| | | | | | IMPORTANT DATES
Term 3
Week 3
Wednesday 2nd August - Author Deano's Performance - 1.45pm
Thursday 3rd August - Pod 6 Assembly - 2.15pm - Hall
Friday 4th August - PTA Quiz Evening
Week 4
Monday 7th August - Board of Trustees Meeting - 5pm - Staffroom
Wednesday 9th August - Supporting Children with Anxiety - 7pm - Hall - info below
Thursday 10th August - Day 1 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 11th August - Tribe Afternoon
Week 5
Thursday 17th August - Day 2 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 18th August - Pod 3 Assembly - 2.15pm - Hall
Week 6
Thursday 24th August - Day 3 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Week 7
Tuesday 29th August - WPS Cross Country
Thursday 31st August - Day 4 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 1st September - Fathers Day Breakfast
Friday 1st September - Pod 8 Assembly - 2.15pm - Hall
Week 8
Monday 4th September - Board of Trustees Meeting - 5pm - Staffroom
Tuesday 5th September - UC Cross Country
Thursday 7th September - Day 5 EOTC / Snow Sports Programme
Friday 8th September - Tribe Afternoon
Week 9
Pod 5 Swimming
Thursday 14th September - COPSSA Cross Country
Thursday 14th September - EOTC / Snow Sports Programme Weather Day
Friday 15th September - Friday Night Lights
Week 10
Pod 1 Swimming
Friday 22nd September - Last Day of Term IMPORTANT NOTICES
Murray Gadd Parent Workshop on Writing
Did you miss the parent workshop that Murray ran on Tuesday 25th July about children's writing? We recorded the session and it is available on our school website for the next few weeks. Please follow the link below:
MasterChef New World Promotion If you would like to donate your MasterChef reward stickers to Wānaka Primary School please drop them into the collection box in the office. We would be hugely grateful and this would enable us to replace some of our ageing pots and pans.
Code Club Wednesdays
Code Club will be on Wednesdays in Room 26 after school 3.30pm - 4.30pm. This will be run by Owen and Blake (students from Mount Aspiring College).
Donations for the PTA Quiz Thank you to those who have donated food goods for the PTA Quiz. If you are unable to attend this fundraiser but would still like to support the PTA please see this form to see which items we are still needing. We are also still looking for help on Friday to put platters together. |
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Supporting Children With Anxiety |
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Bite Cookbook On Sale Now  Only $20.00 for the month of August
This special is only available for purchases made at the school office |
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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: - 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. |
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Dance with Mark from Dance Curriculum After 2 weeks of great music and dance activity emanating from the hall it seems very quiet. What a fabulous 2 weeks of learning and fun was had by all. It was amazing to see so many parents turn up to watch the dance performances and so nice to see parents get up and dance with their kids at the end. We are looking forward to having Mark back again for 2 weeks at the beginning of term 3 next year. These extra-curricula lessons are what we use the school donations for and this certainly was a worthy use of these donations. Videos from the dance performance have been added to the website here and more will be added over the next couple of days. Strategic Direction Survey Thanks to everyone who responded to our survey. We had 127 responses which is a huge improvement on our last strategic planning survey. The winner of the Chrome Book was Fiona Gibson. Congratulations Fiona and thanks Ian Gosling from ISEG (our IT man and also a dad of the school) for your kind sponsorship of this prize which elicited such a good response. Children and Anxiety - have you bought your ticket for this? It is only a week away. The Anxiety webinar by Cat Devine is being streamed live next Wednesday 9th August. We are not able to record this interactive session and you cannot connect to this by Zoom. It is a 'not to be missed' opportunity to hear an informative, excellent presenter speak to you as parents about anxiety in children - what causes it, what it looks, sounds and feels like and what you, as a parent, can do to support your child and family. We have more children than ever in our community, who show signs of anxiety, so we thought this was the perfect workshop to bring to you.
Wānaka Primary School has to pay Heartland Trust $1200 for this piece of work as they do not have funds of their own to do so. Therefore we are hoping to attract at least 200-250 participants to cover the costs of the evening and we know many of you have asked for this type of thing in the past. We have to date sold 25 tickets only. We are therefore anticipating a lot of door sales. So don't be left standing at the hall door disappointed that you missed out on this valuable information session. Get your $5 ticket now. This is NOT A SCHOOL FUNDRAISER. It is our way of providing good, reliable information for parents. Cat has also said that she will have a question time.
Are you keeping an eye on your child's online activity? Teachers, particularly in Year 5 and 6 have noted that there seems to be a lot of at home online activity going on that parents may not be aware of.
For example there are students using 'Kids Messenger' to communicate. Apparently there have been messages sent out to 'the group' at 11:30pm, meaning at least one of them has access to a phone/tablet during the night. They are also talking about spamming each other and sending back multiple responses during the night. There is some anxiety with one or two of the children around this I gather...Also, some others have been gaming (even some of our 6 year olds until 8pm and later at night) playing games such as Roblox or Fortnight late into the night as well.
This falls under parental supervision, however our concern is that children are awake late and without device supervision, and the effects of this can be seen at school. The children are talking openly about their nocturnal activities, so parents need to step up and make sure you know where your children's devices are during the night. Most parents have some kind of online notification linked to their own accounts, so they can see all of the messaging and online activity taking place. We urge you to check this out please.
Device use, unsupervised for long hours and particularly at night when children should be getting at least 8 hours sleep, can have a negative impact on a child's learning, social interactions, mental wellbeing and their overall alertness and engagement. Please support your child by monitoring online and gaming usage and also by limiting their device usage.
Please check out Netsafe for additional information to help with all things 'online'.
Also a reminder no mobile phones are to be seen at school. If we see one it will be confiscated and we take no responsibility for any phone tucked away in a school bag that may go missing. (I am so glad I parented during the 'dumb' phone era. However my children were not able to have a phone until they could afford to buy it and pay the monthly bills. Times have changed I know, but it worries me the freedom children have with online connections at an early age and how much is available out there). I'd like to add that Smart Watches too can be an issue if they are misused in school time.
Pod 6 Assembly Pod 6 Assembly is this Thursday 3rd July - as the hall is being set up for the quiz on Friday afternoon. Everyone is invited along to hear and see what learning Pod 6 has been doing over the last few months.
EOTC School Based Programme As per last year the children who are not taking part in the ski/snowboard programmes will take part in the 5 day rotation programme based at school.
The five days, which all children will take part in over the five weeks are: - Science/Technology experiments, creations and structures with Karina and Robyn
- Using Digital technology in outdoor challenges with Anne and Ben
- Enviro Art activities with Kylie and Megan
- Garden to Table activities - in the garden and in our G2T kitchen with Dave and Moira
- Enviro School activities with Jo and Marj
If the ski fields cancel the programme for the day then the school based activities are also cancelled for the day and it is school as normal (including wearing uniform). School based groups can wear warm mufti on these EOTC days and remember to bring a jacket as some of the day will be outdoors. Also remember skiers and snowboarders cannot just turn up at school if they are unable to take part in the snow programme on any particular Thursday as due to numbers and adult ratios, we are unable to fit them into one of our school based groups.
We will use the School app, website and the radio to let you know if we need to cancel/postpone one of these Thursdays.
Board Meeting Our next Board meeting is Monday 7th August at 5pm. Jennie Croxford will be presenting her Ariki/Deep Learning report to the Board. Everyone is welcome to attend these meetings.
What's Coming Up in the next week or so? - We will be practising some of our emergency drills over the next few days
- Wednesday 2nd August - Deano storyteller/author performance (paid for by your school activity fee)
- Thursday 3rd August - Pod 6 Assembly 2.15pm in the WPS hall
- Friday 4th August - PTA QUIZ night in our school hall
- Monday 7th August - Board meeting
- Tuesday 8th August - Chess Power chess tournament hosted in our school hall
- Wednesday 9th August - Children and Anxiety information session for parents $5 entry - tickets available form our school office
- Thursday 10th August - 1st day of our Snow and School based Winter programme
- Many classes in the school will be working with St John's over the next few weeks on basic First Aid and also covering some mental wellbeing aspects as well
- Friday 18th August - Pod 3 assembly.
Playhouse Theatre Performance of Treasure Island The Playhouse Theatre produced another excellent comical drama for our students. There was lots of fun, hilarity, singing and drama that held the children enthralled for the whole 45 minutes. |
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Snow Sports Programme For children who are skiing/boarding at Cardrona/Treble Cone as part of our EOTC programme - please ensure you have read all the information on the school website. - Cardrona lessons start at 10.15am
- Treble Cone lessons start at 9.00am
Please leave plenty of time to get a park, collect rentals (if required), toileting, feeding and getting them onto the hill and find their instructor. Please be patient with the parking attendants, and staff on the mountain as we have had feedback about a parent's behaviour during the weekend upset about the parking arrangements.
Cancellations/postponements
If the weather is not safe for children to be on the mountain then it will be school as normal. Please check the School App and the School Website for updates. Cardrona/TC makes a call usually by 6.45am. I can then get the information to you by 7.00am.
An email will follow later in the week. |
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Pod 2 and the Avalanche Dogs Pod 2 are learning about People Who Help Us. On Monday, Matt and Katie came to teach us about Search and Rescue Avalanche dogs. They brought Wizard and Rocco with them and demonstrated how they are trained to find people trapped in an avalanche. Here is a link to their website if you are interested in learning more about this: https://avalanchesearchdogs.co.nz/ |
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School Camps 2023 Confirmed Costs for Year 5 & 6 Camps  Payment details: Online to Wānaka Primary School Account No: 02-0673-0023784-001 OR Eftpos / cash at the office Payment can be made in instalments. More information will follow about each individual camp.
Please regularly check your emails. |
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PTA Kiwiana Quiz Last chance to book your table of six. Please pop into the office or call and reserve your table now. Also please feel free to contact Adele on pta@wanaka.school.nz or through the facebook page.
Please have a team name ready when booking and use this as your reference when paying to the Wānaka Primary PTA account: 02-0673-0024330-00 |
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WPS Netball - Millers Flat Tournament Two WPS netball teams headed to the Millers Flat Tournament on Saturday 29th July coached by Bec Williamson and Sarah Fahy - both teams had a great day with the Blue team coming second in their pool. They had beautiful weather and the teams exhibited all the values of good sportsmanship. Their coaches were very proud of them and the girls had a lot of fun. The WPS Blue team.  The WPS Red team. |
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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. Ebooks and Audio Books The Wānaka Public Library has 2 fantastic Ebook Platforms which are highly recommended. All you need is a library membership which is free. Click on the image below to find out more and browse to see what is available: 
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Children with Allergies We have several children enrolled at Wānaka Primary School who have potentially life-threatening allergies to both eggs and all nuts. Whilst the children are aware of the need not to share any food or drink - and all staff are informed of their medical condition – it would be helpful if all parents could consider not sending food to school with their children which contain egg or peanut butter fillings or nuts of any kind. In this way we will hopefully reduce the possibility of this major health problem occurring.
Head Lice Head lice are (an unwelcome) part of life, and are easily spread between people, particularly children. The key to managing head lice is early detection: look through your child’s hair on a regular basis – nominate a certain night of the week so it becomes routine. - Use your fingers or a head lice comb, and look for little brown insects on the scalp. The eggs are almost invisible before they hatch, so by the time you spot the little white eggs on the hair shaft they are already hatched.
- Do not treat your child unless you see live lice.
- The best treatment is thorough combing with a head lice comb and lots of conditioner in the hair. This should be done every 2nd day for 10 days.
- If you choose to use a head lice shampoo, you should still do the wet combing as described above. Shampoos do not kill eggs, and do not always kill all the live lice.
- Do not use animal products on your child’s scalp. They are harmful to humans.
- Tying hair up, especially long hair, is beneficial when trying to avoid catching headlice or spreading it.
- For more information: www.healthed.govt.nz/resources/headlice-facts.
Contact for our local Public Health Nurse Pip McLean is our local Public Health Nurse - should you wish to get in contact with Pip her contact details are: 03 440 4309 or 0272 839 395 or email Pip.McLean@southerndhb.govt.nz |
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Local School Children Season Pass Purchases |
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Junior Indoor Racquet Sports for Year 6 |
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| Delicious, nutritious and popular with kids, Subway delivers school lunches every Friday. Order online at subwayexpress.co.nz by 9am. |
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