Message from Marshall - St Michael's Church School

Edition 13 19 October 2015

Message from Marshall

Kia Ora parents, caregivers and our wider community, It has been a wonderful first few days back at school, and I have been delighted to see all our students back at school, enthused and inspired about their learning. This term is jammed full of wonderful learning, development and opportunities. Several days to look forward to and worth noting on the calendar are: St Michael’s Big Day Out, Athletics Day, Music Festival, Grandparents’ Day, STAR Week for the Senior Stars, and not to be overlooked, our Prizegiving on Thursday 10 December. !Coming up we this week, we have our annual visit to the Cardboard Cathedral, which everyone is welcome to join us for. You can keep up-to-date with all of these activities and more using the Saint Michael’s Church School website. !Term Four is promising to be an exciting and exhilarating term, and I look forward to seeing you in person again, soon. !Finally, as Principal, I am incredibly proud of the fact that Saint Michael’s Church School is the oldest school in Christchurch, and I value our past. I am also committed to our future in order to maintain the best learning outcomes for our students. In setting short and long-term plans, the leadership team and I, can work towards the needs of our students, record milestones, and keep you, our community informed of the “big picture” of our school. !Parent and community consultation is one way that everyone can have their say on St Michael’s future. With this in mind, I would really value your views, thoughts and ideas, no matter how big or small, as these are very important to me, in identifying St Michael's Church School's next steps, and how we map these out. Attached is a link to an online survey http://goo.gl/forms/qu5PnmrkbD that I have also emailed to every family. I would be incredibly appreciative if you could take just a few minutes to have your say. !Yours in Christ, !!!!!!!TUMUAKI / PRINCIPAL Marshall Diggs

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! Learning | Aroha | Connectedness | Faith

Edition 13 19 October 2015

!Room 3 - Years 3 & 4

It has been great to see the children come back to school after a well deserved break with positive attitudes and an eagerness to get back

into their schoolwork. We have been lucky with the beautiful weather to date and it was so pleasing to see all the children arrive on the first day

of term with their sun hats. We have quickly settled into our daily routines and are busy writing holiday stories and learning about

fractions. On Monday the children had a visit from Amie from the ASB who taught them the difference between Eftpos and credit cards and talked to them about shopping around for the best price when they

want to buy something they have saved up for - they love talking about money! The children are also excited about our upcoming athletics

sports and swimming lessons and are looking forward to showing off their skills. We are all set for an action packed fourth term here in the

Star Class!

🌟 Room 4 - Years 5 & 6

Room 4 have quickly settled back into a learning routine of Writing, Reading and Maths after their three week holidays. They all have plenty of interesting stories to report about and to share with the group. We have welcomed two new teacher aids into the classroom, Miss Alice

Bates and Miss Kirsty Musk.!A note to parents was sent home in the homework diary on Wednesday of this week and this note dealt with all the curriculum developments, achievements and expectations ahead. Some sentences from our holiday writing are; I woke up one beautiful sunny morning to find out it was Jamie’s birthday. I jumped out of bed, got dressed and ran down the stairs. I asked Dad if I could have a cup of orange juice and a toasted croissant. Sophie D !Once when I caught a wave I nose dived into the sand but when I got up there was a crab on my toe so I shook it off but it grabbed my leg rope and tried to climb up it. Giorgio !The airplane was cancelled but my family and I didn’t know what was going on so my mum went to go up and ask what was wrong and it was an engine failure. So they gave us free six dollar tickets so I went to go and get myself a bacon butty and also some lollies. Billy !Once I got out of the car it was burning hot and I had to take off two layers. When we got down to the water I saw all different kinds of rocks down there. Joshua !Thursday we had a special person that came in she does a special kind of riding called Barrel racing. It is when there are three barrels and you have to go round in the shape of a clover. Unfortunately for me I had to do lunging first but on the bright side I was the only kid that could canter so it was all pretty good. DeArna !In my crazy fun holidays we went on loads of adventures in big cities in NZ. During the first week we moved into my friends house while they were in the relaxing place called Bali. Her house was two stories high and they had a big pool outside in their awesome backyard. Emma

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In the Classrooms Room 2 - Years 1 & 2

The children have all settled quickly back into the routines of the day and made a great start to the term. !We welcome three lovely new boys to our class - Joel Wakelin, Finn Burnett and Taine Jewell-Bennett. !For the first few weeks we will be practising our Athletic skills of running,high jump,hurdles and ball throwing for Athletics Sports Day on Friday 6th November.!For Topic work this term we will be looking at the various signs of "Spring" talking about them and observing what is happening "down on the farm". We will also be combining with Year Three and Four every Monday afternoon after Kapa Haka to have Information Technology lessons with Mr Hadfield. !!!!!

Edition 13 19 October 2015

!Senior Stars - Years 7 & 8 !I hope you have all made the most of the term break soaking up the glorious weather and the great outdoors as we head into our last term for 2015. !A special welcome to Miss Brooke McDonnell who joins us for the first 4 weeks of this term. She is a teacher trainee from UC. !The Canterbury Westland Science Fair was held on Saturday 19 September at Riccarton High School. The students selected were Daniel Carlile (Year 8 Technology), Rosie Knight (Year 8 Science) Lauren Matthews, Sophie Stewart, Madi Tucker, Emma Bennett, Camille Perelini and Kahu Alexander (Year 7 Science). Our winners were Sophie, Madi and Daniel. !ASB Financial Literacy: The ASB GetWise programme is a fun and educational financial literacy programme run in New Zealand schools, to give young Kiwis some of the money skills and know-how they need later in life. The Senior Stars had an awesome session with our facilitator last Monday and learnt all about income, expenditure and saving. !Cup Cake Day: A HUGE thank you to Lauren and Rosie for organising a “Cup Cake Day.” This event raised $341.10 for the SPCA. A big thank you to Yvonne Gallagher, who sent out the notices home and helped with logistics. A MASSIVE thank you to Mutsuko Fuji, Rachel Knight, Sana Fuji and Ella Matthews who made LOADS of gorgeous cupcakes. A huge thank you to everyone who bought cupcakes! !Hip Hop: A snippet from a previous newsletter “Kahu Alexander and her advanced crew, "Redemption", entered into regionals on the weekend and ended up coming 1st in their section. This means they go to Nationals in Wellington in September. Some fantastic news…..Kahu’s dance crew competed at the Hop Hop Nationals in Wellington and came first and have qualified for World Championships to be held next year. !Careers Inquiry: We will be looking at Careers as a mini inquiry for the term. We will be looking at Letters of Applications, career pathways and I hope to ask some parents to come in and share with us what ‘a day in the life of ……’ might look like, so watch this space. We will be workshopping on narratives and letters of application as part of our Inquiry. !Star Week: Planning for this is just about finalised and programme looks really exciting. Monday: Horizons Unlimited at the Groynes (low ropes, high ropes and team building games)!Tuesday: Jellie Park (Swimming and Hydroslide Wednesday: Technology, ten pin bowling and Laser Strike Thursday: Christchurch Surf School (Beach Education and an introduction to surfing) Friday: Waipara Adventure Centre ( a range of action packed activities)

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Edition 13 19 October 2015

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In the Community

Afterschool programme - South LibraryA Girls Zone programme has been evolving at the South Library to a Makerspace environment that will allow students to explore a variety of creative, technology based mediums. This term we have some spaces and we would love to see it full.

Girls Zone at South LibraryThis dynamic and innovative workshop will explore 3D design, coding, robotics, photo editing, animations, music making and a whole lot more! (This programme runs over two terms.)

When: Mondays, 3.30 - 5.00pm (starting 19 October) Where: South LibraryAge: 10-13 yearsCost: $20 per child/term Contact: Gabrielle George t: 03 941 5140; e: [email protected]

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AquaGym  Hiring  now  !  

Fun  and  rewarding  work  with  a  great  team  of  people.  !

• Recep>onist/lifeguard  • Swimming  instructors    •  A  variety  of  part  >me  work  

available  during  school  hours.  !email  your  C.V.  to  

[email protected]  

Looking Ahead

PTFA Sausage Sizzle - Friday 23 OctoberPlease remember to bring your money ($2 per sausage) in a named envelope to the office before morning tea. It is really important that we receive the orders by this time, this is to ensure the PTFA have sufficient time to count the orders, and have all the sausages ready by lunchtime. There will not be sausages available for orders received at lunchtime while sausages are being handed out.

!We have the Clown Doctors visiting our assembly on Friday 23 October. They are going to share with us all that they do, and encourage us to support their charity by encouraging us all to sign up for Summer Starter!! !!!

!Free Theatre Christchurch (est. 1979) is New Zealand's longest running producer of experimental theatre. The professional company serves as an interdisciplinary performance laboratory where artists work together to create innovative, high quality, performance work. Free Theatre Christchurch presents a six-week course for Year 5 and 6 students that will explore a wide variety of theatre and performance skills, including puppetry, mask, circus skills, lighting and special effects, and sound and music-making.

Classes will be held in The Gym, the Art Centre's newly restored professional performance space - the first such space to reopen in the new Arts Centre after the Christchurch earthquakes.

Dates: Monday 19 Oct - Monday 30 Nov (no class on Labour Day)Location: The Gym, The Arts Centre, Worcester Boulevard,Time: 4pm - 5.30pm Cost: $120 per child for a six-week termFor more information, please email Emma at [email protected] or visit the website: www.freetheatre.org.nz/education.html.

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