IN THIS NEWSLETTER

IMPORTANT DATES

Term 2
Week 12
Tuesday 30th June - Whānau Hui Invitation - 2:00 pm - School Hall
(information in school notices)
Tuesday 30th June - Gifted Awareness Evening - 7:00 pm - School Staffroom
Thursday 2nd July - Tribe Day - info in next week's newsletter
Friday 3rd July - Last day to complete Community Survey
Friday 3rd July - Last day of Term 2 - School Holidays

Term 3
Week 1
Monday 20th July - First day of Term 3 - PTA Welcome Morning Tea 9:00 am
Ezra Dance Programme - all week
Friday 24th July - Ezra Dance Performance
Week 2
Friday 31st July - Written Reports will be sent home digitally
Week 3
Tuesday 4th August - Students Sharing Evidence of their Learning to Parents
EOTC programme starts
Week 4
Monday 10th August - Parent / Teacher Interviews
Tuesday 11th August - Parent / Teacher Interviews

IMPORTANT NOTICES

Bus Children Lanyards

Over the next few weeks we are issuing identification lanyards to all the bus children. This has been initiated by GoBus in order to ensure eligibility on bus routes. Please assist us by securing these lanyards to your children's school bag. To date the Albert Town and Aubrey Road bus children have received theirs.

Cybersafety

A reminder to our students and parents regarding Wānaka Primary School email addresses. These should only be used for school purposes and homework related activities such as SeeSaw, Steps, or a number of other programmes classroom teachers have approved. If using a device at home, that requires multiple users, please ensure the Wānaka Primary School account is signed out of after your child’s session has ended. No school email address is to be used to purchase games, or to register for social network platforms such as TikTok, Instagram etc.

The User Agreement form, which children and parents have signed on enrolment, is the commitment to use digital technology and the internet at school safely and for learning, whether it is on a school device or one brought from home.

BOARD BUZZ

Board Buzz

You will have seen the communication about the survey we have sent out to all parents/caregivers. It is a key part of the Board's role to understand how we meet our community's needs and this survey is a very useful tool to help that. I would encourage everyone to fill it in, if you feel you cannot answer some of the questions that is fine. We are also surveying our students and teachers and will use the results to identify if there are any areas we need to give more focus to.

The Board continues to receive outstanding information on our teaching and learning progress at Wānaka School and it is great to see the many ways our teachers continually reflect on and improve our teaching to achieve the best outcomes for our kids.

As always, if you have any questions you can contact me on boardchair@wanaka.school.nz

Andrew (Howie) Howard
Board of Trustees Chair
Wānaka Primary School

CURRICULUM COMMENT

Inclusive Practices Tool (IPT)

Every family has been emailed the link to this IPT Community Survey. Thank you so much to the 91 families who have completed this already - you are amazing. By this time next week it would be great if we had 300 or more complete this. We are hoping for an amazing response from all of you, to give us rigorous data on which we can base our analysis and decisions.

This survey explores the extent to which a school includes all students in all aspects of school life. Inclusive education practices are about ensuring all students are made to feel welcome at school and are able to take part in all aspects of school life. Diversity is respected and school-wide practices and classroom programmes respond to students’ different needs, skills, interests, cultures and backgrounds. Our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) and our Deep Learning developments have helped us to build up the students' values as ways 'to be' at school that respects and includes all students, teachers, and our families. This survey will go some way to provide the data that tells us what we are doing well, where we need to improve and our next steps in building a good school culture into the best school culture for all of us.

If you do not understand a question, or the question relates to something you don't feel you can offer an opinion about, please feel free to ring or email me (wendyb@wanaka.school.nz), or even pop in. I have had some good conversations with parents about the survey, as well as other things, whilst on 'kiss and drop' duty.

So please fill the survey in soon - it will close at the end of next week.

Help is Here!

If your children, or family are having any difficulties or challenges due to the current global pandemic and the impact it is having on our businesses, work and family - please let me know. There are a number of options at my disposal and full confidentiality is ensured. I am just the broker between students, families and the 'experts'. We are here and happy to talk over issues with you and set a plan or process in place, or refer you to people who are experts in this field.

ALIM (Accelerated Learning in Maths)

We have 4 teachers (Kylie, Robyn, Coral and Jennie C) taking part in implementing this accelerated programme with small groups of children in Year 3, 4 and 5. A maths advisor has been working with these teachers on strategies and she is in again this week to observe some of these groups in action and to guide our teachers to the next phase of this initiative. Once we have been through a cycle of ALIM we will then train up other teachers in the processes.

Thank You So Much

A big thanks to the Hawkins family, McElrea family, McLay family, Black family and the McCarroll family for their kind gestures last week. It is gestures like this that made my week, as well as Pod 1 and 4's. You are so thoughtful - thank you.

Long Term

We are all getting a bit weary. Some of us who have been teaching for a while remember the 3 termed school year, with 13 weeks in each term. We are currently in week 11 and I am pleased to say we have a very happy, buzzing staff and only a few children are showing signs of being a bit scratchy. Only 10 sleeps left till the holidays so we are all working on our PB4L focus of 'we are kind, gentle and considerate of others' and that includes mums, dads and siblings too. Everyone has done so well to get to nearly the end of term and with smiles. Make sure your children are kind to you at home as well, and please be kind to yourselves too.

I should actually be in Poland today and off to Lithuania and Estonia over the next few days as part of my Term 2 sabbatical...however given what is happening out there in the big wide world I am not even a little bit upset. So thank you all for making the post lockdown time calm and positive for your children's life at school. There is no place I would rather be!

NPDL Online Conference

Over the upcoming holidays most staff are involved in an NPDL online conference. We are so proud that Anne and Jennie are presenting a live workshop via Zoom. We also have an online breakout (not live thank goodness) about Wānaka Primary's 4 year journey through the Deep Learning process. Thanks to Will Croxford for the filming and editing of our presentation. It was pleasing to be asked to do presentations for the NPDL Deep Lab.

SCHOOL NOTICES

Whānau Hui Invitation

Wānaka Primary School Ski Information

A reminder that the Ski/ EOTC programme begins in Week 3 of Term 3.

If your child/children are participating in either the Cardrona or Treble Cone 5 day programme, or the 1 day Cardrona Experience, please make sure you go to the Cardrona Corner to register and pay for the programme before Friday 3rd July.

If they are participating in the Snow Farm programme, please come in to the school office to make your payment.

Dates for the programmes:

Thursday 6th August
Thursday 13th August
Thursday 20th August
Thursday 27th August
Thursday 3rd September
Postponement Day Thursday 10th September

EOTC School Based Programme

At the end of this week, if children are taking part in the school based programme, they will be asked to choose from one of three options.

They will be taking part in this option for five days, in small groups with children of a similar age. The activities will be modified where needed, to be age appropriate. Please talk with your child to help them decide their preferred option and a second choice.

The options have the following themes:

The Arts in our Environment
This option will have a performing arts focus (music-soundscapes/dance-movement/3D visual art/drama) where students will be creating and recording a performance within their local environment. They will record this with photography and/or video.

‘Be the Change’ in our Environment
Activities will link to our Enviroschool work where students will be involved in activities that focus on improving and protecting our environment - making a difference for our local flora and fauna.

Adventuring in our Environment
Outdoor Pursuits will be the focus. Students will gain knowledge and learn skills to apply when day-tramping, riding on tracks, building huts, outdoor cooking, etc.

Gifted Awareness Information Evening

PTA NOTICES

PTA Snow Gear Sale

PTA Welcome Morning Tea

The PTA would like to welcome you all back to school at the start of term 3 (especially new parents!) with a morning tea. This will be held in the staffroom on the first day of Term 3 (Monday 20th July) from 9am. Please come and join us for a cuppa and get together - see you there!

LIBRARY NEWS

Library News

Click here to view our Library Webapp which also gives access to our eLibrary and lots of useful links, activities and book recommendations. There are also lots of talking stories including ones from Melissa, our librarian.

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

Librarian Award Nomination

Thanks to Jayden in Rm 26 for nominating Melissa for the Scholastic/Upstart Magazine Librarian Award. He has not only won magazines for his entire class and a scholastic book package for himself, but he has also won books for our school library and a $50 Warehouse voucher for Melissa which she is going to spend on more books for our library.