Project Inquiry Museum Trips

Children from across the school had some informative visits to the Timaru museum this week. These visits gave the children some practical hands-on learning about life for Maori people in early New Zealand. There were plenty of ‘wonder’ questions being asked of the museum educators as they told the children about the intriguing Maori myths about the star constellations, their names and their jobs. The children found out what Matariki celebrations would be like in these early days (almost 800 years ago) and found out about the foods that would have been eaten at the feasts.

Also the children found out about Maori summer settlements in the Washdyke area of Timaru and how resourceful and sustaining these people were as they used all the resources they had to the maximum. 

It was a bit of a shock though to many of the children to find out that the Maori would eat their dogs and use the skins for clothing and bones to make tools. Several children were also surprised to find out that children in these long ago days would wear little or no clothes in the summer. 

Lots of learning happened and once again the teachers were proud of the children’s behaviour and engagement.

A big thank you to all the mums and dads who came along to share in this visit and take groups of children around.

Epro8 Competition

Recently four of our senior children - Riley, Maisy, Annabel and Ashley - qualified to go through to the finals of the Canterbury area Epro8 competition held at Bluestone School. This is a technology problem solving competition. In order to qualify the children had to make a famous world landmark (the Hard Rock Guitar Hotel) and problem solve how to make it look like New Years Eve celebrations with fireworks. Once completed the children videoed their creation and entered their design for judging. Their creation awarded them a place in the finals.

On the day of the competition the children had to choose between four technology challenges to problem solve. Our team chose to design a security system for a famous painting. They created a painting and put a safe around it. This safe specifically had to have an opening door with an alarm system connected. As part of this challenge they also had to devise a laser field so that if the lasers were disturbed by a robber the alarm would go off.

The team found the tasks a real challenge to get their heads around and thoroughly enjoyed being part of it. The end result was our children came 4th out of the 8 groups that competed. They were pleased with this place and felt they had tried their very best.

Learning Journeys

Thank you so much for the very high uptake on booking to come along to Learning Journeys with your child and their teacher next Tuesday. You will receive your child’s progress report this Friday to get a picture of their achievement levels. This Learning Journeys meeting is primarily for your child to share their learning with you and talk about next goals they are striving towards. If you have any questions related to progress or achievement there may be an opportunity to briefly discuss this at the meeting, but for a fuller conversation with just the teacher it’s suggested you arrange another time to catch up that’s mutually convenient.

Any Concerns

As you know we have a complaints process for our school and we really appreciate the way you follow this. We feel that using this process you will be able to get clarification quickly from the person most able to give you the information you require. Please see the diagram at the bottom of this article.

Afternoon Tea

We are looking forward to seeing lots of the very special women in our children’s lives at our afternoon tea on Wednesday next week. Come along from 2pm onwards, collect your child from their class, and get ready for some sweet treats! 

Noro ora mai - All the best

Tre

If you have any concerns or complaints please click on the link below for the correct procedure to follow:

https://hail.to/winchester-rural-school/article/h5FFK78