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Āpiti School and District Newsletter, 11.2.2019
Welcome to term 1, 2019. Great to see everyone back here happy and well rested!
The overall theme for this year is Kia Kaha - Stand tall and strong. Students will learn strategies for managing self and developing resilience, taking responsibility for their actions.
We have started the year with a real buzz. Students are keen to learn and get into the Āpiti show work.
Dates for your calendar
7th Feb School started
11th Feb Technicraft starts
12th Feb Meet the teachers/ parents / Community barbeque starting at 6.30 at school
18th Feb Board of Trustee Meeting at 7.00pm.
21st - 22nd Feb Year 7 /8 Leadership Camp to Foxton
27th Feb Robert Pereira course at Kimbolton School
28th Feb Hearing Vision Screening.
1st March Ōroua Triathlon at Āpiti
6th March Bon Āpiti to start
8th March Ōroua Swimming Sports at the Makino
13th- 15th March : Education Outside the classroom trip to Whanganui
27th March Our Schooling Futures meeting in PN 7-9
7th June Board of Trustee Elections.
Timetable
Last year after research we trialled some daily timetable changes. This year our timetable will be :-
9.00 : School starts
9.30 : Brain food break (please bring vege, fruit or nuts)
10.30: Playtime
10.50: Morning tea
11.00: Literacy
12.30: Playtime (Swim)
1.05 : Lunch
1.15 : Afternoon school
2.45 : Hometime.
We are also promoting litterless lunches. The students will be doing more on this as the year progresses.
Staff Members
Mrs Mary Cuming - Principal / Junior Room Teacher.
Mr Darren Hodder - Senior Room Teacher.
Mrs Linda Penfold - Relieving Teacher (junior room).
Mrs Mary Burton - Relieving Teacher.
Mrs Jenni Walker - Relieving Teacher
Mrs Hayley Hodder - Relieving Teacher
Mrs Pat Prince - Teachers’ Aide (mornings 9 - 12).
Ms Ruth Brockett - Library / Teacher Aide.
Mrs Christine Digby - Secretary (in office and for the BOT, at school Monday and Wednesdays only).
Mrs Christine Lowe - Cleaner.
Mr Dave Stewart - Caretaker.
Ms Toni Tibbitts - Pool attendant.
Mrs Pat Lambert - School Bus Driver.
Board of Trustees
Our Board members are :-
Mr Ben Pratt - Chairperson.
Mr Tim Field - Treasurer.
Mrs Christine Digby - Secretary / Staff Rep.
Mr Dave Holdaway - Property / Health and Safety.
Mrs Fiona Stephenson - Personnel Officer.
Board elections are being held later this year. Please give some thought as to who you would like to represent you on the board or if you would like to become a Board member. More information in the very near future.
Weekly
Mondays technicraft - the bus will run 10mins earlier on this day for term 1 and 2 as the Year 7/8s need to get to Kimbolton and then Feilding Intermediate.
Tuesdays lunchtime - Garden Club - We welcome parents and community members to come and help us with our vege, fruit and native gardens. A huge thank you to all those who helped out last year!
Spelling tested - Juniors every Tuesday, Seniors every Thursday.
Welcome
We would like to welcome Eden to our school as a brand new 5 year old student. Eden is the younger sister to Isobella. We know Eden will enjoy learning at Apiti School.
We have started the school year with 29 students, 14 in the junior room and 15 in the senior room.
Thank You
We would like to thank David Stewart our caretaker and Chrissy Lowe our cleaner for making our school look so good both inside and outside. To Hannah for cleaning the carpets, they look great.
Also Toni for doing a great job with the pool, unfortunately there was some vandalism, which made it difficult to open the pool on time. Thanks for your extra efforts Toni, much appreciated.
CELEBRATING OUR SUCCESSES :
CONGRATULATIONS to these students for their successes over the last month:-
Sumdog Maths - Josie 354 questions at 80%, Katie 275 questions at 88%, Lucas 55 questions at 89% and Danielle 40 questions at 75%. Claire 132 questions at 92% and Kadin 96 questions at 89%.
Reading Eggs Well done to all these students.
Lessons completed; Savannah 15, Saxon 4 and Rydah 2.
Books read: Savannah 38, Saxon 8, Claire 3 and Rydah 2.
Students should all be encouraged to use these programmes which are set at their own level to support their learning.
Āpiti Show - Kaitiakitanga
Students are all very busy with their entries for the Ōroua Schools Competition.
We will be starting our Acrostic Poem this week.
Crayon and dye pictures have also been started.
The recycled shopping bags are coming along well with help from Pat and Ruth.
Some students are working together on their sculpture entry and some have completed these at home . Any brown panty hose would be apreciated. Winning sculptures will also be exhibited at the Kimbolton Sculpture Festival in April.
Thanks to Ian and Stephanie Strahan for kindly donating the straw for the scarecrows, and Theresa Hollister for transporting it to school for us. We really appreciate it.
We look forward to seeing the finished exhibits. Anyone who would be available to help transport and put up exhibits on 20th Feb we would love to hear from you.
Homework
At the beginning of the year we go over homework suggestions.
Juniors will have a reading book and / or words to learn every night. Please sign in the notebook or make a comment. We appreciate book bags are returned everyday. Early words continue daily for some juniors. Most juniors have weekly spelling, they will be tested every Tuesday. Basic facts for maths are also a good idea.
Seniors - as seniors prepare for high school and the home-school partnership continues to develop, we expect students to read for 20 minutes per night and practice their basic facts especially their times tables. Times table cards can be taken home to practice. There are also many online sites we use and these are available for the students to engage with at home. Seniors spelling tests are completed every Thursday.
Swimming
There will be daily swimming for everyone. Sometimes although the weather doesn’t look good in the morning it warms up later in the day. Please pack named togs, named towel and named goggles everyday or a note. Swimming is a very important part of the NZ curriculum. Drownings in NZ are one of the highest in the world and the best safety is ‘learn to swim.’ Students did very well in their lessons last year including the deep water experience on our last swimming day.
We will be going into the Makino for a day to prepare for the Ōroua Swimming sports. This date will be put on the calendar along with other updates as soon as it is confirmed. Keep in mind that we will need transport on this day please.
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Sun Smart
We encourage students to be responsible for their own sun smart daily practises. They will be reminded to always wear a wide brimmed hat. Please provide one which is named and can be kept at school. We also remind students throughout the day to re-apply sun block. There will be some provided at school, however we suggest parents provide their children with their choice of sunblock.
Water
We encourage students to be responsible for their own water intake. They are only allowed water at school - no sweet options please. Students may keep named water bottles on their desks or on the bench. We encourage them to drink water throughout the day. Our school water goes through 2 filters and an ultraviolet light, but if you prefer students to bring water from home please feel free. To make it easier a water bottle has been added to the seniors stationery account. These will be kept at school and washed out regularly.
Triathlon Training
The Oroua Group of Schools Triathlon is being held here at Apiti School on Friday the 1st of March.
We will soon be into daily triathlon training. All students will need to bring running shoes for biking as well as a bike (hopefully road worthy). If you have a spare bike we would love to hear from you. We welcome parents to come and train or help marshal students at 12.15 before lunch everyday.
Routine Hearing Vision Screening Visit
This will take place at school on Thursday the 28th of February for those new entrants who have not had / completed their B4 School Check, all Year 7 students, distance vision only, re-screening/follow-ups from the previous visit, children who have no previous screening record. If any parent does not wish their child to be checked, please inform the school.
Anti Bullying Course 27th Feb
Robert Pereira is running a course at Kimbolton School. The day course will be attended by teachers and the evening course is also for all parents and interested community members on “Why Children Bully” with strategies to support children. 6.30-9.00 Cost $10pp to cover expenses.
School policies and procedures
All our policies and procedures can be viewed from the tab on the right hand side of our newsletter blog spot. We value communication and developing strong relationships with our students, parents and community. Please contact Mary if you have any questions.
Our Schooling Futures
The Tomorrow's Schools Review Taskforce report is out and suggests far-reaching changes to our schooling system.
There are both opportunities and challenges in the proposals, which include:
- Establishing around 20 regional education hubs to take over most legal roles of school boards. Hubs would oversee a collaborative approach to benefit all students in the hub.
- Hubs would assume many of the ‘business’ governance responsibilities currently held by school boards, while also providing specialist educational support to build good teaching and learning for all their students.
- Hubs would provide professional teacher support for curriculum and assessment, and leadership advisers to work with principals.
- Hubs would employ principals, although school Boards would have veto over appointments; principals would move between schools in hubs on five year terms and could also be seconded into the hubs.
- Improving student transitions by replacing intermediate schools with junior colleges (yr 7-10) or full primaries (Yr 1-8) and providing a learning support coordinator for every school.
- Ditching the decile system for an equity index.
- Transforming current education agencies by putting curriculum at the heart of a smaller Ministry and replacing ERO with an independent Education Evaluation Office to monitor at hub level.
We welcome the review and look forward to learning more and making submissions. I will also be attending a meeting in PN on 27th March 7-9pm All welcome.
Message from Nicole - Chairperson of ASSA
Hi everyone!
There will be a meet the teachers/ parents/community BBQ on Tuesday 12th of February at 6.30pm at school and we hope every family will be represented. There will be a small meeting afterwards to go over the show and triathlon.
ASSA is the Apiti School Support Association and all parents are automatically members. Staff and community members are always most welcome too. ASSA fundraise $8000 a year for the school. This helps cover Education Outside the classroom, as well as subsidises student learning activities such as swimming lessons and the ski day. ASSA also helps provide other learning resources like computers and library books. Sports uniforms are also provided by ASSA.
Just a reminder that we have our first fundraising event coming up in February on Saturday the 23rd, being the Apiti Show where we provide the judges lunches. This is one of our main fundraisers for the year. We will need some volunteers for set up, supervising and packing up the tables and chairs and food on the day. Each family will need to bring an ice-cream container or more of cooked cold meats or savory dishes (quiche or bacon and egg pie etc.) and a salad. You may deliver these to the school either the day before the show or bring it to the domain on the morning of the show. Can you please let me know what you are planning on bringing. We cater for about 90-100 people, this includes shearing and woolhandling judges, pen workers, truck drivers and helpers.
We also have the Ōroua triathlon at Āpiti School just after the show, on 1st March which is another major fundraiser. We will need marshals and people to run the shop, and also we would like donations of baking for sale.
Please if you haven’t already joined the Āpiti School Support Association facebook page we have a poll about ‘what drinks parents would like to be for sale at the triathlon.’ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/28544013227904). - Nicole (027 2709454).
PARENT Workshops
Robert Pereira is my name and I am an international Consultant in Bully-Prevention. Term I – 2019 will find me at FEILDING HIGH SCHOOL for the 10th consecutive year. Owing to demand from other parts of the world, I have designed a new seminar to address the growing problem of Internet Addiction / Gaming Addiction / Problematic Internet Usage.
Hence I am offering this seminar to schools of the Feilding region, to be held at FAHS on Saturday 23 February. Ask the school for details. Teachers and parents of your school are welcome to attend. Enrolment is desirable via email. Payment at the door please.
This seminar will offer parents and teachers some specific strategies to initiate conversation with their child/teen on Gaming, Selfies, and other issues associated with mobile phones and the internet.
This seminar will offer parents and teachers some specific strategies to initiate conversation with their child/teen on Gaming, Selfies, and other issues associated with mobile phones and the internet.
COMMUNITY NOTICES
Apiti RSA are holding a meeting at 7.30pm on Wednesday the 13 February @ the Apiti Tavern and
Eatery.
We would like to acknowledge that there are still some outstanding 2018 subs, therefore we would
be delighted if these are met with payment – Thank you! Subscriptions are $20 with $10 of this
going towards capitation. You can do this by contacting our Treasurer Hugh McIntyre or President
Ross Bielski.
Also, we welcome any person in the community to come along and join us at our next meeting.
Furthermore, if you would like to be an RSA committee member in the future, we would love to
have you! - Shirley Goodall, RSA Secretary.
Apiti Community Committee
The ACC are hosting a 'home baked' stall at the Apiti Show being held on Saturday the 23rd of February. For this we will need home baking please. Please contact June if you require butter, flour sugar etc. We would love slices, muffin's, cup cakes please with each one individually wrapped please. You can deliver the goodies to June on the Friday (22nd) or drop them off at the show on the morning of the show. If you need any further information, please contact June on 3284 773.
ACC are also doing a hot food stall e.g roast meat, sausages, patties. ACC would like to thank you in advance for your support. - ACC Committee.
Apiti Community Committee - Apiti Family Mountain Bike Ride - Sunday 3rd March 2019
This event is for experienced adult riders and for children. The children's ride will start behind the Apiti Tavern at 10.30a.m.
Adults start at 9.30a.m from the Apiti Hall. Registrations taken at the hall from 8.00a.m - $20 adults, $5.00 children.
There will be LIVE MUSIC on stage all afternoon a BBQ to purchase, plus a bouncy castle for the children at the Tavern. There will be stalls, plus Kate Wilson-Bryant and another artist doing art.
Come along and enjoy a lovely day out even if your not competing. - K. Thompson (ACC Chairperson).
Free to A Good Home / s - 3 very friendly goats (1 male, 2 females), to give away to a good loving home (my garden would appreciate it). If interested, please phone June/Murray on 3284 880. - June.
