Kia ora whānau.What an exciting week at school! Having Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori and Words Around the World in the same week has made the week literally full of words! Words in many languages and in many forms. These past few days I have been in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) at the NZ Principals’ Conference so unfortunately have missed many of the great activities this week. I have heard about many of them though, and hope that your children have come home each day and shared their new words and learning with you.

We will be holding a ballot for out of zone students in October this year, for entry to school in 2022. This ballot includes out of zone siblings of students already attending Milford School. The final day to get a ballot application into school is Wednesday 28 September. The ballot will be drawn by our Police Education Officer on Wednesday 19 October.

The Yummy sticker promotion is set to go again for 2022, time to get crunching and collecting stickers. Last year threw us all some curved balls, but this year we are excited to be celebrating our 25th anniversary of running this promotion for schools. Everything is basically the same as previous years, sticker charts are the same and available on our website. One thing you may find, is some Hailstone Hero apple bags. We had a wild spring storm hit us in Hawkes Bay, damaging a significant amount of our apple crop with hail. Although these look funny, they still taste yummy. The official cut-out is not on these bags, but you can collect the round bar-code sticker as 10 points. These are Yummy apples but branded Hailstone Heroes and available in both New World and Pak’n Saves.

We will be holding a parent/teacher/student meetings on Wednesday, 28 September. Bookings are to be made through Skool Loop. We are looking forward to meeting with you to have a conversation about how your child has been progressing this term and what their next steps are.

Catalogues were sent home this week, BUT if you didn’t get one don’t despair - please check with your classroom teacher or the office to get your copy. Orders need to be placed by Wednesday 21 September.

This week, our tamariki have enjoyed participating in Words Around The World week, which celebrates all things literacy, as well as the power that stories have in bringing people together.

This week Year 3 enjoyed a visit from the author, Anne Kayes. During the visit, Anne read part of her second text, Tui Street Heroes. Read the excerpt below, followed by what Room 21 thought might happen next. I wonder which one is the closest to what really happens?

Helping your child prepare for their transition into primary school can be a daunting task. Our Community of Learning, Te Kāhui Ako o Pupuke, is hosting a Transition to School event for parents or caregivers of 5 year old children starting school in 2023. Come and join your local primary school and explore school readiness, enrollment procedures, curriculum links and then meet with individual schools. Thursday 27th October, 7pm at Westlake Girls Event Centre.

Kia ora koutou, Please read the information in this form carefully before registering your child to play in Term 4.

An exciting opportunity awaits! - Learn how to be an instructor for Waterwise! Children at Milford School take part in the New Zealand Waterwise Programme when they are in Year 5 & 6. We require parent instructors for every session. This course would be for all current Year 5/6 parents or any Year 4 parents wanting to train before next year.

FOMS have organised two exciting Halloween disco's next term. A Year 0-4 disco in the Milford School hall on Friday 28th October from 5-6.30pm and a Roller Disco for Year 4-6 at ActivZone in Glenfield on Sunday 30th October 3.30-5.30pm - please save the date.

This week we continued with the Learner Profile Attribute of being Reflective. Being reflective means thinking about our learning, our actions and our behaviour, what we have done well, and what we could have done better. We are so pleased to say that many of the students in Year 0 and 1 are becoming increasingly reflective. Congratulations to these Reflective learners: Millie and Ida (Room 13), Maia and Aon (Room 14), George and William (Room 15), Evie and Luca (Room 16), Emmy and Aylar (Room 17) and Luca and Lewis (Room 18).

Look at these book characters working in the garden! We sowed seeds, weeded and watered the plants. In the end, we each harvested a carrot or a radish to take home!

The year 5 & 6 classes learned about the density of different liquids this week and made their very own lava lamps! We were surprised to find out the oil is less dense (or lighter) than water, which is why the water separated to the bottom of the jar. The water-based food colouring that we added stayed in little droplets throughout the oil, until eventually diffusing into the water below. The final step was to add an effervescent tablet, which created gas bubbles when it dissolved, pushing the water with food colouring back into the oil in the form of little blobs.

This week, Mrs Hewitt and I were lucky enough to have a visit from some very colourful characters, alias Hanna, Misha, Mariam, Toby, Austin, Ollie, Ian, Elliott, Jordan, Lexi, Anton, Laura and Aylar. They had come to share their fantastic learning in structured literacy, and have been learning to make words that have -ck at the end.

To celebrate our Literacy "Words Around the World Week", the Year 0/1's had various teachers read their favourite book to them and then do a follow up activity. This was done during our Learning through play session on Monday. The students could choose which book they wanted to hear and which activity they wanted to do.

Jason, Helly, Arya, Justin, Alex and Zachary are super learners. They listen carefully, follow instructions and learn lots of new words when they go to ESOL classes. They have learned about compound nouns on Wednesday and learnt new general vocabulary words on Thursday. They all know that knowing more words is important for their Unit of Inquiry - HOW WE EXPRESS OURSELVES! Their spoken language is greatly improving every week.

What a fabulous day we had yesterday! We celebrated Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori and Literacy week in our ESOL class. Our year 3 students have learnt new Te Reo words that link to their Unit of Inquiry - SHARING THE PLANET. They listened to the story, repeated what they had heard, and then wrote the English translation for eight pages in the booklet.

On Wednesday last week, a group of our year 5/6 girls competed at the Girls Fun Football Festival at Bayswater Park. This was a great opportunity for girls to get involved in football and build some confidence while having fun on the field. Both of our teams did amazingly and displayed some excellent football skills, including teamwork and sportsmanship. It was fantastic to see the improvement the teams showed from the beginning to the end of the day. Kei te pai girls, you all made Milford School very proud!'

On the 14th September 2022 the year 6 and year 3 and 4 teams played in the Bayswater Football tournament in Bayswater. Our team was very successful and won all of our group matches. In the Semi Final we faced Takapuna and won 3-1. We then were up against Belmont. We held on for most of the match but conceded a goal near the end of the match. In the final minutes we were very close and we had two shots hit the post and another on the crossbar and lost the match 1-0.

Our year 2's are very proud of their efforts, creating a wonderful native garden area outside the Hive. Have a look next time you are walking past.

Make your own high quality craft beer at home? Love BBQ meat? If you would like to take part in a Milford School Beer and BBQ Meat Night in Mid October, please contact Jarren on jarrensk@gmail.com, who is seeking to find out if any other parents make beer at home and would like to offer their beer for a parents tasting night, with fundraising to go towards the School.

Shelley Bryce is once again running her Tennis Holiday programme from the Milford Tennis Club on Dodson Avenue these coming school holidays.

Milford School have a vibrant and busy music department. We provide not only classroom music lessons but the opportunity for children to belong to many groups. To celebrate this, we are having an evening 'Music Extravaganza Concert' to showcase and share the student's talents.

The North Shore Junior Winds and North Shore Youth Symphonic Winds will be performing an exciting concert aimed at children on Saturday 5 November in the Milford School Hall from 2pm.

School Holiday Program and after school classes.

Need a safe and fun holiday programme for the kids over the school holidays? Our before and after school care team, SKIDS, are running their holiday programme filled with fun activities and trips.

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