Kia ora whānau. With today being the last day of Term 1, we wish all our families a very happy Easter and a lovely school holiday. School closes at the usual time of 3pm today and we reopen on Monday 2 May. I know the staff are looking forward to a well-deserved break as it has been a very busy, and long, term. It has been awesome, though, to have an uninterrupted term with no lockdowns disrupting the flow of learning.

Kia Ora Parents. I know that there are some overdue library books from last year that may have “disappeared” during the long lockdown. Please do not be overly concerned if your child has misplaced this 2021 book at this stage. These records have been left on their library account at this time so that if they are found, it can be easily placed back into the system. If you know for certain that the book(s) are lost, I will be quite happy to issue a replacement invoice to you by the end of the term.

Wear PINK for anti-bullying and bring a gold coin donation to help the work being done all over New Zealand to get rid of bullying!

Senior Kapa Haka for Year 4 - 6 tamariki will resume next term at 11.45 - 12.30pm on Fridays. If your child is interested in joining our rōpu (group), please complete the form below so that I can have a list of relevant information, particularly in case we have any performances off-site.

On Monday, the Year 1 learners had a fun Wheels Day. These tamariki could bring their bikes, scooters, skateboards and even rollerskates. It was great to see them wear their helmets for protection, begin to show awareness of others around them, and practice their balancing skills. What a great afternoon we had riding around the track on the court and on the field.

The tamariki in Room 17 have been reading the big book "Walking through the jungle". We looked at all the different ways we could move through the jungle and created our own jungle stories.

Across the school, children have been learning their pēpeha. This is a formal introduction in te reo Māori which tells the audience important landmarks for them or their ancestors, where their ancestors are from, where they are from, as well as introducing their own family. For Māori, it also tells the audience of their tribe, respected elders of their tribe, and their marae. This is a great way for people to make connections with each other.

Connecting to our Who We Are and Where We Are In Place And Time units, the students worked together to create a shared piece of collaborative art.

This term a group of Year 3&4 students have been working together for an hour every Friday afternoon to create their own stop motion animations. Over the term we experimented with using the iPads to create green screen and stop motion movies, finishing the term with our own cartoon animations. We hope you enjoy them!

Well done to all teams on a successful Term 1! A big shout out to all parents/caregivers who helped with coaching and managing our teams. We are so appreciative of you all! It is awesome to see our students back into regular sports. Please enjoy some photos from our Year 6 Marlins team who demonstrated amazing sportsmanship and team effort!

To conclude our STEM learning this term, the Year 1-4 students created an Easter inspired science experiment - ‘fizzing Easter chicks’. Students decorated plastic Easter eggs to look like chicks and added yellow coloured vinegar and baking soda to make them fizz! We learnt about chemical reactions and also explored how much sugar is hiding in the foods we eat!

Year 5 students have made weird clay shoes in extension art with Mme Bradbeer this term. They created some amazingly imaginative designs and modelled the clay with great care and attention to detail.

Miss McKeen will be running a series of STEM focussed workshops during the school holidays. For details and registration information, please see below.

Our music specialist, Eugenie Middleton, is offering after school xylophone lessons on a Thursday afternoon.

There are a range of courses available for children over the school holidays.

Guitar Lessons are available at Milford school, with Dave Gatman from Musiqhub. If you would like to enrol your child to start Guitar Lessons or if you require any further information, please contact Dave on 021 2221456 or dave.gatman@musiqhub.co.nz.

Fun Languages, along with sKids, will be running after school Spanish classes on Wednesday afternoons in Term 2.

Holy Moly Arts and Craft, along with sKids, will be running after school art sessions on Monday afternoons in Term 2.

Looking for a fun football holiday programme? Northern Rovers Football Club are running sessions over both weeks of the April school holidays.

Please note that the following advertisements are from external sources / businesses and are intended to be informative for the reader. This does not imply that they are endorsed by Milford School.