A Note from Marion Santos

Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

As educators, we know that the best learning happens through experience, so we as teachers, set out to create an experience that would spark the children’s interest and keenness for our new topic – New Zealand Birds. We decided to create an opportunity for the children to dress up and to role-play enthusiastic, bird watchers.

A challenge arose, however, when considering how we would keep eighty plus children quiet long enough to actually sight some birds. Like all brilliant teachers, we resorted to Twinkl, not that the birds we found there could compete with the reality of the Lord’s perfect creations, but we found an array of New Zealand birds that would suffice. Early, on the first Tuesday morning of term we trudged through soggy fields and climbed slippery, wet jungle gyms to hide over sixty laminated paper birds.

When the children arrived at school, they were beyond excited to see some of the birds waiting for them. The children all looked very smart in their camouflaged clothing. Some even had cameras and binoculars. When the bell rang, and the roll had been taken the children buddied up and charged around tallying as many birds as they could spot. All sorts of knowledge swopping and negotiation took place as they struggled to identify and find the different birds, they problem solved and collaborated with great excitement. In no time at all they became experts at differentiating between all the different New Zealand birds.

Finally, the day ended, and the birds were taken down, but the children certainly remembered their bird hunting experience. They went home with the knowledge that we would be learning so many more things about these small, but very precious creatures that our Lord created for us to enjoy. God’s creation is undoubtedly unique and purposeful.

We will be writing reports, creating giant birds from cardboard, making up riddles, researching the different New Zealand birds, presenting our knowledge as our understanding grows; and through it all we will be learning scriptures that proclaim our Lord to be the creator of it all.

A special thank you to: The Year 4 Team of teachers for their contribution towards our planning and learning; Pricilla Goh for laminating over sixty different birds; and the creative parents for helping their children to dress up as the trendiest bird hunters ever!

Marion Santos
Head of Learning Area: Year 3

Junior Campus Notices

Activity Costs

Activity Costs are now due for Primary School students. If you haven’t yet paid your child’s activity costs, please attend to this as soon as possible or if you wish to set up payment instalments please contact Paula Southworth: paula.southworth@kingsway.school.nz at the Junior Campus office.

It is essential that all Year 5 and Year 6 students activity costs are paid by the end of this week. This will ensure they are registered in the school swimming lessons which start on Monday, 14 September.

Primary Parent Teacher Conferences

KingsWay Primary will be holding online Parent Teacher Conferences on Thursday 24 September. School will close at 2pm for the Primary Students only. Please make sure all children are collected by 2.15pm. If your child travels home on a school bus they will be supervised at school and put on the shuttle bus at the usual time of 3pm.

Login details and information will be sent to Parents on Monday 14 September and bookings will become live from 3.30pm. Bookings will close at 9am on Thursday 24 September.

Fun Day

As we are not able to run a combined Middle/Primary School Cross Country event at Shakespeare Park, as we had hoped, we have decided to organise a primary FUN DAY on Friday September 18th, instead!

Details:

ALL of the primary students will enjoy a ‘cross country’ run in and around the school grounds, after which they get some fun on the jumping castles!

Starting time: 9:45am onwards, with different cohorts running throughout the day.

Races will end by lunchtime and will be followed by a sausage sizzle lunch for those who would like it. Students can dress in their House colour.

Thank you to all of those who have supported the FUN RUN Fundraiser! We are getting so much closer to being able to purchase the first covered slide for the Junior Campus!!

To further support our PTA’s fundraising efforts, we will provide a $5 Fundraiser Sausage Sizzle Lunch on the day. Students will bring home order forms on Monday. Please make sure to send the order back to the classroom teacher by Thursday 17th Sept!

With our expectation of still being at Level 2, unfortunately, parents will not be able to join us on site. We will, however, make sure the day is well documented and that photos are posted on the KingsWay Facebook page throughout the morning.

Fun Run Fundraiser

The latest disruption due to COVID has had an impact on our usual Cross Country event. However, there will still be events run at both the Primary and Middle Schools to align with our School Fun Run fundraiser.

The “money in by” end date is now Wednesday 23 September. That is the date when all online sponsorship and/or cash collected needs to be in. Please do not send in any cash until then.

We are tracking well with our fundraising, however, there are quite a number of students (over 50%) who have not yet set up an online fundraising page. Please consider signing your child up if you haven’t already done so. Even if every student signed up and raised just $10 each (the minimum required to win a prize), it would boost our total significantly. Alone we cannot do much but together we can achieve great things.

Sign up here: CLICK HERE

Any further questions, please email Raelene.Beguely@kingsway.school.nz

Swimming lessons - Year 5 & Year 6

KingsWay Primary Year 5 & 6 swimming lessons start on Monday 14 September. If this involves your child, please ensure they come to school on Monday with all their swimming gear.

Parents of Prayer

We welcome all parents who would like to join our friendly Parent Prayer group to pray for our Primary School on Tuesdays at 9am in the Junior Campus meeting room.

Health Centre Notice

Parents/caregivers are reminded to please keep their children home if they are not well. This is a Ministry of Education requirement. Parents/caregivers, whose children come to school with a heavy cold, sore throat or flu-like illness, will be contacted and asked to take their child home.

Please practise and reinforce the following at home with your children:

• Frequent handwashing with soap and water and drying hands well or using hand sanitiser.
• Coughing or sneezing into a tissue and disposing of the tissue in a bin.
• Coughing into the elbow.
• Washing hands after coughing, sneezing and blowing the nose.

Nut Allergy Policy

There is a total ban on Peanuts or products containing peanuts in school. If you are bringing food to school to share with your child’s class, please contact your child’s teacher 48 hours ahead of time to let them know. The teacher will then inform you if there are food allergies to be aware of and will also alert the parents of the students with severe allergies to inform them that there will be shared food.

Children are strongly encouraged to NEVER share food and always wash their hands before and after eating.

Primary School Assembly - Term 3

• No Primary School Assemblies are being held at present.

Maori Language Week

Celebrating Annual Maori Language Week: 14 – 20 September: Te Reo Māori is the language of New Zealand’s Tangata Whenua and a defining feature of our country. It is an important element of what makes New Zealand distinctive. During Maori Language Week all New Zealanders are encouraged to give Te Reo a go. Greet your whānau (family) with a cheerful ‘Kia ora’ (hello) or ‘Mōrena!’ (good morning), order a kawhe (coffee) and listen to waiata (songs).

Some Maori words to learn:

Kia ora – Hi (general informal greeting)
Haere mai - Welcome! Enter!
Mōrena - Good morning!
Mana - Authority, power; secondary meaning: reputation, influence
Manaakitanga - Respect for hosts or kindness to guests, to entertain, to look after
Tūrangawaewae - A place to stand, a place to belong to, a seat or location of identity
Haere rā – Goodbye

Whakapono tumanako te aroha – Faith, hope, love

http://media.newzealand.com/en/events/maori-language-week-and-new-zealands-renewed-love/

Touch Rugby – Year 0-10

Touch rugby registrations are now open for next term. Please check out the website for more details.

Year 1- 6 - CLICK HERE
Year 7-10 - CLICK HERE

Any questions, please email Raelene.Beguely@kingsway.school.nz

Tuck Shop

A friendly reminder to parents who order lunches for Primary children through the school tuck shop. Please add your child’s teacher code (eg 1NHE, 2MBA NOT seahorse, turtles etc) to your orders. This helps to reduce the time taken in sorting lunch orders. See teacher code below:

1AHE - Mrs Anna Hetrick
1MVO - Mrs Monya Vorster
1AHA - Mrs Amanda Haley
1LLI - Ms Lisa Lin
1NHE - Mrs Nicky Heyns
1JSM - Mrs Jaydene Smit
1/2SCH - Mrs Sung Chun
2MBA - Mrs Marian Bailie
2MVA - Mrs van der Watt
2KMC - Mrs Kerry McNair
3MSA - Mrs Marion Santos
3DVA - Mrs Donne van den Berg
3JFE - Miss Janel Ferguson
4HIR - Mrs Hannah Irons
4ANG - Mrs Alice Ng
4KPR - Miss Karen Pretorius
5VSE - Mrs Valerie Severin
5JCH - Mrs Jayne Charles
5AHI - Miss Angela Hillman
5NBU - Mrs Nikki Buys
6CMC - Mrs Cristal McKoy
6KKR - Mrs Katherine Kruger
6TTS - Ms Tina Tsui

Deejays have notified us that they are working on improving their online ordering system.

Extra Activities

SKIDS After School Programme

Growing Awesome Kiwi Kids through interactive and engaging activities based on themes kids love!

021 77 33 01,  kingsway@skids.co.nz, sKids Facebook

Suzuki Violin Tuition

Gabrielle McClean, an experienced Suzuki Violin Teacher, will be teaching at the Junior Campus after school hours on Friday afternoons. She has spaces for new students. If you are interested, please contact her on 021 150 3621 for a free trial lesson.

R&B Music Tuition at the Junior Campus

Please see the pdf attached below.

Chess

Playing chess develops self-confidence, concentration and problem-solving skills.

We are really pleased to start a Chess Coaching Programme at our school and look forward to bringing the excitement, competition and educational benefits of chess to our children.

Why Chess?

• Improve concentration and focus
• Develop important life skills – fair play and decision making
• Tactical & Strategic thinking
• Prepare for Chess Tournaments against other schools
• Develop a love of chess, of learning and of thinking

What happens in a Chess Power Coaching Programme?

Each session starts with a formal lesson; all players will learn a new strategy, idea or skill each week. Then they put those skills into practice with activities and games. All games are monitored and supervised by the coach who provides individual feedback along the way.

Throughout the programme, we reward kids that do well and encourage and support kids that are struggling. At completion of the programme we recognise each child with a certificate based on their performance.

Visit our website, www.chesspower.co.nz and click Parents Centre

This 8 week chess coaching program will run on Thursdays from 15 October 2020 till 10 December 2020 from 3:10 - 4:10 pm. The fee will be $125/student for the term. The sessions will be held in Staffroom. If the program is successful a new full 10-week program will be made available for Term 1. If your child would like to be part of this, please visit our website. Both registration and payment can be done online.

Kelly Sports

Please click on the pdf attached below.

Hear Say

Please click on the pdf attached below.

Thinking Caps In-School Maths

For more information, please visit www.thinkingcaps.co.nz

Please click on the pdf attached below.

KUMON

Kumon Term 3 – free trial

Please click on the pdf attached below.

Realisticus Art Academy

Please click on the pdf attached below.