Principal's note of the week
Ross Willocks - September 7, 2023
8 September 2023
Week 8 Term 3
Dear Parents /Caregivers,
Greetings, Kia Ora, Tālofa lava, Mālō e lelei, Kia Orāna, Mauri,
Hoping that you are enjoying this bright and sunny spring weather. The warm spring days are making all the difference at school and it is great to see the children engaged in positive learning activities outside the classroom and in the playground.
Zone Winter Tournament:
Congratulations to everyone who participated in Winter Tournament this term. Results are as follows:
Senior netball 1st
Senior football 1st
Senior Hockey 1st
Junior hockey 1st
Junior rugby 2nd
Junior football 2nd
Junior netball 3rd
This is a FANTASTIC result as we were playing against 6 other schools in our zone.
Senior and junior Netball, junior and senior hockey, senior football all made it through to Canterbury’s!
YR5/6 Netball Team:
We had a great day winning 4 games, drawing 2 and losing 1. The girls got 3rd place out of 8 teams, which means we qualified for the Canterbury Winter Tournament in September. All of the girls had a great attitude throughout the day and worked well together! We can't wait for the Canterbury Winter Tournament next week 
End of year Camps:
Year 7/8 to Wainui
Camp 1: Monday 30th October - Wednesday 1st November
Camp 2: Monday 6th - Wednesday 8th November
Year 6 to Woodend
Monday 4th - Wednesday 6th December
The camp costs have now been loaded onto student accounts. Please call or email the school office or the class teacher asap if your child is not going to be attending camp with the reason. This helps a lot with our planning and costings.
What’s coming up:
Monday 11th September - YR4/5/6 Swimming begins
Monday 11th September - Tāhuna Mulholland Bottle Lake Forest Trip
Tuesday 12th September - Tāhuna Elliott Bottle Lake Forest Trip
Tuesday 12th September - School Photos
Thursday 14th September - Canterbury Winter Tournament
Thursday 14th September - Tāhuna Sullivan Bottle Lake Forest Trip
Friday 15th September - Tāhuna Bostock Bottle Lake Forest Trip
Friday 15th September - YR/8 Eastern Zone Kio Rahi Tournament
Tuesday 19th September - House Assembly
Tuesday 19-21 September - YR/8 Koru Games
Wednesday 20th September - Kūkūwai Duncan Bottle Lake Forest Trip
Friday 22nd September - Last Day of Term 3
Daffodil Day:
Every year Queenspark School steps up and gets involved in raising money for Daffodil Day.
Thank you to everyone for supporting us by purchasing daffodils and other merchandise to raise money for the Cancer Society.
A big thank you to Sophie and Niyati who took on this initiative themselves and for giving up their time each morning to raise money for this worthy cause. Mahi nui girls!
The winner of “Guess the number of Jellybeans in the Jar” was Oliver who guessed the closest amount of 827 (actual was 813)! Congratulations Oliver.. don't eat them all at once!!
Thank you to Tiffany from the Cancer Society who came to this weeks assembly to receive the money that was raised. Tiffany was very grateful for the amount raised by our school.
Cantamaths:
Congratulations to our Year 7 and Year 8 Cantamath teams who competed at Wolfbrook Arena. Both teams put in a fantastic effort and represented QPS with pride.
There was some fierce competition yet the QPS children were resolute and it was a great experience to compete. Ka pai!
Strike, Strum, Blow 2023:
Congratulations to our Marimba team who took part in the annual Strike Strum Blow event at the Addington Stadium this week.
The children joined with many children from other schools throughout Canterbury and shared in a night of joyous musical creativity and performance and this was hugely enjoyed by all the Mums and Dads who were at last night's performance.
Our students did us proud in the way they represented our school. Special thanks to Mana Rae for her week to week work with this group, to Anne Schute for her passion for the Yukulele, all the work done by our itinerant music teachers and to Karen Brown for the way she coordinates our Shining Lights Arts programme.
LEAP Term 3
Congratulations to the children who stepped up last night and shared their growing arts expertise at LEAP. It takes a lot of courage to do this in front of an audience. Thank you to the parents who came along to support yesterday.
Teacher Only Day:
At our recent Teacher Only Day our focus was on the new draft Curriculum " refresh " document - Te Mātaiaho. Kylie O'Keefe from the MOE curriculum team came and led part of this day and took us through the foundation ideas upon which Te Mātaiaho is built on. Tony Mabin our DP led the rest of the day which was focused on reviewing our own curriculum, future planning and sharing some of the key documents that are foundations of the Curriculum Refresh. One of these documents is the Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities. (NELPS) which replace the National Education Guideleines (NEGs) and the National Administration Guidelines (NAGs).
The Ministry of Education is two years into a six year programme to refresh the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) - both the overall framework and the eight existing learning areas. Te Mātaiaho means “to observe and examine the strands of learning.”
The eight Learning areas being refreshed are as follows:
Science
Technology
The arts
Health and physical education
Learning languages
As part of the NZ Curricuum Refresh, schools have been allocated several Teacher Only Days (TODs) for 2024 and 2025. The teacher only days are for embedding the important aspects of the refreshed curriculum into teaching staff and schools nationally.
You can find out more about the refreshing of our national curriculum for schools through the following Ministry of Education link: Refreshing our national curriculum for schools.
Maori Language Week - next week
Te Wiki o te Reo Māori happens from 11-17 Hepetema (September) 2023. The theme is Kia Kaha Te Reo Māori – making the language stronger.
Māori Language Week is a special week to celebrate and promote te reo Māori in classrooms and home.
School Uniform:
As you know The Warehouse Belfast store has now closed.
Our school uniform is now set up in the Northlands Mall Warehouse Store for you to purchase and the replenishments for this will begin next week for sizes that are missing.
This is area in the store a temporary home at present until the racks arrive for its final set up on the clothing corner opposite where it is now.
As you walk into the store, turn left and walk down to the end of the walkway & you will see some racks set up in walkway, and the rest are in 2 aisles against that back wall. If unsure, please ask a staff member for directions.
A reminder that you can still purchase from Mainland Uniforms also. It may pay to call these stores beforehand to check that stock is available, to save you a trip if they do not have what you need. You can place an order over the phone with customer service if needed.
As we are going through an exciting school rebranding phase next year we are watching our uniform stock closely as there will be some changes. If the sizes you require are not available, please contact the service desk to place an order.
Have a great weekend
Go the AB's at the World Cup
Ngā mihi
Ross Willocks
Principal
Queenspark School - Te Hua Mānuka
