Kia ora whānau. As a Principal, there are many moments of pride in our students but especially when they step up and show initiative and leadership for the good of others. As you know, we are working towards building a new Year 3 and 4 playground and I asked a group of students to help design it. These students were given the playground equipment catalogues and worked together to decide what they thought would be best for the age level. Last Friday, two of this group, Ryder and Rylee, met with the playground specialist, Melissa, and shared these ideas. Melissa was really impressed that they talked about key aspects she hadn’t told them about yet such as Balance & body control, Overhead strength, Scaling, climbing and sideways movement, and Safety (BOSS). The next step will see a 3D CAD design coming back to us for the group to check it is what they envisage. We will also show all the Year 3 and 4 classes for their input before it is finally decided. If all goes to plan, it will be ready for use in November!

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.

Being the evidence-based practitioners that teachers are we are always keeping up to date with what is best for the ākonga (young people) we have in our care.

Year 5 have been busy making preserves at Garden to Table. A selection of preserves will be for sale after assembly next week (Week 5) If you wish to purchase some of these delights, please bring cash to school when collecting your children on Friday 26th August. Thanks, Year 5 students and teachers.

In Year 0/1 we have been learning about the Learner Profile Attribute of being a Communicator. Being a communicator means that we can share our ideas and express our feelings with others, and do so in many different ways. It also means that we listen to others share their thoughts and ideas. This week the certificate recipients are: Maddi (Room 18), Arya and Zaya (Room 13), Benjamin and Harper (Room 14), Millie and Miller (Room 15), Luan and Deborah (Room 16), and Emily and Jorday (Room 17). Congratulations to all these wonderful learners.

This week in Room 13 we were talking about the feeling, anger, as part of our Unit of Inquiry, How We Express Ourselves. We discussed how it is okay to feel angry, but we can deal with this feeling in different ways. Our learners were treated to a puppet show by Lenny the Lion and Tara the Tiger (Logan and Chloe from Room 8, our buddy class). One scene in the show had Tara accidentally running into Lenny. Lenny got angry and called Tara an unkind name and the situation deteriorated from there. In the next scene Tara again crashed into Lenny, but Lenny communicated with “I” statements about his feelings. Tara was much more apologetic, and the situation was soon resolved.

I welcomed four students from Year 1 this week who shared their learning around feelings and how we express them as part of their PYP Unit of Inquiry and The Resilience Project. It is essential for students to learn about feelings, to identify how they feel physically when they are in the grips of strong emotion, and what to do to de-escalate (if needed). Our younger students (and some older) often lack the vocabulary to name more nuanced emotions and often stick to "good" or "happy" or "sad" when they may be feeling excited, nervous, overwhelmed, tearful, irate, annoyed, or frustrated, etc. When a child can correctly label an emotion, they are many times more likely to be able to act appropriately in dealing with that feeling, especially with negative emotions. Instead of hitting out, a child may then be able to turn to learned strategies to handle their feelings, which empowers them further in their growth journey. It also helps children to develop empathy and understanding and tolerance - all dispositions that help them get on in life.

In Term Two, the string extension chamber group visited Milford Kindergarten and performed several pieces for them. They then were treated to a lovely morning tea and a play with the tamariki. It was very rewarding for the string ensemble and all the kindergarten students.

Tino pai to these ākonga (young people) who freely gave up their lunchtime to pick up rubbish!

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.

M Sports are coming back to hold fun Football Kidz clinics at the school with our new inflatable pitch. Girls and boys from years 0-6 are welcome to participate.

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.