It has been a fast and furious term with lots of fun learning going on!

Kia ora Parents / Whānau,

We hope that you are getting through these cold starts to the days over these past few weeks.  Spring can't be too far away.

BOT elections

By now, you will have all the candidate information and the voting papers.  We acknowledge again the people who have decided to stand for the Board of Trustees.  Please read their candidate statements carefully and vote for who you wish to be part of the parent representatives on our school board in the governance of our school.

We are coming up to our last meeting of our current board.  At this time we will be acknowledging all the board members for their valuable time and work that they have given to our school.  These people are as follows:

Tania Morgan Smith - Board Chair

Phil Gourley - Finance

Anthony  Calderone   - Policies and Self Review

Chris Wheeler - Property

Celia Wevers  - Community

Kylie Murcott - Staff rep

Phil Gourley is standing again for the board in this current election.  The remainder of this dedicated hard working team are standing down at this time after years of faithful service to our school.  In the next newsletter we will acknowledge more fully,  their work during their time on the board.

Staff Change

Ashleigh Inch

Ashleigh Inch will be leaving us at the end of this term. Ashleigh has been in a variety of roles at Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka- classroom teacher, reliever and most recently in a teacher release role. We are so grateful for her 6 years of dedication to our students. Ashleigh has worked across a number of teams in her time at Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka.  Her passion for teaching has made a lasting impact on our school community. We'll always remember the exciting projects, sports, and the genuine care she showed each and every child. We wish her all the best in her new endeavours and hope she knows what a difference she's made here at our school.

Reminder Monday 25th August - 12.30pm finish

CHILDREN COMING HOME EARLY

On Monday 25th August we are asking that you collect your child at 12.30pm.  Our staff will be involved in an important NZEI Te Riu Roa teacher union meeting.  These meetings are nationwide to discuss issues around our Primary Teacher Collective Agreement negotiations.

After school care is available at Queenspark Kids from 12:30pm. Please contact Ashleigh on:  ashleigh@qct.org.nz 

Thank you for your anticipated support here to enable our staff to attend.

YR2 100 Day Celebration (24th July)

I love 100 day because I liked dancing at the disco. I also liked when we did Maths, we used blocks to get to 100. For Art I made a crown that had stars on it and the words 100 Days of School.

By Quinn

Tāhuna Sullivan

When we had 100's Day my favourite part was the disc with DJ Harris. I liked the disco lights moving around like stars. I liked the dancing part and I got a bit sweaty.

By Finn

Tāhuna Duncan

On 100s Day I dressed up as the number 8. We did lots of different activities. They were fun and we had a choice of what we wanted to do.

By Sadie

Tāhuna Duncan

FireFighters

Last Friday the Firefighters came to visit us because we have been learning how to stay safe in a fire. The fire fighters taught us to never go back into a fire and to get down, get low and get out fast. We got to see the fire truck. I liked that we got to see all the tools. My favourite tool was probably the axe.

By Milla

Tāhuna Sullivan

The firefighters came to visit the Year 2’s. A firefighter told us some stuff about what to do when there’s a fire at home. After lunch we saw a fire truck drive past our classroom. I liked it when the firefighters showed us the fire truck because we got to see lots of cool equipment. 

By Emily

Tāhuna Duncan

House Assembly

Today we went to House Assembly. We had to do an egg and spoon race on an obstacle course. The hardest part was to keep the egg on top of the spoon. My favourite bit was going under the table. It was a lot of fun.

By Felix

Tāhuna Sullivan

Bandquest:

A huge Congratulations to our amazing Rock Band "Rumble House". Angus, Lucas, Shaun, Esmae and Cooper who all did an outstanding job performing at the James Hay Theatre at the town hall earlier this term. 

Bandquest is to encourage Primary and Intermediate aged musicians onto the stage; learning through experience and developing their performance skills alongside their teamwork, communication, goal-setting and leadership skills.

Rockshop Bandquest is designed for students who are not quite at the point of writing their own songs yet, to give them a chance to get up on stage and get a taste for it. Entrants get to perform in a supportive and encouraging competition format, with a focus on education, inspiration, and entertainment.  The atmosphere was epic with so much excitement and energy from our children.  This is a building block experience for our children!  I can't wait to see where you all go in life!  

Thank you to Mr Willocks who promotes our Shining Lights Programme making this a possibility for these children and our school. Thank you to Joel Coleman our music teacher who spends time weekly with this bunch, crafting and inspiring these musicians.  A massive thank you to the parents and whanau of these children.  You ensure the children arrive early every Thursday by 8am and your support is noted!

A special acknowledgement to Cooper who was awarded the Killer Guitarist!  Such a great achievement. 

Well done to you all, Angus, Lucas, Shaun, Esmae and Cooper!  These guys will be performing at school assembly later in the term.

Winter Tournament results:

On Monday of Week 6 our Winter Tournament sports teams headed to the Eastern Zone Winter Tournament. This was an opportunity to compete against other schools from our local area in Netball, Rugby, Football and Hockey. All of our teams stepped up and gave their personal best and represented our school with pride and passion. A number of our teams did particularly well and will now go through to represent our zone at the Canterbury Winter Tournament.

They are:

Junior Rugby 1st

Senior Netball 1st

Senior Hockey 1st

Junior Hockey 1st

We wish these teams all the best for the upcoming tournament taking place on Thursday 11 September. Thank you to the volunteers and teachers for supporting this opportunity for our students. 

Year 6  Cycle Safety

During weeks 6 and 7, our Year 6 students are taking part in Cycle Safety through Christchurch City Council.  The two day programme focuses on equipping tamariki/children with the knowledge and skills to ride safely on roads and shared paths. This includes understanding road rules, practicing safe riding techniques, and ensuring bikes are roadworthy. 

House Assembly Week 6

On Tuesday of Week 6 the Year 0-6 students took part in the House Assembly. This term it was ‘The Great Queenspark Te Hua Mānuka Egg and Spoon Race’. This was a fun Inter-House competition. This time Rimu came out on top!

Structured Literacy Update: iDeal

A few weeks ago we had our 3 days of professional development with Janis (iDeal consultant) around structured literacy with reading: Decodable texts. These are books or passages that use words that use the phonics skills (letter/sound patterns) that our students are learning. As students learn new phonics skills, the decodable texts gradually increase in complexity, introducing new letter-sound relationships. These skills also tie in to our iDeal spelling approach.

Teachers will be assessing students and will then begin taking students for lessons using decodable texts over the rest of the year. All learning teams will trial this approach during the remainder of the year, however this may start at different times over the next few months.

What this might look like:

• Some students will have decodable lessons, others will continue with their usual texts.

• Your child may not bring home a book or a new book every night.

• If they do bring home a book, it may be a known or easier text that they read to practice their fluency.
  

Key takeaways from the Science of Reading include the following:

 • Reading is not a natural process. Previously, we believed that learning to read was as natural as learning to speak. 

• We now know about the skills that good readers implement and the parts of the brain that are involved in the reading process.

 • Likewise, we know what aspects we should assess and teach to students who are not progressing in reading and spelling.

Parent Evening: We will be hosting a Parent Information Evening with Janis on Wednesday 22nd October at about 7pm (details TBC).

Road Safety:

We have noticed an increase of parents and students crossing the road at the front of the school away from the school crossing. We encourage you to use the crossing with your children, keeping everyone safe.

End of year christmas celebrations /assemblies:

We would love you to be able to attend our final assemblies of the year so we are giving you as much notice as possible. Please add these dates to your diaries now so you can come along and enjoy some festive fun with the children as we wrap up an awesome year.

Nest /Year 1 - Friday 12th December 11.30 - 1pm

Year 2 - Thursday 4th December 9 - 10.30am

Year 3/4 - Thursday 4th December 11 - 12.30pm

Year 5/6 - Tuesday 9th December 1.30 - 3pm

Year 7/8 - Thursday 4th December 6-9pm

Our remaining Teacher Only Days are: 

Friday 24th October

Thursday 13th November

Ngā mihi nui,
Ross Willocks
Principal