Our Tumuaki Principal
Kia ora koutou.
From the Principal's desk:
- Support Staff: This week, on Thursday, we acknowledged the important part that our Support Staff make in our school. We have Andrea Russell and Liz Pask in our office. Liz Pask also works in our library. We have Tracey Lockhart, Stefanie Troster and Liz Scott as Teacher Aides. Amy Smith is our After School Care Coordinator. Tracey Lockhart helps further in the school doing our cleaning and managing the boiler. Jack Ramage works as our grounds person. Between the seven of them, they contribute to the life and vitality of our school.
- Reporting to Parents: We have a four-pronged approach to reporting to parents. The first is Seesaw. Regularly, throughout the whole year examples of the learning that children are doing in class are posted. This gives you 24/7 access and also it provides you with an accumulation of information as it is now spanning several years worth of work. The second is goal setting. This is done at the start of the year, and as children reach their goals, they will receive acknowledgement of that. Thirdly and fourthly, is our interviews (coming up soon) with the reports (that also include Key Competency judgements). The reports gather together a number of assessments done in the first part of the year. These are then shared and talked to with whanau, including the child, at the interview. This suite of inputs ensures that you have timely, relational and informative communication relating to your child's learning.
- Seesaw: Seesaw, mentioned above, is a great platform to enable direct contact and links to your child's learning. The best and most effective practice with this is to connect both parents and if you can grandparents into the platform. That way when your child posts something to their site there are up to six people that give encouragement and positive comments. This is very inspiring for the children and their teachers. We all work best with encouragement from those loving adults around us. Small acts, done repeatedly, is what give incremental growth.
- Attendance: We are working hard to encourage and grow strong mathematicians through our PR1ME maths programme right across the school. What we are learning and discovering afresh is how important attendance is for students especially with maths. Sadly, those children who regularly miss days across a term, struggle to develop mathematical concepts and end up with learning gaps that become harder and harder to plug. Good attendance 90+% helps learning.
- Principal's Challenge: I received more entries this week which is very cool. It is closed off now. I will begin working on putting the book together. It is going to be great!!
- Southland Cross Country: All the best for the strong contingent from Edendale Primary School who represent our zone at the Southland Cross Country, this time next week (Friday 18th June) up at Waimumu. Well done for qualifying and all the very best.
- Paid Union Meeting: On the afternoon of Friday 25th of June there is an NZEI (the teacher's union) meeting for teaching staff. Our teaching staff are heading along to this. School will remain open but we would encourage parents to pick children up from 12.30 pm onwards. Please let us know if your child is staying with us in the afternoon so that we have suitable supervision.
Thank Yous - Team Edendale
- Jack Ramage: Jack has joined the team this year to be our groundsman. He is 'learning the ropes' really well and working to keep the external aspects of our school tidy for the children, teachers and community. Thanks, Jack.
Ka kite
David McKenzie
Our Kaitiaki Board of Trustees
Strategic Survey - Whanau Consultation
The BOT is undertaking its annual strategic review. We would love your feedback and feedforward.
Here's the link to a four-question open-ended survey.
Responses would be appreciated by Friday 25th of June.
General Meeting - Meeting 4 of 8 for 2021
The next BOT general meeting is Tuesday 22nd June starting at 6.00pm in the school staffroom. All material including the agenda is distributed a week prior to this to allow for wise and considered decision making.
Our Kura News and Information
Bus Arrangements - Important Updates
Menzies College is having a Teacher Only Day Wednesday 16th June 2021. Buses will be running as per normal including the Fortrose-Mataura-Island bus.
On Friday 25th June our school has teachers going to Paid Union Meetings (PUMs). We encourage parents to pick children up from 12.30 pm onwards. Students left behind will be supervised. Our bus network, being connected to Menzies, will still run at the normal time.
Senior Whanau Clubs - Can You Help?
We'd love to have some interested community members join us for Senior Whanau Clubs.
Are you crafty and can work with children, spanning eight lunchtimes (two lots of four weeks one in Term Two and one in Term Three) in the winter months, 30 minutes each time?
Please contact the office admin@edendaleps.school.nz.
Interviews and Reports - Week Nine of Term Two
From Monday 28th June to Friday 2nd July we are holding our Mid Year Interviews.
At these interviews, you receive and discuss your child's first half of the year report.
The interviews are for 15 minutes and we encourage the children to attend as the learning is a three-way partnership - school, home, child / kura, whanau, tamariki.
You are also welcome to bring a whanau support person with you as there may be people in your child's life who have a lot of input that would be valuable partners in the formal learning from school.
The link is: School Interview with Report Link
The Event Code is: hyqsg
Book Club - Issue 4
Scholastic Book Club Issue 4 has gone home.
All orders need to be returned to the office by Wednesday 16th June.
Jump Jam - Subs
A friendly reminder Jump Jam payments are due. They are $24. Please contact the office if there are any problems.
Our Team for this Week - Team Kiwi
Team Kiwi has had a fabulous start to Term 2.
We have had our dear friend Lyrics go but we have welcomed a new member Caitlyn Abbott into the team.
Term 2 has been very busy and exciting for us all in Team Kiwi. We have had Sports Activator, Elgrego, speeches, the LMV Zone Cross Country, Emma from Sports Southland and the school Talent Quest that is coming up.
Last week we celebrated Samoan Language week. We explored basic welcomes and farewells, Samoan art books and we learnt a song called Le Aute and completed some artwork from the patterns we explored in the week.
- Nile – “I liked learning the Le Aute song and the actions”
- Aria – “I liked it when I got to pick the colours. I picked the colours yellow and pink”
- Reilly – “I liked colouring in the Samoan flag”
In Team Kiwi each morning we do writing. We love to make up stories and write about events or things happening around us. At the start of the term, we explored the season of "Autumn". We loved going outside the classroom to discover and look at leaves that had fallen off the tree to get inspiration for our writing.
In Team Kiwi we love to learn and improve our maths and reading knowledge each day.
- Kyra – “ I like playing maths games on the Ipads”
- Grayson - “I like to plus numbers together”
- Macie – “I like how we learn”
- Bonnie – “I like to read at school”
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) - Term Two Haepapa Responsibility
When we come from so many different families our values draw us together as one big school whanau.
We show haepapa responsibility when we...
Are ready for our learning
Work right through from start to finish.
Care for people, property and places.
Look after our belongings.
Involve ourselves in our school whanau community.
Every time these are shown they make our school a great place to be for children and adults.
Principal's Values Award
This week the Principal Tumuaki would like to acknowledge Grayson Ozar for being a contributor of values to our school.
Most Valuable Pupil: Team Tui
This week our MVP for Haepapa – Responsibility is Pippa Clarke!
Pippa is an excellent role model for responsibility because she is always doing the right thing at the right time. She arrives at school and greets her classmates and myself, she gets her chair and her things out and ready for the day.
Pippa takes responsibility for her belongings such as clothes, and pencils and she also takes responsibility when packing up after playing a game or equipment.
Pippa does her end of day job quickly and thoroughly and then continues to help others with their job.
Pippa takes responsibility for her learning by listening carefully, following instructions, and asking for help if she isn’t sure. She also helps others complete the task, explaining it well or giving clear instructions so they know what to do.
Pippa completes her homework every week to the best of her ability so she can apply her knowledge in class.
Pippa gets involved in school and wider out of school activities or groups. She participates in Jump Jam, Edendale’s Got Talent, dance and sports.
Our classroom is very lucky to have a helpful and reliable student like you Pippa. Keep up the hard work. Ka pai!
Most Valuable Pupil: Team Weka
Team Weka’s MVP for Haepapa Responsibility is Hudson Latta.
Hudson - what a great role model you are in Team Weka.
You are consistently ready for your learning by ensuring you complete all of the tasks involved in our morning routine.
Once you have finished you are often seen helping others. We really appreciate the way you check to see if there is anything you can help the teachers with too!
It is great the way you work on tasks right through from the start to the finish. If you are unsure of something you take responsibility for checking on what you need to do. You always complete your school work and your home partnership work to a high standard.
Hudson, not only do you look after your own belongings but you also make sure you look after our classroom and the people in it! We feel lucky to have such a caring classmate.
Thanks so much, Hudson for the responsibility you take in Team Weka.
Keep being such a super Team Weka teammate!
Most Valuable Pupil: Team Kea
Winston Wallis is a kind young man who demonstrates many of our school values. This week he is Team Kea’s MVP for Haepapa - Responsibility.
Winston walks into school with his friends and is often sharing a farming story. He knows our routines and gets himself organised and ready for the day. Winston is polite and greets others as they arrive at school.
Winston has been an amazing big buddy to the new Team Kea children. He is thoughtful and makes sure that they have a friend to play with. Winston has built positive relationships and is a valued member of our class.
I can rely on Winston to make great learning and behaviour choices throughout the day. He listens, follows instructions and stays focused. Winston tries his best with his learning and is already making progress in all learning areas.
Winston, your sense of humour and character make myself and others smile each day. You should be very proud of your learning journey so far.
Keep being you!
Our Contact Information
Email: admin@edendaleps.school.nz
Website: https://sites.google.com/edendaleps.school.nz/edendale-primary-school
Location: Edendale Primary School, 24 Salford Street, Edendale 9825, New Zealand
Phone: 03 206 6959
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EdendalePrimarySchool
Twitter: @EdendaleSchool
