Our Production
Every two years our senior school does a stage production.
We have made some changes this year, mainly due to the uncertainty around putting things on and bearing in mind how many things have been canceled. So we have decided to do a movie. We would like to do an auditorium screening of this movie with our families and if we have to wait until we are allowed to gather, then a movie will give us that opportunity.
The other change is the whole school will participate and every child will be in it.
We are in a moment in time where we are about to demolish our existing senior block and rebuild. So our movie will be based on St Joseph's school and the school will feature in it a lot. It will be about our students and their learning journeys, about our families and the places we have all come from, from all over the world, to be here, it will be about Oamaru and the beautiful Waitaki region we live in and it will be about our faith. In a way the movie will be like a time capsule and we will be able to capture this moment in time.
Similar to our "Children's Museum," last year and the work in our local area that went behind that learning, this is about defining what is precious to us and making a platform from which we can build the future.
Movie-making is a literary genre of its own with its own vocabulary, processes and lines of creativity. So we will not be approaching it like a stage production that we film. From the outset we are teaching the children movie-making techniques so that we approach this like movie-makers.
I have been talking with Bridget and Maddy from "Films in Schools," and they will be helping us with some of the teaching of film-making techniques for our older students.
We really hope you get excited and support us with this project. Soon (or maybe already) you will be hearing from one of the teachers for your input on something you think is important to your culture that could/should be included as an image in our movie.
Also each child will be saying a greeting, e.g. "Hello, how are you?" in their own language. Please help them at home so that they can do this confidently.
We particularly focus on shining the light on our intermediate students in our biannual production and our intermediate students will be taking lead roles either in acting, or in music, or in the film-making technology that goes behind the scenes. They started last term and are already well down the track in developing their skills.
Our production has a working title, "Let Your Light Shine."
Reporting this term
This term we will continue with "real time" reporting in Educa. This term you will receive reports on reading, maths and performing arts. These will consist of a post from your child and a teacher comment with a curriculum link so you can see how they are doing with regard to expectations. The teachers are managing this so that it best suits in with their classroom program and progress so different classes will get these reports at different times during the term. By the end of term you should have received all three.
Board Elections
Please note we have Board elections coming up for this year. Our parent representatives are Vic Forrest, Samara Allardice, Sharni Cunningham and Andy Bradley. We have a vacancy for a parent representative. If you think you would be interested, have a chat with me about attending a board meeting, and/or have a chat with one of our board members. Rebecca Laming is also a Board member as a Bishop's Representative.
Art
Hoiho have been busy this week investigating texture in painting.
Ma te Atua e manaaki a aroha,
(God bless, and love)
Lorraine
