Congratulations to the soccer team that represented our school today with pride and excellence!

Mālō e lelei! Tongan Language Week | Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e Lea Faka-Tonga is being held from this Sunday until Saturday 7th September. Did you know there are more Tongan people born in New Zealand than there are in Tonga, giving lea faka-Tonga (the Tonga language) and anga faka-Tonga (Tonga culture) a special place here?

Tiritiri Matangi Trip

Our trip to Tiritiri Matangi Island is now only two weeks away and the excitement is building! 

Please carefully read the notice we sent home at the beginning of this term, particularly the gear list and the timetable for the day. It's really important that children are at school by 7:40am so that the bus can leave by 8:00am to meet the ferry. We expect the buses back at school by 5:20pm, but we will provide an update through the school app if there are any delays. 

Last week, we sent out our parent helper lists. Due to the requirements and constraints of this trip, we are only able to cater for these parent helpers. Thank you to everyone that offered to help out.

Rehu Tai Festival of Oral Language

This term, our literacy programme has a focus on oral language. A component of this programme is our annual Senior School Rehu Tai Festival of Oral Language. This festival has four categories from which the children select: Spoken Word, Rap, 10x10 Flash Talk or a Prepared Speech. Teachers are supporting children to complete an oral presentation based on the specific criteria for that category.

Children will be presenting in their Studio with finalists chosen to compete in our Senior School Competition being held on Monday 16th September. One finalist from each category will be selected to represent our school at the Inner City Cluster Final at Pt Chevalier School during Week 2, Term 4. 

Please ask your child what category they have chosen and encourage them to practise their presentation at home so they feel confident in front of their peers later this term.

Illustrator Visit | Donovan Bixley

Report by Sunny

Donovan Bixley, an illustrator, recently came in as part of the Storylines National Festival Story Tour. A small group of lucky Senior Students from each studio got to take part in a wonderful opportunity to hear him speak!

Donovan was born in Perth, Australia, but he moved to New Zealand to grow up in Taupo. When he was little most of his drawings were of skeletons and dinosaurs, but as he got older he started to take full advantage of his drawing skills. At the age of 7, Donovan’s mum started reading him The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These two books were the things that inspired him to keep writing and illustrating. Soon after that, he started to make his own comics of his friends and teachers. At High School Donovan started to study Graphic Arts. Afterwards, he was accepted into the AUT School of Arts and Design in Auckland. When he was finished, he decided it was time to get a real job as an author and illustrator. Donovan has now published over 100 books and won heaps of awards.

He talked about how he became an author and illustrator and his past in writing. It was very interesting to hear about the life of an author and illustrator. The book he mostly talked about was Flying Furballs, his action-packed adventure book series.

Donovan also announced a competition for the next issue of his Fly Furballs books. Students were able to draw a character for the book and the winner of this competition gets their character featured in the story. This is a great opportunity for students to get creative with their drawings, and possibly see their character in a published book!

What's happening in Studio 6?

Thanks so much to everyone who came to check out our Studio this week. It was great to have you in to share with your children some of their prouder learning moments.

In Maths, we have been using the class video game Tetris to explore multiple mathematical concepts. Who would have thought such a simple game included symmetry, tessellation, transformations, patterns, and other interesting mathematical ideas? We’ve explored this through art as well. It's a good reminder for our students that mathematics is all around us.

We’re moving towards our oral language presentations at the present moment. As an introduction to this, students explored writing personal essays about their own set of beliefs. It’s not always easy writing about heartfelt things, but some of our students really challenged themselves by selecting juicy topics. 

Check out some of our recently published writing. We created a poetic multimedia presentation based off a poem we read. Follow the link to see it in action - Somewhere in the World

What's happening in Studio 7?

We are halfway through the term now! In Studio 7 we have spent a couple of weeks doing some biology research in order to prepare for our upcoming trip to Tiritiri Matangi. Students are developing a wide understanding of ecology and the life processes of animals and plants. We hope to build upon this when we visit the island.

In Week 7, students will be presenting their oral language learning to the studio. Everyone is very involved in preparing and writing for these.

In the Senior School, we have revisited some team building and cooperative learning games in Physical Education this term and it was amazing to see students perform in these activities with great enthusiasm and teamwork. Students have developed some good collaborative skills and they are feeling confident and comfortable enough to put these into practice.

What's happening in Studio 8?

This term is flying by! It was great seeing you all over the last couple of days at Whānau Forum, and it was clear that the children enjoyed sharing their learning with you all.

During Concept, we have been learning about living, non-living, and things that were never alive. This included learning about the acronym MRS GREN to show our scientific understanding. We have also been looking at cells and their various functions in the body.

During Maths, we have been looking at proportions and ratios and our problem-solving sessions have been focused around this also.

Literacy Circles are up and running during Reading! It’s been great to see the discussions and perspectives the children have brought to their novel studies. The Studio has also been very busy during Writing time as students begin brainstorming and researching their ideas for their oral language presentations.

Ngā mihi,
Ella, Melissa, Peter, Sarah, Stuart, Terry and Jason