| | | | | | IMPORTANT DATES
Term 4
Week 8
Wednesday 7th December - POD 5 Students Reporting to Parents 11.00-12.30pm,
1.30-3.00pm, 4.00-5.00pm
Wednesday 7th December - Matinee performance of Pantomime 'Super Stan'
Thursday 8th December - Inflatable Playground Fun Day for Pods 4-8
Thursday 8th December - 6pm evening performance of Pantomime 'Super Stan'
Friday 9th December - Final tribe afternoon - Water based fun!
Week 9
Monday 12th December - End of year student reports sent home
Monday 12th December - Student Leaders' Fun Day Out
Monday 12th December - Pod 1 Christmas Singalong - 2pm school hall
Tuesday 13th December - School Assembly to Farewell Katrina, Leeanne, Markus and Carin - 2pm school hall
Wednesday 14th December - Year 6 Graduation Assembly - 1pm school hall
Thursday 15th December - Last day of school 2022 - 3pm finish
Term 1 2023
Week 1
Monday 30th January - Short tour of the school for new families - 10am
Wednesday 1st February - First Day of Term 1 2023 IMPORTANT NOTICES Year 6 Graduation Parents and extended family of our Year 6 children are invited to attend the Graduation to be held on Wednesday 14th December at 1pm - 3pm.
After the last few years of lock-downs and restrictions we are delighted to be able to come together to celebrate the children moving on to the next stage in their schooling.
Please be seated no later than 12.55pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all.
Return of all Reading Books Please Could families please search high and low so we can get all our reading books back on the shelves at school. Thank you.
Last Newsletter for the year This is our last newsletter for the year. We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday season and we look forward to seeing your children on the 1st February 2023. |
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Our Pantomime SUPER STAN!
Tickets $10 per seat available from the school office |
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End of Year is Zooming up on us The countdown is on until the end of the 2022 school year. Check out the major events happening: Wednesday 7th December: Super Stan performance 1pm matinee Thursday 8th December: Super Stan performance 6pm evening Thursday 8th December: Inflatable Playground fun day for Pods 4, 5, 7, 8 Friday 9th December: Tribe Day - Water Fun activity sessions for EVERYONE - check out what you need to bring below Monday 12th December: Student Leaders Fun Day out Monday 12th December: Pod 3 at the Dinosaur Park Monday 12th December: Pod 1 Xmas Singalong at 2pm in the WPS hall Monday 12th December: 2.15pm Bus drivers/ traffic teams afternoon tea Monday 12th December: REPORTS AVAILABLE - check your emails Tuesday 13th December: We are holding a school assembly to farewell Katrina Kreft and Leeanne Preston who are moving onto to other paths in life, Markus Hermanns (who has gained a position at MAC next year), and also Carin Hetherington who is heading over to Bahrain. You are welcome to join us to farewell these valued members of our staff who will not be returning next year. Wednesday 14th December: Room 3 visit to the grebes 10am-2pm Wednesday 14th December: 1pm the Year 6 Graduation Ceremony is being held in our school hall. Thursday 15th December: The last day for 2022 school finishes at 3pm. School Organisation for Next Year We are fortunate to have a stable staff and there are no further cuts to staff we need to make for next year, so things look pretty much the same as this year, apart from Coral moving to the senior school as that's where we have the bulge, it's that larger year 4 group moving to year 5. We start with the following 19 classes next year:
JUNIOR SCHOOL TEAM
DP/Team Leader - Jason Cowan POD 2 (Year 1) POD 3 (Year 2)
Sharon Pendlebury Jo Roberts
Jen Chandler Marj Cosgrove
Charlotte Baldwin Megan McConnell
Andrena Harvey Casey Adams
MIDDLE SCHOOL TEAM DP/Team Leader - Jennie Croxford POD 4 (Year 3 & 4) POD 5 (Year 3 & 4)
Kylie Brown Lisa Thorne
Robyn Blennerhassett Anne Jenkins
Danielle Meyer-Budge Kelly Chadwick
SENIOR SCHOOL TEAM
DP/Team Leader - Kerry Guise POD 7 (Year 5 & 6) POD 8 (Year 5 & 6)
Karina Sharpe Anna Speak
David Fitzgerald Kath Nicholson
Charlotte Lawrie Hannah Chisholm
Coral Potter
OTHER STAFF Learning Support Co-ordinator (SENCO) - Leah Allison
Literacy Lift Teachers - Marg Grieve, Emma Stewart
Teacher Aides - Teresa Alexander, Debbie Kaye, Karen Hayward, Katherine Lam, Leisha Bell Librarian - Melissa Ashby
We will notify you of your child's class and teacher next week and the stationery lists will be placed on our school website and also sent to Paper Plus. The 2023 calendar will also be uploaded to our website by the end of next week.
As Katrina is retiring from her position at Wānaka Primary School we have been through the process of appointing a new administration assistant to our office team. We welcome Anna Hannah-Jones on board. She will join office manager, Lucy Jewel and office assistant Jo Murphy.
Due to our gardener resigning from the garden maintenance role we have been fortunate to secure the services of Simply Garden Care to keep our gardens weed free and looking like they are loved.
Over the upcoming holidays there is some work being done in the way of irrigation and landscaping by a MOE funded contractor to replace our sprawly untidy gardens - the courtyard area will be done first over the holidays and around the pods as each pod is reclad.
Recladding Cook Brothers have just about finished recladding Pod 2 and next week Pod 1 teachers will be moving furniture etc over to pod 2 ready to set up for the 2023 year. The builders have now fenced off the library end of the admin block ready to reclad this and then move onto the office end, which will be completed by the start of term 1, 2023. Please be aware that there will be building, landscaping, irrigation work, seat top installation and painting of our pirate ship playground over the holiday period - a real construction zone so be wary about sending your children to play at school unsupervised over the holidays.
Pod 1 and then Pod 6 will be reclad in term 1. Phew it's all go.
Garden to Table Well done to the Garden to Table team of students, teachers and parents led by the amazing Debbie Kaye and Jo Roberts who have done a fabulous job of this whole garden and kitchen project. We had a small but enthusiastic group of supporters and sponsors turn up to the opening last week where Darren Rewa welcomed our guests, the Kapahaka group performed and Skye McFarlane from the Garden to Table programme officially opened our project. Following the formal part of the afternoon we all headed up to the kitchen where the Garden to Table student group offered tantalising nibbles and refreshments made from Garden to Table recipes. Thanks for a fabulous afternoon and how lucky are we to have such a wonderful area to work and learn in.
Reporting to Parents It was great to have a continued majority of parents turn up to Deep Dive into their child's learning. Children were excited and so proud to present artifacts of their learning, progress and achievement and lots of positive chatter and discussion was to be heard. Please don't hesitate to arrange a catch up with your child's teacher for more information or to answer any questions or wonderings you may have. Written reports for all children, except Kirsty's and Andrena's classes, will be sent home on Monday of next week at the latest. Thank you for your support of your children's learning and of our 3 tiered reporting process. |
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Water Fun Day - THIS FRIDAY This Friday (9th December), our fabulous Tribe Leaders and P.A.L.s will be leading a water fun day for the school :)
Your child will need to bring:
* Togs / wetsuit / tribe clothes that you don’t mind getting wet
* Sunscreen / hat / water shoes or shoes that you don’t mind getting wet
* Named water guns if they have them and would like to bring them
* 2 towels / 1 towel and a dressing gown - one for drying, one for warmth
They will be taking part in a variety of fun water games and slides. There will be options available for children who do not wish to get wet and if you do not wish your child to take part at all, please email Anna by 3pm this Thursday (8th December).
Please name all water fun items that your child brings!
Special thanks goes to the PTA/New World for providing every child with an ice block during lunch break and to Wanacare Pharmacy for the water guns.
Cheers
WPS Tribe Leaders |
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The Incredible Power of Thank You? From Debbie Kaye, our Garden to Table leader and amazing TA (Teacher's Angel)
Those two words express gratitude, humility, understanding and acknowledgement.
Thank you to the following people for their wonderful help and their generous gift of time: Gini, Annie, Pablo, Anna, Laura, Kirsty, Barry, Gray, Jo Douglas, Jack, Kate, Phil, Jason, Richard and Helen, between them they have arranged a digger driver, fetched and carried, laid pavers, made aprons, donated and planted plants, constructed a garden shed, built a tunnel house, erected structures in the garden area, weeded and painted.
A special mention to Kane Duncan from Maungatua Earthworks for levelling the area to sit the tunnel house and water tank on, as well as donating soil for the tunnel house and garden beds and arranging Jason from Hawea Property Maintenance to erect the floor for the tunnel house.
On behalf of all the little people who will walk through the garden gates with their help it will not just be the gardens that will grow but the gardeners themselves.
THE GARDEN GATES ARE OPEN!
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Room 1s Trip to the Lake On Friday Room 1 visited the lakefront as part of their citizenship learning about looking after the environment. We had a look at the grebes, carried out an activity involving identifying creatures that live in our lake, with Damian from EnviroSchools and Jose from the Wao Summit, and carried out a lakeside rubbish pick up. We have been learning about how rubbish that is left around our town ends up in the lake and eventually gets carried to the sea. We are hoping that we have done our bit to help with this problem by picking up all the litter. |
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Thank You to Bunnings Warehouse A big thank you to Bunnings Warehouse Queenstown who donated 4 fruit trees (2 feijoa and 2 olive) to our school in honour of our graduating year 6s. The trees have been planted and will be a great reminder of this awesome group of students for many years to come. |
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Merry Christmas from the Wānaka Trail Ride team!
We’ll be in touch next year as we ramp things up and reach out for volunteers and riders, and not forgetting there are sponsorship opportunities too. In the meantime, we would like to wish the WPS and MCHW families and staff a very Merry Christmas, and a safe and happy holiday season.
From us all – Alix, Anne-Marie, Gillian, Jen, Lucy, Phil, Rachel, and Steph.
Visit www.wanakatrailride.org for more info.
Photo: “Christmas Trail Ride”. Seems they do Trail Rides differently in Banff!
Photo credit: Orange Girl. |
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Library News This is my last message for 2022. What a great year in the library I have had. I really do have the best job in the world. I want to thank all parents who supported our Bookfair. Thirty percent of the profits made go straight back into books for us! I had a wonderful team of Library Leaders this year and I will be treating them to a lunch on Thursday. Lastly I encourage you to join our local Wānaka Community Library so that the children have access to reading material over the Summer. It is an amazing library with incredible staff. It's free and there are lots of activities available for the children over the Summer including Christmas crafts. Click on the image below to join - and its free!
Lastly I would like to wish everybody a happy Summer and festive season. I look forward to 2023. Ngā mihi Melissa Ashby |
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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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December School Holiday Pottery Fun Magical Mini Pottery Houses with local artist (& mum) Jo Jago
Monday 19 December 2022 1 - 4pm
Bookings essential, small classes with limited numbers to ensure personal attention for everyone.
Have a little break while your children create, or join in the fun with us and make some mini pottery houses. Children, parents, grandparents etc. are all welcome. The more the merrier! Book in today at www.jojagoart.com/collections
For further details please visit www.jojagoart.com or contact Jo direct on jojagoart@gmail.com or 021-234-8855 |
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Wānaka Preschool Evansdale Cheese Fundraiser |
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Hawea Christmas Wonderland |
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Pointe Central Presents - The Magic Toyshop |
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TriWanaka Swim / Run Series Spring is in the air, the days are warming up and thoughts are turning to summer again!
We are looking forward to the TriWanaka Swim/Run series again this summer. Starting on 6th January 2023, the events will run every Friday night for 6 weeks. We are really happy to be bringing the series back to the lakefront in Wānaka and this year we are also partnering with the team at Integrity Homes Challenge Wānaka as a build-up series to their event on 18th February 2023.
The cost will be $10 per event (or $5 per event for TriWanaka members). If you are not already a member, now is the time to sign up to get the discount on race night or a special series entry price. You can become a member here: www.triwanaka.co.nz.
Have a fabulous Christmas and we look forward to see you out there.
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Queenstown Lakes Libraries' Contactless Service |
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Summerdaze Teddy Bears Picnic |
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Wānaka Kids Club Summer Programme |
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Visual Storytelling Workshop for Youth |
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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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