Wānaka Primary School Newsletter for Term 2 Week 4

Newsletter Term 2 Week 4

21st May 2024

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

IMPORTANT DATES

Term 2
Week 4
Thursday 23rd May - Upper Clutha Rippa Rugby
Thursday 23rd May - Wild Feelings Performance
Friday 24th May - Pod 2 Assembly - 2.15pm - Hall
Week 5
Thursday 30th May - NZ Playhouse Performance of 'The Reluctant Dragon'
Friday 31st May - MOE Teacher Only Day - SCHOOL CLOSED
Week 6
Monday 3rd June - Kings Birthday - SCHOOL CLOSED
Wednesday 5th June - World Environment Day Working Bee
Thursday 6th June - COPSSA Rippa Rugby Tournament in Queenstown
Week 7
Monday 10th June - PTA Meeting - 3.30pm
Thursday 13th June - WPS Cross Country
Friday 14th June - Tribe Bake Sale
Week 8 - Book Week
Monday 17th June - Board of Trustees Meeting - 5pm - Staffroom
Thursday 20th June - Book Week Dress Up Day
Friday 21st June - Haka Tū Haka Ora Competition Y6 Kapa Haka group
Friday 21st June - Pod 1 Assembly - 2.15pm - Hall
Week 9
Tuesday 25th June - Parent Deep Dive - as part of our mid year reporting process
Thursday 27th June - Upper Clutha Cross Country
Thursday 27th June - Students reports available on Edge Portal
Friday 28th June - Matariki Day - SCHOOL CLOSED
Week 10
Monday 1st July - Parent Teacher Conferences 3.15pm - 5.00pm
Tuesday 2nd July - Parent Teacher Conferences 3.15pm - 5.00pm
Tuesday 2nd July - Mata-au Kapa Haka Festival
Thursday 4th July - COPSSA Cross Country
Friday 5th July - Red Nose Day
Friday 5th July - Last day of term 2
Term 3
Monday 22nd July - First day of term 3

IMPORTANT NOTICES

School Photo Orders

To place a school photo order and receive FREE shipping (with our school bulk order) please visit the Heritage Productions website www.heritageproductions.co.nz and click 'order photos'. Please enter our school's access code WANPS24 (located on the front of your paper order form).

Heritage Productions website contains all the information on pack sizes and pricing. Please select the pack/s you would like to order on their website and when prompted enter your child's name, room number and their ID number, located on the front of your paper order form (DSCF...).

Payments online are via credit card or debit card.

The closing date for orders is Sunday 2nd June 2024.

You will receive an order confirmation by email.

Lost Property

Please collect from the school office.

Snow Day Procedure

If snow occurs overnight, a decision regarding school closure, or a delayed start, will be made in the morning – we will notify you by the following methods:
Radio Wanaka – 92.2FM

Our school website – home page
Bulk email
Our School App

If the school closes during the day due to snow, we will notify you via the methods above – please refrain from phoning the office. Buses will not run. Children can be collected and signed out from their classrooms where they will remain under the supervision of a teacher. If you are personally unable to collect your child, then other arrangements should be made for collection.

If a parent wishes to have someone that is recorded as an emergency contact collect their child, the pick up person should go to the classroom, provide identification (if not known to the teacher) and sign the child out.

Now is a good time to consider your emergency contacts – and ensure that the office has recorded the details of at least two people, living locally, who you trust to collect your child if the school closes due to snow.

Wānaka Primary School Tech Sale

BOARD BUZZ

Board Update

Last night at our School Board of Trustees meeting, Wendy 'Our Awesome Principal', formally provided a letter informing us of her intent to retire at the end of the year. She has done so early in the term, so the Board can now get underway in the process involved in appointing a new principal to take up the position in 2025. The process will take a couple of terms. Appointing a principal is one of the most important decisions a Board can make.

Wendy has been a true educational leader in the Central Otago region, as well as nationally, and along with her strong team of teachers has built an amazing school which we all know as Wānaka Primary. Wendy truly cares for every child that enters the gate each morning and strives to provide the best place for all of our children to grow and become great people! I’ve been fortunate to work with Wendy in good and challenging times over the past few years and Wendy’s unwavering commitment to young people’s education is quite awe-inspiring. (We do actually have the best Principal – I’m biased of course).

All I can say on behalf of the Board of Trustees is a heartfelt thank you to Wendy, who has assisted countless children and teachers to be the best they can be - what an amazing legacy! Wendy will be welcoming people into the school grounds until the end of the school year so there is plenty of time for goodbyes and hugs.

It’s been an honour working with you Wendy.

Curriculum Report

Student Achievement - Progress and Achievement Reports
At last night's Board meeting Jason presented the PAT (Progress and Achievement Test) results for mathematics, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and reading vocabulary.

PATs are multiple-choice tests designed to help schools determine achievement levels of Year 4-10 students in mathematics, reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, and listening comprehension. The test results help teachers decide what kinds of teaching materials are needed and which methods or programmes are most suitable for their students. PATs are also important because they identify the progress a student is making from year to year. School wide, the results can be used to identify trends and achievement patterns and to make school wide comparisons to national norms. Each test enables a student’s achievement to be compared against national norms. They also enable schools to compare student performance across cohort groups.

PAT tests are administered to our Year 4-6 students in term 1 of every year with the year 3s just completing the listening comprehension test. PATs are nationally normed tests that compare individual student results, and thus each year cohort to other students' achievement across NZ.

The national norm for achieving at or above the average stanine is 77%. It is evident by looking at these test results across the last six years that our high standards are consistently maintained, with 2024 results showing that overall 92% of our Year 4-6 students performed at or above in reading comprehension, 89% in mathematics, 93% in reading vocabulary, and 90% in listening comprehension.

You are welcome at any time to talk to teachers about how your child performed in these tests. Any children who were identified as performing in the lower stanines are recorded and we double check to ensure these children are getting the extra support they require.

The leadership team have just completed moderation of the end of 2023 writing task from Year 3 to Year 6 and we will report on these findings in next week's newsletter.

CURRICULUM COMMENT

Fun Run

Well done to our students and organising staff for another successful Fun Run. Thanks so much too, to all of you, the parents, grandparents and neighbours who supported this event by sponsoring your children. We now have an excellent lump sum of $8,000 which we will add to, by applying for grants to carry out specific projects in our Garden to Table, Enviro and Makerspaces projects. Well done everyone.

Performances

The Be Bright Eat Right magician show last week was well received by our students and the message about healthy eating reinforced.

This week on Thursday 23rd we have the Wild Feelings performance. There will be two shows; one at 9.15am and one at 11.15am.

POD 2 ASSEMBLY is scheduled for this Friday 24th at 2.15pm and they have worked hard with their practices this week, so will be well prepared to share their learning. They take it very seriously and love performing for their parents. I see them walk past my office with big smiles and lots of enthusiasm. I am looking forward to it, so I hope you get a chance to come along and see what Pod 2 has been learning over the last term and a half.

SCHOOL IS CLOSED FOR INSTRUCTION ON FRIDAY 31ST MAY AS IT IS A MINISTRY OF EDUCATION ALLOCATED TEACHER ONLY DAY. King's birthday is on the Monday following this so you get to have a 4 day weekend. SCHOOL IS CLOSED ON MONDAY 3RD JUNE FOR KINGS BIRTHDAY WEEKEND.

WPS Parent Survey is Being Launched Today

Every year, as part of our ongoing review processes, we engage in a survey involving the parents, students and staff around school practices. Last year 2023 we did one designed to find out parent/teacher perceptions about the school, with questions designed to gain information for our strategic planning 2024-2025. This year we will complete the Inclusive Practices Survey (IPT), which will inform parent/student/and teacher perception around our learners with differences particularly our neurodiverse and our ESOL students. The last time we did this particular survey was 2020.

In 2018 we did the Wellbeing at School survey and have followed this up annually with surveys from our PB4L team around student wellbeing, and we are likely to go back to this one next year.
In 2019 we did a strategic planning survey in readiness for the 2020-2023 strategic plan.
In 2021 we did the TSP survey (teacher and leadership practices)
In 2022 we did the After Covid survey designed to get feedback on the school's performance over Covid and how parents/students coped with home learning etc. We got some valuable insights.

NZCER (New Zealand Council of Educational Research) suggest that each of their surveys are done 3-4 years apart and cumulative analysis done to see growth or otherwise, and to set different priorities for the upcoming year or so. By comparing our 2020 IPT data with our 2024 results, especially after the growth in the number of ESOL students, we should get some pretty rich information we can use to inform next steps for our inclusive school practices. The PB4L team will do another student survey later in the year around aspects of student wellbeing etc. at school.

The 2024 IPT survey will be active today, Tuesday 21st May. We will send the invitation to participate in this by email with full instructions. Please could you complete the survey within the next 3 weeks. We would like a good response so we get reliable data.

School Uniform

A reminder that all children should be coming to school in appropriate school uniform. With the change to winter, as usual our tough kids often choose to come to school with their summer polo shirt on and without a sweatshirt, merino or jacket. Please make sure they have something warm, and navy, to wear outdoors now the temperatures have dropped. Even if it is tucked in their school bag and not worn to school (if that is a battle for you as a parent in the morning). We still do P.E. and activities out of doors in winter and short sleeves just do not suffice. I often have a chuckle as a child will have their polo shirt with no extra layer, but wear a beanie!! It is all about the look. Also a reminder that we do not want to see hot pink sweatshirts or camouflage hunting jackets creeping into our school uniform. Polar fleeces and anything worn inside should be navy. With their outdoor winter jacket it is up to you as we do not have a winter jacket included in our uniform and like our sun hats if they were all navy, the cloakbay becomes confusing when looking for their own jacket. If shorts are worn through winter we do not expect to see long underwear poking out please.

SCHOOL NOTICES

2024 Wānaka Primary Snow Sports - Term 3

The snow sports programme for 2024 is live via the newsletter. All information about this programme, including links to enrol, is on our school website at the link below. Please look carefully at the dates for booking, and information about the programme. Any queries to Jasonc@wanaka.school.nz

2024 Snow Sports LINK

Clued Up Kids

Last week our Year 6 children were lucky enough to spend time with the Clued Up Kids Facilitators at the Wānaka Recreation Centre. The children were split into groups and spent a quick 10 minutes with each group. Many thanks to Civil Defence, Wānaka Police, Public Health, Coastguard, Red Cross, Sport Otago, St Johns and Kahu Youth for sharing and delivering such a powerful programme. The facilitators were amazed by the knowledge, behaviour, and inquiring minds of our Y6 cohort - go us! Our children knew what to do in emergencies and many families had emergency plans and resources in place when an event may happen.

Tribe Afternoon

Fun was had last Friday for our kindness-themed tribe afternoon. The school looked fabulous with the addition of pink to our tribe colours! Children enjoyed a variety of activities from compliment tag to learning about Oat the Goat and from kindness crafting to making apple crumble and decorating biscuits for Community Networks :)

Te Kākano

Over the past 2 weeks our Year 1 children have spent a morning at Te Kākano, finding out all about the wonderful work they do to help our environment. Here is some information about their volunteer planting days:

From Te Kākano...

How can you get your family involved with Te Kākano?
Planting Sessions - every second Saturday from May to October, new sessions at Diamond Lake Sat 25th May 1.00pm-3.00pm. Our planting sessions take place in spring, autumn and winter, with maintenance sessions throughout the year to help look after the plants and habitat restoration areas. These sessions are a great opportunity to see first-hand where the plants that are grown in our nursery go. We supply tools and gardening gloves at our planting sessions, as well as morning tea. All welcome, there are plenty of roles for young and old.

Please check our Facebook page to find out more about the next planting session. Alternatively, feel free to contact us to register your interest.

Nursery Sessions - every Tuesday and Wednesday from 1.00pm-4.-00pm in autumn/winter and 9.00am-12.00pm in spring/summer. Our nursery sessions run throughout the year, bringing together a community of volunteers passionate about making a difference in habitat restoration around the Upper Clutha region. Nursery volunteer days are open to all members of the public. These volunteer sessions teach propagation/cultivation techniques, leading on to planting and nurturing of the young plants on project sites and are guided by our Nursery Manager. No specific skills or experience are needed, simply drop in and join us.
Nursery location directions

Aquavan Community Event

It was lovely to see so many children and their whānau visiting the Aquavan after school on Tuesday. The facilitators were so informative and everyone enjoyed learning more about our coastal wildlife. The classes that visited on Tuesday and Wednesday thoroughly enjoyed their highly interactive and hands-on sessions. Thanks so much to Hannah and her Aquavan team from the Marine Studies Centre in Otago, as well as Damian from Enviroschools and Josie from Wai Wānaka.

Teacher Only Day May 31st

PB4L SCHOOL-WIDE GOAL

Positive Behaviour For Learning - PB4L

PB4L School-Wide looks at behaviour and learning from a whole-of-school as well as an individual child perspective. The framework is based on international evidence and is helping New Zealand schools build a culture where positive behaviour and learning is a way of life.

Each fortnight we focus on a school wide goal to encourage positive behaviours. The current goal is: 'We ignore distractions'.

PTA NEWS

PTA Meeting - Monday 10th June - 3.30pm

Our next PTA meeting will be held on Monday 10th June at 3.30pm. Just pop by the school office if you are keen to join us. Thanks :)

ENVIRO SCHOOLS

Wānaka Primary School Honey For Sale

LIBRARY NEWS

Library News

Click the image below to view our wonderful Library Webapp.

Feel free to email Melissa at any time if you have any questions.

4 WEEKS TO GO Till Our Biannual BOOK Week

Here is the programme:

Digital and Audio Resources

Borrow box is an amazing resource which you can have free access to for digital reading and audio resources for your children. Click on the image below to look at the amazing range. You need a QLDC library membership (which is free) to borrow.

BookHub

BookHub is an relatively new NZ based website where you can search for books you want to buy online from NZ based booksellers rather than from overseas sites.

Obviously I support local booksellers as well but if you are an online shopper I fully support supporting NZ businesses before the likes of Amazon who charge exorbitant shipping fees. Click on the icon or this link : https://bookhub.co.nz/

Quote of the Week

HEALTH SNIPPETS

Managing Your Child’s Cold Symptoms

Resting at home and drinking plenty of fluid is the best way for your child to get well when they are sick with a bad cold or cough.

Often the illness is caused by viruses, so antibiotics won’t help, and many of the expensive cold and flu products have been shown to have little effect on the duration and severity of the illness.

Some throat lozenges contain a local anaesthetic which will numb a sore throat for a while, but the same effect may be had from a warm drink.

Give your child paracetamol as per GP instructions if required, and take your child to the GP if the symptoms get worse (such as high fever).

If you are unsure, call your Doctor or Healthline for free health advice 0800 611 116.

Our local Public Health Nurse has kindly passed on to us these child health snippets.

OUT OF SCHOOL ACTIVITIES