Kia Ora. It is hard to believe that we are half-way through our school year! Things continue to chug along well in our Year 9 cohort with students working hard to achieve pleasing results across their subjects.

One challenge I have been pleased to see students tackling is learning to write using essay structures, especially students using the Write That Essay paragraph and sentence structure. These skills will prepare them well for their future NCEA assessments.

Students continue to use their blogs as places to share and reflect on their learning. As a teacher, I enjoy not only flicking through and seeing the collection of work they present, but also the thoughtful comments they are receiving from their peers. If you have the opportunity, I would recommend taking a few minutes to scroll through your student's work and posting a comment to let them know you have seen it. We love comments that are positive, thoughtful, and helpful. It is clear that blogging is a useful tool to help our students improve their writing skills and that access to their own chromebook is essential to enabling them to use this tool. 

I would like to take this time to remind families that we can assist at the school in the purchase of a Chromebook through the Uru Mānuka Trust. Finance options are available. It is certainly a worthwhile investment. If this is something you would like more information on please see the office. In addition to this, the school has 20 loan chromebooks that can be issued for the day from the student reception. These are usually gone by 8.15am!

This term the soft materials class has been working on using sustainable resources. This has included making paper for cards and coffee scented candles. Most recently they have been given the challenge to design and create something useful from recycled materials. I was lucky enough to join this class on their adventure to ‘Creative Junk’ where they collected up materials. I can’t wait to see what they make from milk bottle tops, coloured mesh, plastic tubes and old curtains.