At Ashgrove, we are continuing to work in collaborative ways within all teams across the school. This looks different in every team but we are all working hard to get the best achievement out of every child. This is always evolving and changing as it is reviewed often, new things are tried as we visit other schools and reflect on our practice.

Ashgrove Teams

All teams have had a successful year working on so many amazing things. The children in our school have been exposed to many different learning opportunities throughout the year.

We have all attended swimming lessons, been involved in swimming sports and athletics days both for our school and at Rakahuri and Canterbury Champs. Some students have been part of the Just Brass programme that was run by the Salvation Army. We have participated in winter sports competitions, cricket carnivals, Jump Jam Competitions, the Kapahaka festival and more.

The Pihinga Team visited Ballarat Rest Home this term and shared their lovely voices by singing some Christmas carols to their residents. This visit from the students is always much anticipated and well received by the residents and staff at Ballarat. The students represented the school so well, and we are proud of our team of youngsters for being such Ashgrove Stars.

Tipu team have continued the success of Play-Based Learning and have seen many benefits to this. Students are engaged in high-interest activities, that run alongside their core curriculum lessons. They are learning some key thinking and social skills along the way, in rich and authentic contexts. Tipu teachers are looking forward to continuing this approach in 2020, and developing their practice further.

Mahuri and Tūrepo have worked extremely hard through the highly engaging Primary Enterprise Programme. Students have finished off their term with the PrEP market days, where students were able to celebrate sharing and selling the products they have worked for so many weeks to create. Our community was invited along to this and we thank those who were able to attend.

The Tūrepo team have also spent a day learning to sail at Pegasus Lake. This was very enjoyable and those students who attended learnt the basics of sailing around a lake. Next week to finish off the year Tūrepo students are going to Adrenalin Forest and a mountain biking track to experience a day of high energy and fun.

Term 4 Celebrations

• Last week our school hosted the PTA Santa’s Grotto. Our hall was transformed into a Christmas wonderland. The community, both local and from far away, came to experience this amazing place, created by our talented PTA committee. This was a very successful undertaking that was the result of exceptionally hard word, put in by our PTA members. We thank all those families who were involved and thank the whole community for coming along to support the school, getting into the Christmas spirit and enjoying the Grotto.

• The Santa’s Grotto opening night was marked by the Annual Ashgrove Gala which was held at school on Friday November 29th. This was a wonderful afternoon and evening of stalls, entertainment, events and much more. Many students chose to run their own stalls alongside seasoned stall-holders. It was a wonderful, community event and again we thank the tireless efforts of the Ashgrove PTA committee for all their hard work in making it so successful.
  
  

• Finally, we wish our Year 8 leaving students well as they move on from Ashgrove Primary School and enter the new adventure that is high school. They will be missed, but we look forward to seeing our current Year 7 students develop into successful leaders in 2020.

We are now all looking forward to a much-needed break after a busy year before coming back to 2020 refreshed and ready to tackle another school year.