Taiaha Wananga - Easter Weekend

Here are the registration, medical and brochures for the Taumutu Easter Weekend wananga

1. Outside Brochure
2. Inside Brochure
3. Rego + Medical Form

We had two of our boys attend the last wananga and they had a fantastic time!

Preparation for Learning Conferences

Dear parents/caregivers,

There are two things that parents/caregivers need to do for our Learning Conferences this Wed/Thurs:

1. Book the conference by going to: www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and putting in school code of: PGKF2.
2. Complete the 3 Wishes Survey which feeds into our goal setting.

The chart below shows the number of responses to our 3 Wishes Survey. As you can see, this part of the preparation for our Learning Conferences this Wednesday and Thursday is well underway. Please ensure you've completed this survey prior to the conference as your class teacher will be checking and using this information to help formulate goals with your child.



I will be emailing those who have yet to complete the survey this afternoon. We'd love to see all children at the conference, if you or your teacher wishes to have a private chat about your child's learning, they will be asked to wait outside.

We are also planning on getting you to check your contact details while you wait for your conference outside the classroom.

PTA AGM postponed until July 6th

Dear parents,

Our PTA Annual General Meeting is postponed until Wednesday 6th July @ 6.30pm. We are investigating whether we can offer the Parent Seminar Coping with Stress with Captain Jay McClean on this new date. Flyers are coming out today.

Linton Camp School Donation - feedback please

We recently received a very kind donation from the community of Linton Camp School in the North Island. This is to support the children and staff as they recover from the affects of the earthquake. We've given the responsibility of deciding how this money will be spent to the Student Leadership Council, who would like your feedback. They have a form which we'd love you to fill in, which is linked off the school web site under the 'Leadership' area. This form will also be posted through our facebook page for quick access. Please give the children some feedback and thoughts to help their decision.

Positive Communication

Recently I posted about Encouraging Positive Behaviour, with a focus on how to deal with bullying. This week I'd like to discuss how we encourage another important aspect of our positive school culture: parents dealing with concerns. Issues, challenges, misunderstandings and conflict are a natural and important part of any community and how we deal with these will help our young people to become emotionally intelligent and effective communicators.


We believe that positive communication to the right person at the right time AND in the right forum will strengthen our relationship and put us in the best possible position to make learning even better for our children.


With this in mind, our guidelines for parents or adults who may have any concerns is to always: "...contact the person involved and discuss the matter. We ask that parents approach the staff member concerned directly, and as soon as possible, to prevent issues escalating or remaining unresolved". 


In the actual procedure document (p.1 of the handout) you'll notice it is worded guidelines for dealing with a complaint. This wording is somewhat negative as it may only be a niggle or a worry or concern, whereas a complaint is something that should happen after informal discussion has not resolved the issue.


In today's digital world, email is sometimes easy and quick, however we find that dealing with issues via email is never as effective as face to face dialogue. Please know we welcome your feedback and I encourage you to email if you can't come in and alert the staff member that you need to talk. That way we can make a time for you to come in or call. This information is in our Welcome Information Booklet as well as our web site.


If ever you find an issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, my door is always open and I encourage you to use our complaints procedure if you need to. My role is to facilitate quality dialogue and resolution so we can improve learning.

Mothers Day Contest

Calling all children and teens to enter the Twice is Nice Mothers Day Contest and possibly win a great gift to give to mum on her special day.

 

In 25 words or less complete this sentence: My mum is special because...

Mums and Dads please feel free to strongly encourage your children to enter the contest and to assist younger children with the writing. There are some lovely prizes! One entry per child or teen.

 

Return completed sentence to Twice is Nice shop or to Community Services Office or internal post to Cherie Mansell, our lovely Community Services Officer (CSO) by Thursday 5th of May. Please be sure to have your name, age and contact telephone number on your submission. If you do not live in Burnham Camp please put parents work extension number on the submission so we can get the prize to you prior to Mothers Day. Winners will be telephoned on the 6th of May.

ANZAC Speech 2011

Well done Hannah and Shalagh for this speech:

Here is our ANZAC speech for 2011 to honour this important occasion. Click here to view the speech.

Parent Talk Time - Korero Mai "Coping with Stress"

Our thanks to Dr Jay McClean for his time and expertise in leading last weeks first Parent Talk Time session. Click here to download Jay's notes from the session.

During this session, Dr Jay covered a number of fascinating and informative ideas relating to stress:

• What is stress? Good and bad stress.
• How stress affects performance.
• Indicators of stress
• Stress management techniques.

If you would like us to offer this session one evening, please let us know and we'll see what we can do.

Parent Talk Time - Coping with Stress

Mathletics Update

Our senior students are very excited about their new mathletics accounts. Students are coming in before school to play against each other, practise skills and improve. Many students are gaining certificates already.

Parents - did you know you can get a weekly update of your child's work from Mathletics? Follow these steps:

1. Go to: www.mathletics.co.nz/parent
2. Enter your child's username and password (if you don't have this email your class teacher to find out).
3. Enter your email address (parent email).
4. An activation email will be sent to you, follow the instructions in this email to set up weekly alert

Here are some  quotes from a recent newsletter about Mathletics:

"Mathletics is fun because I get lots of gold bars!" CJ 

"Mathletics is awesome because you learn heaps!" Tiaan

"Mathletics is a fun way to learn maths!" Sophie

"It inspires kids to have fun while doing maths!" Alexander

"You don't have to be Albert Einstein to play mathletics!" Jade

"Because you can verse other people and it's competitive." Ruby-Jay

"It warms up your brain for maths!" Rebekah

"Mathletics is as fun as playing sport, and that is fun!" Trinity