We have had a fantastic start to the term. It is great to see everyone back, awesome to see the enthusiasm for learning in the Hubs.

Welcome

New Families

We have welcomed several new families to our St Francis whānau this term. We hope you have all had a great first week and that you already feel part of our whānau.

On Friday 14 August at 9:15 we will be celebrating the Feast of the Assumption and after this celebration we will officially welcome all our new families. We would usually have had a welcome assembly in each term but this year has been a little different, to say the least, so we will be welcoming all new families that have started with us in 2020. Mark the date in your diaries!

New Teachers

Welcome also to Marielle Brown - our new kaiako teaching in the Kākano Hub until the end of the year. We really hope you enjoy your time here at our wonderful kura.

Writing

This term we are starting to introduce a new writing programme for in Year 3-8. It has been exciting to see the excitement and enthusiasm for the The Write Stuff programme this week. 

Our tamariki are learning to use a shade-o-meter to gather vocabulary for their writing and it has been great to see them collaborating on word choices in their writing. See the example below.

In Paiaka the students are working on a sporting biography learning about the vocabulary and language choices that are appropriate for a non-fiction piece of writing. 

In Tumu the students are working on a sentence stacking programme for three weeks. This means they are using short videos for motivation and after modelling from the teacher, they work on short chunks of writing, practising using language features to enhance their writing.

In Kaupeka our students will be working on non-fiction - persuasive style of writing. Before they start this they are working on two weeks of narrative.

All our students are learning about the Fantastics, the Grammaristics and the Boomtastics. 

The Fantastics are the ideas of writing - the acronym stands for nine ideas that students can use to help them think about what to write about. The Grammaristics are all about the grammar of writing and the Boomtastics? well I am sure you can guess this. These are the techniques that can make your writing soar!

Ask your child what they have been learning about this week - I know you will be surprised to hear about prepositional phrases, complex sentences with relative clauses and the like.

We will keep you posted with links to some of the writing next week!

Parking

Parish Car Park

We are once again asking that you please do not park in the car park in front of the church. We know you might have been thinking that now that the church is closed that you are able to park there however it is really not safe. 

From next week if you do park there you will not be able to leave that park until after 3.20pm. This is to ensure safety of all of our students. The entrance is just too busy to have cars backing out of parks with children walking out to the road patrol.

Yellow Lines

Just a reminder that the yellow lines by the crossing are there for a reason. When you park on them and wait for your children you obscure the vision for the children on road patrol. It is not safe. Please come earlier and park a little further away and walk in.

3 Minute Parking

If you are parked in the 3 minute zone you must stay with your car. You cannot park here and run into school to get your children. 

It would be good if you could pass this message on to others that may be picking your children up.

Let's make it really safe for our tamariki. After all isn't that the most important thing?