Friday 26 March 2010

Burnham is a Sun Smart School

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Today we became one of only approximately 20% of New Zealand schools who are recognised as sun smart schools by the Cancer Society of New Zealand. Here are some photos of Cheryl from the Cancer Society giving us the award and the two trees we've planted to recognise this:

Thank you to Linda Sweeny who supported our application for this award!

Thursday 25 March 2010

Burnham School Values and Skills

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Below is a slideshow depicting the top-rated values and the top-rated skills parents felt were most important for our children:
What do you think?

Check out our new Rugby/Soccer goal posts

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The installation of our new rugby/soccer goal posts has been a big task and has been 'on the list' of developments at Burnham School for a while now.We are deeply thankful to the following people who have helped install our new rugby/soccer goal posts:
  1. Paul Kissel - Paul is an alumni who attended last years 125th celebrations with his wife Heather. Paul has donated his time and earth moving and welding equipment to dig the holes, align and position the posts. 
  2. Dave Auton - Dave works with Paul and donated a day of work to us in helping install the posts.
  3. Greg Fagg - Greg is a new parent to our community, Jasmine his daughter has started in Room 1. Greg supported the men when installing and welding the posts.
  4. Andrew Fleck - Andrew has Ayden and Kieran at the school. Andrew also helped install the posts.
Right now Andrew, Paul and Dave are also on our Year 5/6 camp at Ngati Moki marae. We had some difficulty finding enough adults to ensure the safety of the children and so these wonderful men have donated another 3 days and 2 nights of their time in support of our school.

The photo below shows a lovely example the day after installation of how the posts are attracting the children before school and during break times to play and be active.

Thank you guys, we are very appreciative of your support.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

BOT Elections

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Here is the advert that is going in the local papers advertising our upcoming BOT Elections:

The timeline is on the community calendar as follows:

  1. 23 April nominations close noon.
  2. 7 May voting closes.
  3. 14 May new BOT takes office.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Year 5/6 Camp volunteers urgently required

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Volunteers Urgently Needed to Assist at Year 5/6 Camp 
Our Year 5 and 6s are heading out to Ngati Moki Marae (near Lake Ellesmere) on Wednesday 24 March at 4pm and returning Friday 26 March by 3pm. 

Adult volunteers are urgently required to supervise children and assist teachers. We need two more adults otherwise we face having to cancel the camp if we cannot get enough adults to make the ratio of adults to children. We will be deciding whether to proceed with this camp today.

The school will provide transport to and from the Marae as well as all meals.  Good clean fun and lots of laughs guaranteed. Please call the office on 347 6851 this morning if you can assist.



Rugby/Soccer Goal Posts - Volunteers required Friday between 11.30-1pm
We have new goal posts going in tomorrow and Paul Kissell and Andrew Fleck (the kind men leading this installation) require a couple of able-bodied adults to assist with holding the posts in place while they are lined up/etc. If you can help please call the office on 347 6851 or turn up after 11.30am on the school field (Burrows Field end of the school). Thank you.



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Burnham School Photos - sibling photo option

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Our school photos this year are being conducted by a new company - Andy Currie Photography. This is an exciting change from last year and we hope families will love the new photos produced. You will get a choice of traditional or contemporary shots of your child(ren). School photos for classes and individuals will be on Monday 29th March.

Families can choose whether they want siblings, including preschoolers, to be included in a photo. These photos will be on Tuesday 30th March, from 9-12pm. If you would like to take advantage of this additional service you need to complete a form letting Trish know.

The form to request a sibling photo is coming out in today's newsletter and can be downloaded here...

Trish needs this form back by Monday please.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Curriculum Research Interim Results

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I'm pleased to provide you with our interim results from our curriculum survey from our recent Meet The Teacher evening. These results show us what parents felt were the most important values and skills we want for our tamariki in the future. They give us insight into what we, as a community, believe to be most important to develop in our children.

This data is generated from responses by approximately 54 adults and a couple of children. This means that while it represents a large proportion of our community, it is not everyone. An important next step for us is to see what the students themselves think and for you to comment on this blog post - do you agree or not and (most importantly) why?

Below is the table showing the sorted results, we will represent this graphically so it is 'prettier' to view:


If you have not contributed to this data and want to, please download/print and hand in this form or email your votes for the four values and four skills to principal@burnham.school.nz (1 = most important). This may change the results!

Saturday 13 March 2010

Arthur's Pass Camp

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Class camps are underway and last week I had the pleasure of being part of the Room 6 camp at Arthur's Pass. This was a great opportunity for me to spend some quality time with our senior students and some of their parents as they explored the outdoors and developed important concepts/skills including:
  • Teamwork
  • Leadership
  • Communication
  • Cooperation
  • Self-esteem
All credit must go acknowledge the awesome work of Linda Sweeny and her team of dedicated parent helpers! Here are some of the photos from this fantastic experience:

Already you can enjoy some of the reflections, recounts and anecdotes from the team in Room 6 by clicking this link: http://burnhamrm6.blogspot.com/search/label/camp I encourage you to provide students with some postive feedback on their writing and experiences at Arthur's Pass 2010!

Thursday 11 March 2010

Wananga Taiaha 2010

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Here is an awesome opportunity for our children - the 2010 Wānanga Taiaha course which is held during Easter weekend.

Click this link to download the brochure as a PDF document.

Registrations for this close Friday 20 March.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Celebration Assembly Expectations

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Our aim is to involve more children in the decisions behind various aspects of how the school is run - assemblies and hui being one aspect of this.

Based on feedback from last year the entire school have come up with some ideas for how we'd like to develop our school Celebration Assemblies.

Below are the initial ideas for how we will develop this very special time to show off the great learning we are up to: 

Burnham School Celebration Assembly

What makes an 
awesome Celebration Assembly?


  • Difference
  • Funny
  • Listening to the speaker
  • Decorate the hall for your classes Celebration Assembly
  • National Anthem, Karakia, Singing, Certificates

How should we start?

  • Enter with something happening - singing a song
  • Quietly
  • Classes wait outside hall before coming in
  • Teachers to decide
How should we finish?
  • Wait for your teacher 
  • Karakia
What should we expect during it?

Do we need to sit the same way?
  • Work towards choosing where we want to sit 
  • As long as we're quiet
  • Host of Assembly decide on where each class sits/Explore different ways to sit

Thursday 4 March 2010

Newsletter Term 1 Week 5 2010

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Dear parents/whanau,

Our latest newsletter is now online at this link. Included in this edition is:

  • Swimming sports
  • Triathlon
  • A plea for more people to pay their school donation
  • The hot air balloon comes to Burnham School!!! IF the weather doesn't turn to custard tomorrow!
  • ICAS tests if you/your child wants to take part
  • Principal's Award and The Boot
  • Canterbury University research project for Y6s and Y8s
  • EnviroGroup Update
  • PTA Update - come on, sell some Entertainment Books and buy some lamingtons and cheesecakes!!!
  • BOT Elections Update
  • Guitar lessons update

Wow - we are really 'cooking'!

Rob

Shark Drive - great recount by Xavier Room 2

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I couldn't resist putting this great recount by Xavier in Room 2 onto my blog for you to enjoy. Well done Xavier!

Shark Drive
I went hunting for a great white shark.We saw a shark lurking in the dark blue water. It was a dot in the water at first but when it got closer I saw it ferocious teeth in the distance. It's fin was like a knife. The shark was swimming as fast as a rocket. When it saw the food floating on top of the water it took only two massive bites to shallow it.

The food was gone it wanted more. I throw Taylor overboard. Then the shark crunched on the cage like it was it's breakfast.

I saw it teeth that looked like blades...

Parenting Tip - Play and Pack Up

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I have a confession when writing this tip - this is something my wife Angela and I do at home which we believe helps our Isabella learn to become independent, but we also do it for our own sanity! Given that, we got this trick from our nanny and I think it is a real cracker.

Whenever our child is playing with lots of toys we get her to pack up one toy before bringing out the next. Over time this encourages her to tidy as she goes. She is now, at three, starting to do this by herself. It has taken quite a lot of work from Angela and myself as well as consistency between us.

As a classroom teacher, it can be hard work when children do not know how to tidy or pack up after themselves, of course, Isabella having two teachers for parents is possibly a tricky one in some ways!!

Schools run on goodwill

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All schools in New Zealand ask for annual donations to supplement the funding provided by the Ministry of Education. While these payments are a donation, they can potentially make a huge difference to our school. 
Because our school is rated as a decile 9, this means we receive almost the least amount of funding that a school can receive. In the past couple of years, the Board of Trustees have not raised the donation amount we ask from each family. 


Last year the percentage of donations our school received was 40% of what we could potentially receive and so I am keen to see if we can lift this in order to give us more funds to support learning. Please consider making your school donation via automatic payment to our bank account as follows: 
Bank Number: 03 0767 0335463 00 
Reference: donation 
Particulars: childname

Burnham School is taking learning to new heights

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The 'surprise' is coming to Burnham School tomorrow from 1pm. We plan on having a tethered flight and allowing a selection of students from each class participate. Students are nominating others in their class who they know have been working hard to follow their class agreements, from these names will come the names of students who will get the chance to go 'up' in the 'surprise'. 

This is a supervised whole-school activity with professionals who know what they are doing with regards to safety. The pilot will also talk to the students about how the 'surprise' works. If you are not comfortable with your child taking part in this experience, please let your class teacher know. 

Those of you whose emails I have should already know this (if you need to update us please email admin@burnham.school.nz). All fingers crossed for great weather tomorrow!