are great for popping the chips, crackers etc in. This then means we do not get the wrappers and packets being left around.

Before the end of the term the Enviro Leaders will be doing an audit of what we are finding around the school over a 1 week period. They will be looking to share their findings with all of the classes.

Results from the Senior School Cross Country 2023

Held in perfect cross country weather, we congratulate all the students who completed the course and who ran so well. Even those on crutches, Rowan, stormed around – something about beating Mr Baileys’(still unmatched) Year 8 XC on crutches.

The Year 8 students were stunning role models, assisting and supporting their fellow students, and showing high levels of leadership.

We have a team of 14 runners qualify for the NC Championships on 30th May. Worthy of a mention is Robbie Owens, who like Honor Thorne last year, has represented Fernside at the NC champs for 4 years in a row. Congratulations Robbie.

Year 8 girls 

• 1st Isla Sinclair
• 2nd Pippa Gibson
• 3rd = Natalie Husband / Olivia Cosgrove

Year 8 boys

• 1st Robbie Owens
• 2nd Rhys Tobin
• 3rd Austin McLean

Year 7 Girls

• 1st Kirah Galbraith 
• 2nd Zoe Richardson 
• 3rd Angela Clenshaw

Year 7 boys

• 1st Jack Emery 
• 2nd Jackson Culver 
• 3rd Josh Leslie

Year 6 girls

• 1st Adele Fergusson
• 2nd Miriama Jonathan
• 3rd Kasahn Galbraith

Year 6 boys

• 1st Dukes King 
• 2nd Adrian Foster
•  3rd Shae Johnson

Year 5 girls

• 1st Parker Golding 
• 2nd Sophia Dwan 
• 3rd Georgia Evans

Year 5 boys

• 1st Sonny Mclean 
• 2nd Ollie Henderson 
• 3rd Aidan Ferguson

Year 4 girls

• 1st Milah-Rose Houghton 
• 2nd Izzy Brown 
• 3rd Macie Davies

Year 4 boys

• 1st Jack Bailey 
• 2nd Levi Guest 
• 3rd Fergus Fraser

2023 Cross Country team to attend NC champs (1st 4 placings and those that met the qualifying time)

Year 5 girls / boys (Parker Golding, Sophie Dwan, Sonny Mclean) Year 6 boys / girls ( Adele Ferguson, Miriama Jonathan, Kasahn Galbraith, Dukes King) Year 7 girls / boys (Kirah Galbraith, Zoe Richardson, Jack Emery, Jackson Culver, Joshua Leslie) Year 8 girls / boys ( Isla Sinclair, Robbie Owens, Rhys Tobin)

Congratulations to all of those students who will be representing us at the North Canterbury Champs. 

Friday Sports Interchange

Because the students form the Kōrau Hub are on camp this week in Hanmer, there will be no winter sports interchange this Friday. This will resume again in week 6. 

Rugby Fun Day - Held on Thursday 18th May

On Thursday last week an eager group of Year 5 and 6 students headed off to Burnside Park to participate in a rugby fun day. All of the team had a great day. I have received wonderful feedback from the parents who went along to support them. They played with great spirit and were even willing to join opposition teams to help them out. They were all fantastic role models for our school. 

I would like to acknowledge and thank those parents who helped out on the day and in the lead up to the event with training. Thank you to you all for giving up your time and supporting these students. 

Year 7 and 8 Technology

Some of you may be aware that we send our senior students to Te Matauru Primary to the Maukatere technology centre every Friday for a full day of technology. At the moment our Year 8 students are spending each Friday at the centre. For Term 3 and 4 it will be our Year 7 students who are there all day. Having the full day has been more effective since we opted for that option. 

On Friday a number of the students returned to school with completed projects. The ones I saw were fantastic. Mr Spencer was able to capture some photos from the session on Friday. 

Gymnastics Opportunity

Please contact Annabel if you would like to enter your child into the Canterbury Gymnastics Competitions:

• Artistic entries close 2nd June, Event is on 14 June at CSG

• Rhythmic entries close 12th June, event is on 26 June at Olympia Gym Sports.

Please note that parents will be asked to take any children entering to the event.

Coffee & Cake night with Bruce Kearney for Year 8 parents

Rangiora High School are offering an opportunity for Year 8 parents to meet with Bruce Kearney, RHS Principal. This is an informal meet and greet and offers an opportunity for parents to ask questions that they may have in regards to your child starting at Rangiora High.

This year we are combining the event with Ohoka School. The event is being held on Thursday 15th June from 7 to 8:30 at Ohoka School. Please mark this day in your diary.

The Charles Upham Big Splash 2023

The Charles Upham Big Splash is being held on Friday 23rd June at the RSA Club in Rangiora. The funds raised from this event are being split in two ways between the Rangiora Stroke Club and Rangiora Promotions Association.

This year the organising group have reached out to see if there are any North Canterbury principals who would be interested in being part of this event. I have put my name forward to be one of the principal'sI have set myself the goal of raising $750. 

In the coming weeks I will share information on how you can help me reach my goal. I would greatly appreciate any support I can get to reach my target. This is my first time participating in this event. I am looking forward to being alongside other well known community members including some from our own Fernside community.

Some dates for you 

Tuesday 23rd May - Y0-3 Gymnastics

Tuesday 23rd May - Y7/8 Camp

Tuesday 23rd May - Enviro Leaders Hui - North Loburn School 10-2

Wednesday 24th May - Y7/8 Camp

Wednesday 24th May - Y0 / 1 Structured Literacy Information Afternoon

Thursday 25th May  - Y7/8 Camp

Friday 26th May - Year 7/8 Camp

Friday 26th May  -No Winter Sports Interchange

Tuesday 30th May - Y0-3 Gymnastics

Tuesday 30th May - NC Cross Country

Wednesday 31st May  - Buddy Activity day

Friday June 2nd  - Senior Winter Sports

Tuesday 6th June - Y0-3 Gymnastics

Tuesday 13th June - BoT meeting

Wednesday 14th June  -Junior cross Country (Y0-3) afternoon

Wednesday 14th June - NE Morning tea

Thursday 15th June -Coffee and Cake for Year 8 parents at Ohoka School

Previous Notices

Celebrating success in assembly

Our fortnightly assemblies continue to be a way of celebrating and sharing the many different activities that our students are involved in throughout the term. If your child has success in any event, or has had a great time in an event and you have some photos that you would like to share, please send these to me at principal@fernside.school.nz

Rangiora High School Rugby Club -Fundraising event

On the 27th May, The Rangiora High School Rugby Club are holding a Sports Quiz evening. We have a number of ex-pupils playing for teams within the the high school. We also have a large number of our students heading to the High School each year. This is one of the rugby clubs major fundraisers.

Some tables are still available for this event. If you would like to organise a group to go along you can contact two of our current parents, Tara King or Rachel Foster, who are on the organising committee. Their details are shown below.