Kia ora whānau. Welcome back to Term 2! It has been great to see all the students back at school and to especially welcome our new students and staff. The photo above is from our French/Art room. We are so lucky to have a French teacher who is also an art specialist, and the students really love working with her. The school has recently purchased a kiln and some students are busily making works of clay that soon will be ready to be fired. Very exciting!

We will be having our next 2nd Hand Uniform Sale next Saturday, 14 May from 10.00-11.00am outside the junior block, opposite the Courts.

2022 marks the 26th year of National Family Reading Month which celebrates and encourages families to read more together.

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 Tuesday 17 May.

This week the Year 0/1 team welcomed all our new Room 13 learners. We also welcomed Mr Aitken as their kaiako. We wish them all a successful learning journey at Milford School.

Just a reminder: By now you should have received your child's online ordering photo access key via email from Photolife. Orders need to be placed by midnight on Sunday 22 May 2022 to get free delivery to school. Any orders made after this date will include postage costs to your home address.

Pink shirt day is on Friday 20 May! Wear pink for anti-bullying and stand up for yourself and others!

We are excited for the return of Milford School TV this term.

Our first Learner Profile attribute for Term 2 is being an Inquirer. This means that we are curious and enjoy new learning. We ask questions and try to find out new things. This week the recipients are: Ted and Ava (Room 13), Benjamin and Maia (Room 14), Carter and Minna (Room 15), Devin and Mikaela (Room 16), Elliot and Rosalind (Room 17). Congratulations to all these wonderful learners.

Monday 2 May was the beginning of a new term for most of our learners. But for our just turned five-year-olds in RM 13 it was the beginning of a new era: primary school!

In Year 2, our Unit of Inquiry is focusing on 'how innovation impacts the way we play'. The Room 12 children have been fascinated by looking at pictures, toys and games from the past. Violette brought in her grandmother’s porcelain doll, Evan brought a Boy’s Annual book which belongs to his grandfather and Leo showed us a Care Bear which belongs to his mother. We are very excited to be visiting the Howick Historical Museum next week.

It was wonderful hearing about the children's holidays and all the activities children were able to do, from reading quietly at home, or having play dates with friends, to day trips or holidays to exciting places. One of our class members, Marco, has moved to Greece for the next few months, so it was exciting receiving an email from him with photos of him and his family's time in Greece.

We are seeking experienced skiers to join the Milford School ski team. The Milford School ski team competes annually in late August / early September at the North Island Primary School (NIPS) Champs at Mt. Ruapehu (except for the last two years due to COVID).

Our lovely room 17 ESOL students have started unpacking the tricky vocabulary of their new Unit of Inquiry - SHARING THE PLANET. They have watched a video and learned so many new words, such as pollution, deforestation, oxygen, recycling, chemicals etc. I am very proud of them. Well done!

Registration for Rippa Rugby is now open. Please see the link below to register.

The 2022 netball season started this week with the Year 4, 5 and 6 teams playing on Monday and on Wednesday. The teams all played extremely well and displayed excellent sportsmanship and teamwork. Thank you to all the coaches and the managers for looking after all our teams this season. We wish all the teams (Year 1 through to Year 6), good luck for the season ahead.

Welcome to Term 2! We started Gardening Club this week by celebrating the commitments shown by our keen gardeners' last term. Three Year 2 students came to every gardening session last term: Evie, Ava and Cavallo, and were rewarded with a toolbelt each.

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.

In this nine week after school program we will be exploring science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics through a range of exciting and engaging contexts. All materials will be provided.

We do hope you are able to join us from 9am - 2pm on this coming Saturday May 7th for our Public Open Day. The public part of the day will be very family friendly with all our studios open, class demos, live performances, VR, games and activities, facepainting, the Harcourts ice-cream van on site, flax weaving workshops, carving and kapahaka, a kids creative room, pop up exhibitions, a members art market and much much more!

See below regarding a few parent workshops that may be of interest.

In an ever-changing and fast-paced, technology-addicted world, it can be difficult to guesstimate what skills our children need in order to prepare them for an uncertain future.

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

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