Welcome to term 3! 

We have a lot going on in the first 5 weeks, so here are some of the important events and learning...

Masks for year 4-8

A reminder to read the Woodend School article below concerning masks this term...

https://hail.to/woodend-school/article/kAGG9qX

The Moon and Beyond

Our big idea this term is exploring the moon and beyond!

We have approached this using the Science Area of the Curriculum looking at it through mathematics, S.T.E.M, and history angle with each teacher specialising in an area. All students will have 5 lessons with each teacher. We look forward to sharing what we learn through our learning posts and a grand video to finish the term with. 

Banqer

We are excited to be using an app called Banqer this term to help with financial literacy this term. It is a free programme generously provided by Kiwibank. We may be sending some optional activities to discuss with your child during the term. Each student will have a login for banqer and will get to explore how money, saving, and an economy works. Stay tuned for how we go with this exciting new programme.

Hero

Thanks for all your feedback from your child's learning posts. We will be sharing more with you in the coming term around our wider curriculum.

We are also using hero for digital permission slips and sending note to specific groups within Te Ngahere for example, jump jam students, choir students, sports reps or year 5s, or year 6s exclusively. This targeted messaging makes it easier for us to communicate important information to specific groups and also helps you avoid information you might not need.

For this reason, could you please make sure you are logged into hero and checking notifications. When we send a message via hero, you will also get an email sent to your email that you signed up to hero with. 

Please let m.crawford@woodend.school.nz know if you are having access issues. 

Cycle Sense

In week 5 and 6 we will are lucky to have the popular Cycle Sense group coming for the year 6 students. More info will come out about this in the coming weeks. 

Epro8 Technology Day

In week 3, on the Monday, we will be having a S.T.E.M challenge at school for all of Te Ngahere to participate in, with Te Maunga doing a similar challenge the next day. Stay tuned for photos from the event. 

Intelligent Behaviour Certificates

Congratulations to Seth, Kasie, Isabella, Jake, Carly, Emily, & Lachlan who received Intelligent Behaviour certificates in week 10. 

NZ Dance Challenge

Thank you to all students who participated. We finalised and entered our video submission this week and will be able to share the full video via the NZ Dance Challenge youtube channel soon.

NZ Histories

We've really enjoyed teaching NZ Histories through the year. We wrapped up our unit on the journey across the pacific by Polynesian explorers. We had our students use what information was available to chart a hypothetical path across the pacific using stop motion. Here are a couple of entries below. Mr Crawford will endeavour to make all videos shared by the students available at a later time. 

The new NZ histories curriculum arrived prior to our planning sessions in the holidays and we enjoyed using the new resource to continue with a technology and resources focus this term. Mr Crawford and Mr Manzl have some practical activities lined up to teach our students some resourcefulness skills.

Parent Conferences

More info will be coming out school wide about this very soon.

Mr Manzl

A reminder that Mr Manzl will begin with us this term. An experienced teacher, he is strong in his Literacy and Mathematics, and has a strong interest in Visual Arts. Of note, he will be delivering a wider curriculum technical drawing unit that ties in with our measurement strand focus this term. 

Time 

We really enjoyed helping our students practice reading analogue clocks this term. In a digital age when not everyone has analogue clocks, we urge you to help them retain this knowledge by the students reading analogue clocks when they see them. 

Student Success

Congratulations to Te Ngahere's Pearl Groufsky who had great success with her placements at her June Dance Competition

She finished,

2nd place for her lyrical solo.
4th place for her jazz.

Clothing

We have a lot of clothing that we pick up throughout the school during the day, mainly polar fleeces and hats. We have a number of unnamed polar fleeces in our space. We will endeavour to find out whose they are, but in the meantime, could you please check and make sure your child's clothing is named.

He waka eke noa

Mike, Caitlin, and Matt