Newsletter 1 Term 4

Onerahi School Friday 01 November

Te Karere o te Tumuaki/Principal's Message

Kia ora e te Whānau,

Welcome to Term 4. I hope you all had a satisfying and restful school holiday break. With sadness I inform our school community of the recent passing of Yvonne Blackwell. Yvonne did her very first year of teaching at Onerahi School in 1962 and then returned in 1984 as a classroom teacher and then became assistant principal for over 13 years until her retirement in 2004. I know some of you will remember her well; her passion for teaching - especially literacy, her caring nature and her generous spirit. Our condolences have been passed on to the family.

The pool is almost ready for our Water Safety programme. Edwin has been making the water crystal clear and the recent sunshine has been warming it up. Keep an eye on Class Dojo to find out when your children will be able start enjoying learning valuable water safety skills.

I extend my congratulations to Te Tau Ihu Kapa Haka rōpu and the staff involved with their participation in the Mana Kuratahi regional competition recently. If you watch the video footage you will see how amazing they were.

At the moment teachers are writing end of year reports. Information around whānau hui to share these reports with you and discuss progress will be out soon. The hui are planned for the 2nd and 3rd of December, so keep an eye out for further information.

All of the teams have camps and trips over the next few weeks so the tamariki are very excited about that. Many thanks to those of you who will be helping out, as your support makes these trips possible. Before we know it, it will be the end of the year so keep up to date with all of the information shared so you do not miss anything special.

Ngā manaakitanga

AnnMaree MacGregor

Tumuaki Whakahihi / Proud Principal time

Over the past several weeks Danny, Grace and I have had the pleasure of having morning tea with the following fabulous students:

Clark Te Maro & Thea Wilson - Reorua, Aurora Nicholson - Rm 19, Joss Bowling - Rm 7, Zoey MacGregor & Lucy Morrison - Rm 4, Ihaia Hotere and Tobias Joll - Rm 13, Harley Snowden-Rapata & Brodie Zwart - Rm 14, Teesha Gavin-Heta and Brynja Roulston - Rm 5, Isaac Thompson - Rm 1 Kaylee Pattenden - Rnm 19, Zara Dunn - Rm 10, Liam Kennedy and Jett McGregor - Rm 15.

These tamariki make our school a great place to be through their manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, and manawa reka.

Te Tau Ihu at the Regional Kapa Haka Competition/Mana Kuratahi

Our performance rōpu - Te Tau Ihu put on a fabulous performance at the Mana Kuratahi regional Kapa Haka competition on Saturday the 19th of October. Weeks of practice paid off, with strong and confident performances delivered and we are so proud of them. If you missed the competition and would like to watch a video of their performance, we have included a link below:

https://www.facebook.com/radiotautoko/videos/471201715266356

Letter from Abroad

Recently, we had a lovely letter come in from an Onerahi Primary School fan from abroad. A wonderful grandmother to two of our students, living in Canada, sent through the following, that we wanted to share with you all.

Kia ora Onerahi School, I just read the Onerahi Orbit article about the work by Matua

Parag and Room 17 to create the mud fest and obstacle course at Dragon Springs. I am

the grandmother of Saoirse, one of the Room 17 students. I live in Canada and in June I

was able to visit my granddaughters and your school and I was so grateful to be allowed

to chaperone and accompany Saoirse’s class and also her sister Aoife’s class on several

field trips, including on a trip to Dragon Springs. What a wonderful trip! Saoirse’s

grandpa and I also came to your Matariki New Year’s celebration. The Matariki

constellation is called Pleiades here in Canada and we can see it for much of the year.

We are in the northern hemisphere and while you guys are getting ready for summer

holidays, we are getting ready for heavy snowfall and way below freezing temperatures.

Right now, the snow on the mountains is getting lower and lower. The bears are getting

fatter and fatter, eating as many salmon and berries as they can to build up fat reserves

to survive their long winter hibernation. We often get over 1 meter of snow in our

backyard and we have to do a lot of shoveling to clear a path to the chicken coop and to

clear the driveway so we can drive our car out. In the higher elevations we can get so

much snow that it can crush vehicles if you don’t keep them cleared. Sometimes we get

a moose visiting our fruit trees and they eat them down to the height of the snow, a

couple of years ago our young fruit trees ended up just over 1 meter tall. Pretty soon we

will have to plug our cars in to heat the engine blocks up enough to be able to start our

cars in the cold.

So, when you get too hot in the sunny weather, we will be on the ski hill, ice skating,

snowshoeing through the frozen forests or most likely: shoveling snow. Have a

wonderful summer holiday.

Touch Tournament at Parua Bay School

On Wednesday the 23rd of October, some teams of keen players from the senior school travelled to Parua Bay School to participate in an inter-school touch tournament. The weather gods blessed us, and kept the rain away and a great day was had by all. Congratulations to our "Titans" (Reorua) team of Nikau, Julz, Chloe, Lincoln, Taimania S and Zev who took out first place and to the teams of "Battlers" (Rm 4) - Tairua, Willow, Zeke, Skylah, Leonardo and Jahkaila plus the "Slayers" (Rm 6) - Elise, Ruby, Te Rei, Tyler, Lockie and Chase who came 3rd equal.

Chase, Zeke, Tairua, Elise and Ruby share their experience below:

We really enjoyed getting tries, and passing the ball out. It was lots of fun. It was great how people who had not had the experience got to try something new. Everyone got to have a go. The sausage sizzle and iceblocks were great fuel and refreshment. Reorua came 1st out of ALL the year 5's and 6's. Rm 4 & 6 came 3rd. "It was worth hurting my finger" - Chase. It was good having breaks between games for planning. There were 3 Parua Bay teams and 2 teams from Whangarei Heads in the senior school. It was a great day overall, we all had fun and enjoyed ourselves even though it was very hot. Thanks Parua Bay school for inviting us out. Thanks also to all the teachers, staff, and referees plus JB and his crew who helped us attend.

Board By-Election

Kia Ora,

Nominations are closing soon for our 2024 By-Election. Have you thought about joining us?

Please see below for the important dates to note:

Monday 04 November - Supplementary roll closes

Wednesday 06 November - Nominations close

Wednesday 13 November - Voting papers issued

Friday 13 December - Election Day

Monday 16 December - Postal vote closes

Tuesday 17 December - Votes counted

Wednesday 18 December - Election results announced

Could we ask that if you have changed your email address, or think we may not have one recorded for you, could you update us at the office? office@onerahi.school.nz. Our Electoral roll is available at the office on request, and there are copies of the nomination form available also.

Nga mihi

Lana Jennings

Returning Officer

Model Club Update from Mark

This term the model club has expanded to include Year 4 as well as Years 5

and 6 and two sessions in, plenty of progress is being made. We now have

sixteen participants signed up, meaning that I have to loan my set of tools to

make up the shortfall in equipment ! Many of last term’s Year 6 participants

are still active, finishing off their projects from the last sessions and acting as

mentors for the new intake.

Our current focus in the group is building aircraft (however there is one AFV kit amongst

them) from a mix of modern Airfix gift sets and old Frog and Revell kits which

have been donated by a local modeller. The group is doing extremely well

bearing in mind the levels of complexity of the newer kits and the rather vague

instructions of the older ones.

The plan is to get the models completed and painted then turn the group’s

attention to building runways from styrofoam and airfield buildings from scrap

card and balsa wood. Many thanks to both staff and parents for their support

in supplying these materials. We’ll keep you posted on progress.

Keeping our students safe when arriving and departing school

Whānau , please help us work together to support our wonderful road patrollers. We remind you all that the speed limit outside our kura is reduced to 40km/hr and when our signs are out, you must stop. We are still seeing a number of dangerous driving behaviours outside our school, including exceeding the speed limit, turning into and/or blocking the staff driveway and obscuring the view of our patrollers by parking on yellow lines. We respectfully ask that when crossing yourself or your tamariki on Church St or Raumati Ave, you do so at our pedestrian crossing and patrolled area. This sets a good example for our tamariki, on safe road crossings.

Senior leadership and the Board are currently working with the council to establish a safe travel plan. More information will come out in due course.

2nd hand Uniform

We are still a bit light on most of our secondhand uniform supplies. Especially in any larger sizes. As soon as it comes in, it tends to quickly find a new home. If your child has outgrown their uniform and you have no further need of it, please feel free to drop it in to the school office. The sales of these help the school purchase additional items that our former PTA used to supply, such as sunscreen, etc.

Honey

We still have a great stock of honey available for purchase at the school office. Honey has been kindly donated by our partner beekeepers - Tahi honey, and we have further been gifted larger sized jars of Honeyeater honey - also from local Pataua hives. The honey is priced amazingly from $5 per jar to $20 (the big 1 kg jars) so why not pop in and pick some up. Might make some lovely Christmas gifts for whanau.

Tino rā nui/Important Dates

Friday 15 November - Senior School Athletics day
18-20 November - ReoRua Camp
Tuesday 26 November - School Colour Fun Run
Wednesday 27 November - Te Whanga Festival
27-28 November - Middle team Camp
Monday 02 and Tuesday 03 December - Whanau Hui. Classes end at 1pm.
Wednesday 4 December - WPSSA year 5 & 6 school athletics day
Thursday 5 December - NEST beach trip
Friday 6 December - NEST camp school day
Mon 09-Wed 11 December - Rms 3-6 Senior Camp at Chosen Valley
Tuesday 10 December - Junior school "Olympics" day
Wed 11 December - Middle School Run, Jump, Throw Day
Friday 13 December - End of Year Assembly
Tuesday 17 December - Year 6 Graduation and Disco
Wednesday 18 December - Last day of school 2024

Reminders/Ngā manatu

SPRING

Spring is here! Just a reminder to you all that in terms 1 and 4, it is compulsory for our students to wear a hat when outdoors. If they do not come with a hat during this term, they will be unable to play outdoors in play break. This is in keeping with our sun safe policy.

SCHOOL HOURS

8:15am School gates open to students and whanau

9:00am School begins

11:00-11:30am 1st Play Break

1:30-2:00pm 2nd Play Break

3:00pm School finishes

3:15pm School gates close

There are two eating breaks within the day, taken at times that suit each class. Please ask your child's teacher when their times are. We would like to remind all whānau that during school hours, your child is expected to be present and learning. Where possible, we ask that appointments be scheduled outside of school hours, so as not to impact on your child's learning. We also ask that every effort is made to arrive at school in time for learning at 9am.

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IMPORTANT NOTICES/TINO PANUI NUI

Medication: If your child requires medication to be brought or kept at school, please be aware that due to health and safety concerns, this must be kept secure in the school sick bay. It is not to be kept in children’s schoolbags during the day. This is to protect the safety of not only the child requiring the medication but also all other students. All medication requires an accompanying permission/approval form signed by their parent or caregiver. This includes epi-pens for allergy management, inhalers for asthma or any other medication your child requires on a short-term or as needed basis.