Well, it truly feels like winter at the moment.  I am glad that we have our new classroom heat pump installed so that the children and teachers are toasty warm while we are teaching and learning.  The children still love to get outside as much as they can and enjoy the frosty mornings to look for ice and jump in the frozen puddles.

 

 

Learning Data

Our mid-year achievement data is completed for reading, writing, mathematics, and oral language.  We are doing really well for this part of the year.

The data shows that in reading 50% of our students are where we would expect them to be for this time of the year.  37.5 % need extra work to get them moving forward in the reading and 12.5% are exceeding the expectations for their age.

To make sure all our children are achieving to the best of their ability reading needs to happen every day at school and at home.  The children take home reading bags every night with a new reading book to practice. Some children have high-frequency words to learn and they all either have spelling words to practice every night or alphabet sounds to learn. Please make sure your children are taking their book bag out and someone is helping them to do their homework. By doing this it reinforces what we are doing at school. We see fast progress with the students that do this consistently. There is good evidence to show that reading to a child is just as important as having them read to you.

Start young and stay with it ( readingrockets.org)

At just a few months of age, an infant can look at pictures, listen to your voice, and point to objects on d objects, your child will learn the importance of language. cardboard pages. Guide your child by pointing to the pictures, and say the names of the various objects. By drawing attention to pictures and associating the words with both pictures and real-world

Children learn to love the sound of language before they even notice the existence of printed words on a page. Reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word. When the rhythm and melody of language become a part of a child’s life, learning to read will be as natural as learning to walk and talk.

Even after children learn to read by themselves, it’s still important for you to read aloud together. By reading stories that are on their interest level, but beyond their reading level, you can stretch young readers’ understanding and motivate them to improve their skills

 

Mathematics and Writing

We are doing exceptionally well in these areas. All of our students are either where I would expect them to be for their age or above their expected level.  The results told me that we are very good at our basic facts ( counting, adding, and subtracting. We are starting to make good understandings of multiplication and division) . At the moment we are learning about shapes, Next term we will be focussing on measurement. Keep giving your children math problems to do at home around everyday situations ie; if I had 27 cows in the paddock and moved 16 into another paddock, how many will I have left in the first paddock? or .. if I have 7 pairs of socks in this basket, how many socks are in the basket altogether?

We are going to go online with some of our writing next term. Write That Essay is a program that a lot of schools are working on at the moment and having really good results with. It is interactive with great graphics to engage young learners. The program is constantly assessing the writing students are doing and prompting them with ideas. Check it out at  www.writethatessay.org

Oral Language

It was interesting to complete the oral language assessment recently. The test involved the teacher reading a short sentence and having the student repeat it back.  I noticed that a lot of our children had real trouble repeating the sentence back when it was over 10 words. For example;  “the big dog over there is barking loudly at the green car” the children would say things like “the dog barking at the car”.   I am attending a course soon that will look at our oral language data to plan oral language lessons for all of our students.  We will also be collating our data across all schools in Taupo to see links, gaps, and inform our teaching.

Individual school reports will come home on the last day of term.

Last Day of Term Trip 3rd July.

We are off on our excursion on the last day of term. We will take two cars, (Mrs. Devonports and mine) and visit all the students’ houses. We won’t be coming inside but will take a photo of each child standing at their gate. We will also have our lunch at the Tavern so we will require $6 per student for takeaways, please.  As this day will also be a farewell for Mrs. Devonport we invite you to school at 2 pm to help us farewell her.

Term 3 

Term 3 starts on Monday the  20th of July. Our unit for the term will be based on ‘My World’.  The board has planned a ladies’ evening at school so watch out for that in July. We also have to have a community social night in term 3 to christen the new outdoor area.

If you know of anyone that would like to join our school board we would love to hear from you. The board meets once a month in the staffroom from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm.  You are welcome to come along and see what it is all about. The next meeting is on the 29th of July.  The minutes of each meeting are kept in the staffroom in a folder if you would ever like to read them.

Taupo Winter Festival 

If you are stuck for something to do in the school holidays why not try out the ice rink or ice slide.

 

 

• Date: Friday 3 July – Sunday 19 July
• Time: Open daily
• Location: Tongariro North Domain
• Price: From $7.50 (book onsite during operating hours or at the link below)

Get ready for this one Taupo! This 33m long ice slide will have you smiling from ear to ear!

It’s been a long time between slides, but we have it back in Taupo and it will promise a whole lot of fun!

Strap on your helmet and experience the thrill of hurtling down the ice at top speeds.

Fun for the whole family.

Pricing is 3 rides for $7.50 and 5 rides $9.50. After 6pm $6 for 5 rides

 

 

 

Nga mihi

Andrea Haycock

Principal