Kia ora Whānau,

I was excited to hear recently about the success of some previous QPS students who are now at High School.

Three of our ex QPS students; Kayla O’Callaghan, Eve O’Callaghan & Neve Overend, won 1st place in the Senior competition of the Regional ‘World Scholars Cup’ recently!

The competitions involved Debates, Collaborative essay writing and Quizzes from a vast curriculum they had to study.

These three students also won many other medals and trophies for winning categories! They even beat Pinehurst school in Auckland (Private School) & Burnside High School among many other schools.

It was great to see several other ex QPS students achieving excellent results & medals too including Sophie Simmonds who also came away with some gold and silver medals. Way to go girls. We are very proud of you.

2024 Matariki Celebrations:

Mid Year Disco:

Zone Cross Country:

On Tuesday, May 28th we hosted several schools for the East Zone Cross Country Champs. The top athletes from our zone competed to qualify for the Canterbury Champs next month. It was a stunning day and 13 of our athletes managed to qualify. The support on the sidelines from family, friends and classmates was fantastic to see and showcased the supportive environment we value at Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka.

The following students qualified to race at the Canterbury Champs held at Ngā Puna Wai on June 26th. Over 1000 students from all over Canterbury and The West Coast will participate in this fantastic event held at Ngā Puna Wai.

Yr 5

Indy S

Yr 6

Ani P

Flynn O

Liam W

Yr 7

Heidi T

Alex W

Ben B

Robbie A

Yr 8

Braith P

Liam O

Sophie S

Chloe T

Libby O

Book Week 2024:

Everything you need to know about this year’s book week...

Tokens:

Everytime you participate in a book week activity, you will receive a token. You will write your name and class on the back and post it into the correct box in the library.

This will allow you to enter the DAILY prize draw, where one lucky recipient will win a prize from the prize box.

For each book bingo line you complete and can explain to an adult, you will receive 2 tokens.

When you collect 10 tokens you go into the draw for the BIG prize raffle with thanks to our prize sponsor, Scholastic.

Competitions: (these will be published on Hero the day before)

Whānau can participate in the competitions that will be running during Book Week. Email the picture to enter here: librarian@queenspark.school.nz

Each entry is rewarded with a token per child

Tuesday: Photo Competition - What is the oldest book in your house? Oldest book entered gets 4 tokens!!!

Wednesday: Photo Competition - Where is your favourite place to read? Extra tokens for originality

Thursday: Dress as your favourite book character and participate in the parade at school. Extra tokens for sustainability, originality, and having the book with them. Please note that there is a gold coin donation for the school council if you are dressing up.

Friday: Pick the teacher’s favourite book. Match the book to the teacher.

Quizzes:

There will be daily quiz questions throughout the week and each team will have a quiz that they can complete during the course of the week.

Friday is The Big Book Quiz day! There will be an open book quiz in the Library at lunchtime. Get a team of 4 together and register with Mrs Nichols asap. The Quiz will begin at 12:40 sharp so you will need to have your team there and ready to go!

Big Book Sale/Swap

There will be books available for sale or swap on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. These will be 50c a book or book for book swap. You will find this set up in the library foyer. Please be respectful and show patience as this can be a very busy time.

Other Competitions & Events

There will be a variety of competitions that will be running in the library. Guess the book character jars, colouring and design a bookmark competitions as well as book readings at lunchtime by some of your favourite teachers!

Books to Art

Our Learning teams will participate in a books to art challenge. Each team will have a book about Matariki and their mission is to create a piece of artwork about a specific part of the kahui o Matariki. These artworks are to be displayed in the Library above the Non fiction shelves.

2023 School Environment Awards:

I recently attended the Keep NZ Beautiful Community Awards. Our previous Caretaker Malcolm and Grounds person Celia were invited along with myself to an afternoon of acknowledgement and recognition. Malcolm and Celia received the following awards for our school:

- Community Pride Award

- Caretaker and Grounds 

- Highly Commended Waste Minimisation & Recycling Endorsement Award

- 30yrs of Participartion

Congratulations Malcolm and Celia on receiving these awards. The school is looking great thanks to your hard work during 2023. 

News from the Year 2/3 Team:

Mrs Webster visited the Year 2/3 Team to teach them about amazing bees.

They learned that:

We need bees for pollination - flowers that are fertilised by bees visiting, create fruit, vegetables, nuts, edible seeds etc

Bees are amazing - Each hive is made of thousands of bees working together to build and maintain their community.

Teacher Only Days:

The Ministry of Education require schools to participate in regular professional development for all staff to ensure that we continue to provide the very best in teaching and learning for our children.

This year all schools are encouraged to schedule these Ministry of Education teacher only days on the same days to make it easier on families especially those who have children attending different schools.

As part of our Ministry allocated Teacher Only Days the staff at Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka will be exploring the Ministry's new teacher website Tahurangi. We will also be spending some time delving into the new 1 hour a day policy and the pedagogy and teaching practice that underpins this approach. This will help all our staff implement the Refreshed Curriculum and expectations from the Government this year and into 2025.

Thank you for your support in allowing our teachers to take part in these days.

Our remaining Teacher Only Days this year are: Friday 25th October and Monday 18th November. Please add these dates to your diaries.

Term 2 House Assembly:

Our Nest+1 - Year 6 students had lots of fun at House Assembly. This Terms event was 'The GREAT Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka Egg and Spoon Race. It was wonderful to see the students supporting their Houses and classmates. 

As always there was plenty of cheering and chanting. Thank you to the House Leaders for stepping up and supporting our students as the represented their Houses. 

Upcoming PTA Events:

Friday 7th June – Full school Sausage Sizzle on Junior Athletics Day

Orders are open for all students and parents. Please order on Kindo or pay $2 cash to your child’s teacher, orders close Wednesday 5th June. Coffee will be available to purchase out on the back field during the races.

Friday 14th June – Spellathon Day

Each child can sign up for their very own fundraising web page to send out to collect online sponsorship from anyone, anywhere!

• Just go to our Fundraising Hub page at: https://queensparkschoolspellathon.raiseit.co.nz/

• Click on the SETUP A FUNDRAISING PAGE button.

We have a great range of fundraising prizes available including spot prizes and overall fundraising prizes for classes/individuals. Your child has been provided with words to learn by their teacher and they may require help learning these words. If you have access to the Internet then try www.spellingcity.com or www.spellingtraining.com as a fun way for children to learn their spelling words. On the Spellathon Day children will be tested individually by either their big buddies in junior classes or parent helpers in senior classes. They will be able to write down or spell out their words.

Friday 21st June – School Disco
This mid-year disco is organised by our Student Council with the support of the PTA. This year the theme is neon.

Junior Disco - Years NEST,1,2,3,4,5 - 6:00pm-7:00pm
Senior Disco – Years 5,6,7 – 7:15pm – 8:30pm
(Year 5 can choose to attend either the Junior or Senior but not both) Entry is $2 cash paid at the entrance.

We know this is a busy couple of weeks, but the children are looking forward to these upcoming activities. Fundraising makes a huge difference in enhancing the overall school environment and the educational outcomes of our children. All funds raised will go towards classroom resources, student-based activities, the playgrounds, and the new sensory garden.

We appreciate your support and if you are available to help then please message us on queensparkschoolpta@gmail.com

For your diaries - what's coming up at school:

Monday 3rd June - King's Birthday - school closed for instruction

Tuesday 4th-Friday 7th - Book Week

Wednesday 5th - National Young Leaders Day (seniors)

Friday 7th - YR1,2,3 Cross Country 11.45am - 12.30pm (also full school sausage sizzle)

Tuesday 11th - Board Meeting

Friday 14th - PTA Spellathon

Wednesday 19th - Canterbury Gymnastics Competition

Wednesday 19th - YR2/3 Animal Dress Up Day

Friday 21st - Mid Year Disco

Wednesday 26th - Canterbury Cross Country

Wednesday 26th - Optional Learning Conferences (school ends normal time 3pm)

Thursday 27th - Matariki Celebration (1-3pm) meet in the school hall 

Friday 28th - Matariki Day - school closed for instruction

Tuesday 2nd July - Optional Learning Conferences (school ends early at 1.45pm)

Friday 5th - Term 2 ends.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

Ross Willocks

Principal

Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka