With the Jubilee, Apiti Show, swimming and Annual Outdoor Education Camp in the first half of term one, your children certainly begin the year engulfed in fantastic learning opportunities.
This year we also aim to offer you as many optional learning opportunities as they arise to allow your children to make the most of learning in a range of curriculum areas.
Swimming
Well who knows what the weather is going to do!! As a result it is important that your children pack their togs, a sunhat and sunscreen every day. We aim to have swimming lessons daily and a free swim at lunchtime to make the most of our pool whenever possible. The students will always be able to get out when cold, and some who feel the cold might like to bring wetsuits as the summer progresses. Thank you Sheree for keeping the pool in such great condition! There will also be an opportunity for those who need to train at Makino to prepare for the Oroua swimming sports.
Tennis
We are in the process of organising Tennis Lessons with Jared from Tennis Manawatu. We are currently trying to encourage him to take these lessons at Apiti School or the Kimbolton Domain. Students will have a weekly lesson, running for six weeks on a Friday starting on the 4th of March through to the 8th of April. There will be a cost for this but it can not be confirmed until we have an indication of numbers. If you are interested in this, please let Mary or Nicki know within the next couple of days. Thanks to those who have already replied, we already have 3 families interested.
Triathlon
The Manawatu Triathlon Club are running a series of 5 triathlons for children 4 - 12 years of age. They run on Monday the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th of Feb and 7th of March. Children can do all or pick and choose to suit. (They get a free race t-shirt if they pre-enter all 5 events before 4th of February). They can register as a team ($12 per race) or invidually ($5 per race / $20 for all 5 events). Distances and times are as follows:
Check in: 4.30
7 - 9 years old: Start 5.30 / 750m run / 1.5 km cycle / 50m swim
4 - 6 years old: Start 6.00 / 300m run / 600m cycle / 1 length Freyberg teaching pool swim
10 - 12 years old: Start 6.30 / 1.5km run / 3 km cycle / 100m swim
Entry forms can be collected from our school foyer. This could be a great warm up for the Oroua Triathlon and optional Weetbix Triathlon later in the term!
Mobile Dental Clinic
The Mobile Dental Clinic will arrive at school today and will be attending to children's teeth for the remainder of week one. Please sign the permissions ASAP so treatment can proceed.
Apiti Jubilee
A number of people have put a lot of work into this and we certainly look forward to it!! This week we will be designing and preparing a float for the parade. We would like as many of our school children as possible to be a part of this on Saturday morning. We are looking for children's clothing from around the beginning of 19th century and old school desks and pews. If you are able to help, we would love to hear from you! Big thanks to the Corbetts for the use of their truck.
Apiti Show
The student learning tasks for the Apiti Show continue our Jubilee theme. They are posted on the front page of our school wiki. Our students are actively involved in their learning and will be establishing the criteria for each of the learning tasks along with teachers, over the next two days. These will be added below the learning tasks so that the information is available to everyone. If you have any questions please just ask.
EOTC
Education Outside the Classroom options are being finalised and a provisional date has been set. This is on our School calendar. It is the week of 14th March. To access the school and Oroua calender please click on the tab at the top of the page. The educational opportunities are being investigated by the teachers and students and these will be presented to the parents at a meeting.
Reports
We trust that you have all accessed your children's 'Record Keeping' pages and read their end of year report. The best way to open this page is to use Google Chrome as your internet browser. It is easy to download. Just google 'Google Chrome' and it gives you quite clear instructions. If you are unable to access your child's 'Record Keeping ' page, please let Mary or Nicki know. We are pleased with the way this page is developing as part of our wiki as it gives you ongoing access to your child's progress. We would love your feedback!
Bon Apiti
Our senior students will establish the new 'Bon Apiti' Committee in the next week or so and I'm sure they'll keep you updated on their plans. If you have any healthy lunch ideas, please let Caleb know.
Stationery
Students will have received this today. Last year books were covered. We would like to do this again as it seemed to really help them stay in neat and tidy condition for the entire the year.
Thanks ...
Once again we begin the year with a school we can all feel proud off! Thanks to Christine Lowe for all of her efforts indoors, Deltina for her hard work on our school grounds, keeping the hydroponics up to speed and cleaning the carpets. Both of these areas look fantastic.
Thanks also to Richard and Ben for stepping in so quickly to fix the pump to keep the water going to our Hydroponics unit. Richard for dealing to the wasps and Hilton for removing rubbish for us. This really was appreciated!
Newsletters
We update our blogspot frequently, even between school and district newsletters, which also has our calender, community notices, jubilee information etc. We encourage you to use this space as it reduces the cost for us, and you and it also saves time. Please contact us if you do not require a paper copy and are presently receiving one. Also inform us if you know anyone else who would like to receive a reminder when we update the blogspot. We can see that many people are now using it from this area and around the world and we congratulate you on your IT skills !!
Junior Cricket
Junior 'Milo Have a Go' cricket for 5 - 8 year old children starts February 7th at Kowhai Park in Feilding. This cricket is very well run and is a very worth while sport for junior students to be involved in. To register, please ring Dave Meiring at Manawatu Cricket at 3542 498 or Brenda at Feilding Junior cricket on 3240 581.
Mary, Nicki, Mary, Pat and Christine
