Kia ora koutou katoa. Our school have teams in the EPRO8 competition which is an engineering and problem-solving competition, and every year over 10,000 students from 800 schools from throughout New Zealand take part. Teams compete to: build large sized structures, solve practical problems, engineer using pulleys, motors, gears, wheels and axles, construct electronic circuits and solve practical maths problems. We have just heard that our two teams have come 1st and 3rd= in our area competition and both teams go through to the semi-finals. Congratulations to Boston, Alex, Oscar, Kees, Dustin, Chloe, Harry and Beth!

I would like to say a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS on behalf of Milford School to our two year 6 EPro8 teams who entered the regional competition at the end of Term 3. EPro8 is an engineering and science inter-school challenge which tests students on their collaboration and problem-solving skills through a series of building activities.

Congratulations to Joshua Blayney who was the winner of the Year 6 speech competition last term with his speech on bullying. He represented Milford School at the North Shore Speech Cluster Competition at St Joseph's last week. Congratulations Joseph, we are very proud of the way you represented Milford School.

Congratulations to Lachie, who has written an amazing legend as part of his Unit of Inquiry with the theme of Where We Are in Place and Time. The central idea of this unit was to inquire into the history and geography of a place, connecting the past to the present. Lachie wrote an amazing legend which was connected to our local environment, and especially Lake Pupuke. His story was about a mean Taniwha, with huge scales and spikes as sharp as knives! Luckily, Lachie had a special chemical that saved the day and resulted in many exciting adventures for him and his friend the Taniwha! Lachie, your writing was amazing, and the descriptions really built a picture in my mind of you and your Taniwha kneeboarding across Lake Pupuke! You are a fantastic Inquirer, Risk-Taker and Communicator!

Each parent should have received an order form with their child's unique code on it so they can order online. Anyone who doesn't have their child's code needs to contact me (email) and I can give it to them. Orders are accepted from Monday 12 October to Monday 26 October at 10am.

The Graduation Social Committee is holding a Jesters Pie Day to help fundraise for the year 6 Graduation social.

What a great turn out for our Park and Walk event this week! Thank you to all the children, parents and teachers who joined us!

On Tuesday 20th October, Milford School took part in the Bayswater Festival of Football at Allen Hill Stadium, Devonport. This year there was a positive change to the format, requiring each team to have three girls in the team. The skill level shown by both the boys and the girls was superb.

Year Three students' Unit of Inquiry "Sharing the Planet" has been celebrated in their ESOL class. They have been reading a very inspirational text called On Thin Ice - about sharing the planet with, almost extinct, polar bears. They have learnt many new words and can use facts to describe what polar bears look like, what they eat and how climate change is affecting them. They are caring and they know what we can do to make our planet a better place for all.

On Friday 11th December, the whole school will be celebrating Christmas with an evening concert. This is a concert where the whole school dresses in red, white and green and sing Christmas songs to you from the deck. Parents, please bring a picnic blanket, a picnic, and sit on the field and enjoy the singing! Families arrive at 5pm, and children will sing from 5.30pm for about half an hour. It is always a wonderful community event, so please mark it in your diaries!!

As part of our Garden to Table programme in Year 5 the students will be holding a seedling sale fundraising stall again this year! You can buy lettuce, rocket, carrot, tomato, radish and strawberry plants to take home and continue growing and then enjoy eating in the summer holidays. Simply bring some gold coins with you to school on Friday 6th November. The stall will be outside the hall after the Year 1 assembly.

FOMS - Friends of Milford School (formerly the PTA) are meeting next week Thursday at 7pm in the Staffroom. All parents are welcome to come along. FOMS is not just about fundraising for school projects, but also about hosting fun events to bring the whole school community together. Come along next Thursday, the more the merrier!

Make your own Christmas Candle after school all this week and until 24 December at Milford Shopping Centre. We are at the Kids Space, next to Whitcoulls. This time, with the help of candle makers from Flame In Vintage, we are making candles using oyster shells. Or you can bring in your own shell and create a wonderful candle to keep, or perhaps as a teachers/grandparents Christmas gift!

Once again we are offering pool keys to our school families, for use of the school pool over the summer. These keys are available at the same price as last year - $150 plus a refundable bond of $30 (once the key is returned ($180 altogether). However, this year there are few things to note:

Did you know, you can now buy fantastic Munch Products through your KINDO account?

See attached enrolment information for Skids before and after school programme, including their weekly activity plan for Term 4.

Catalogues were sent home this week, BUT if you didn’t get one don’t despair please check with your classroom teacher. This is a bumper issue filled with lots of Christmas goodies. Did you know, you can tick the Gift option when ordering and have your order kept at the office for you to collect, if you would like to buy somethings as Christmas gifts.

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.