Friday 1 September 2017

1. Principal's News Week 6, Term 3 2017

God Loves Us by Charlie Bremner

This is a piece of unedited (but proofread) writing by Charlie Bremner, year 2.  This exemplifies the culture we are striving to build in our school:

Thank you God for making the green grass that’s soft too.  I can see the beautiful yellow flowers.  I can see some trees with green bushy leaves.  I can see some wood on some brown trees.  Beautiful people that have different coloured skin but it doesn’t matter what country they come from - China, Indonesia, Tonga, or England.  It doesn’t matter what they look like at all because God made all of us.

Mission Money
Molly, our head girl, Special Character has been asking where the Mission Money goes to. Good question Molly, here's the answer composed by Mrs Rzepecky:

The money you bring in each weeks goes to MissioNZ. 

MissioNZ use the donations they receive to help missionaries to spread God’s word throughout the world, give food to the needy, supply children’s school needs, construct chapels, churches and schools, provide transport for missionaries in remote areas and work with Dioceses with little resources.
The money goes to such countries as:
Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands ,Thailand ,Vietnam, Ethiopia, Malawi.


Parking
The use of the drop and drive is much more functional now and people are able to come and go quite quickly. Thank you for your support with this.

We have had a complaint from a neighbour though. Please do not park across the driveways across the road from school. A disabled man lives in one of the houses and is reliant on transport picking him up. If someone is parked across the drive he can't be picked up and misses appointments. Thanks.

WordLab Spelling
All staff attended an in-depth training session on this on Tuesday evening. It was really good to meet other schools from Oamaru who have been using the program a bit longer than us. They are finding an increase in spelling performance. Lower spellers increase their ability and proficient spellers become better through understanding etymology (where words come from) and morphology (structures and patterns in words) which enables them to branch from the known into the unknown. I'm hoping to find the same results with our spellers.

This program is different from the traditional spelling practice of sending lists home with the expectation that they were rote learnt and the majority of spelling work happened at home. Our approach believes school is the place where spelling is systematically taught and practiced. There are extra practice activities for the words learnt at school which the teachers will have shared with you by email. If you have not received them and want them please ask the teacher.

Tackle Rugby
Are there any parents who are available at a lunchtime to supervise tackle rugby? You would need an understanding of safe tackling.

Absences
Please notify the office of any absences before 9.00 am. If we don't have a reason we don't have any choice but to put it down as a truancy absence, so please give us a reason. In the unlikely and dreadful scenario where a child has been abducted or something has happened to them, the office has a lot of people to ring up and locate so it takes longer to identify something has gone wrong.

The only justified absences are close bereavement or sickness. Dental/doctor visits have their own code and are justified. In some special cases the principal can justify an absence but this has to be requested. An example might be to visit a dying relative or to participate in a high level sporting or cultural event as a one off occurrence. The office can't justify these, they need to be requested off the principal in advance. Holidays or other leisure trips during term time are not justified but the school still needs to be informed and we put these down as "explained unjustified absence." Please do your best to organise these things during school holiday times as they do affect learning.

We get checked and have to get it right. So please communicate with us fully and early. Thanks.

Presentations at this week's assembly
Icas certificates - years 4-6
Year 4-6 school council badges
Miniball skills trophy.

God Bless and Aroha
Lorraine Frances-Rees


No comments:

Post a Comment