Thank you to our students and whanau for what has been a wonderful term of learning, it has been great to see the students showing Ambition in their learning and the sense of pride and self-confidence that they have from seeing themselves making progress from the great attitude and effort that they are putting into their learning. It has been a long term scattered with short weeks for public holidays, but jam packed with learning and great opportuntities from start to finish.
The Year 7-8 students have had a great term at Tech, they were very proud to show me the amazing gutterboards that they have made for the school, personalised with our houses, values and logos. They are amazing and a very special new addition to the PE Shed.
Last Friday I attended the Year 5-8 EPA combined schools athletics event at Eltham Primary, it was a fanastic day. Very well organised by the team at Eltham. The maanakitanga from Eltham right from the start of the day being welcomed and made to feel at home by their student leadership team set a great atmosphere that continued through the day. I took the long jump and throughout the day was impressed by the high level of participation, with every student giving it a go, and the support and encouragement amongst the students. After every session I had students from the various come and thank me off their own back, it was great to see the positive interaction amongst the students and them wanting to introduce me to the new friends that they had made over the day.
At the end of each term we will have a week long focus on a particular subject area. This enables students to enjoy learning about ideas that don't fit within the inquiry or topic focus that we have running throughout the term. This week is Science Week, based around 'Garden Science', students learn within their house teams and rotate around the teachers who have prepared various lessons from the Science Strands, Making Sense of the Living World, Physical World, Material World and Planet Earth and Beyond. It is always a special moment when we see students working in their House Teams. The Tuakana-Teina relationships between our older and younger children really shine and highlight the special culture of a rural school environment in fostering both caring, supportive relationships and building leadership capacity amongst our senior students. Each day has started with some whole school singing, followed by some Minute to Win It house challenges, before heading off to their Science Sessions. There has been a huge range of learning opportunities from learning about worms and caring for them, including each child being given their own 'worm' to take care of for the week, learning about the impact of different sprays and building their own composts, learning about the Water Cycle and Plant Adaptation, the Seasons, Day-and-Night and how these cycles impact growing. As you can see it has been a great week of learning!
We start next term with our Pembroke Anzac service on Tuesday 30th at 2pm at the Pembroke Hall. This was a lovely service hosted by our students last year and a special time honoring the men from our Pembroke area who served in the World and other wars.
We are looking forward to another great term of learning in Term 2 and wish you all a restful and fun holiday with your whanau.
