Term 2 has begun!

Term 2 has started. Every first day of each term our school has a Powhiri. This is to welcome all the new children and staff to our school. It starts with a karanga (only done by females) and the visitors (new kids and staff) walk in and sit down. While this is happening our school is saying a chant. Matua Reg opens with karakia and we all sing a hymn. Once Matua Reg finishes welcoming the visitors, a man sitting with the visitors will say his reply. This is all said in te reo Maori. Whaea Moana (our acting tumuaki) will also say a small speech and greet everyone. Once this is complete, only the front row of visitors will come and shake hands or hongi with Matua Reg and our senior leadership team. Following our Powhiri, we also had a short ceremony for ANZAC day which was last week.

Here are a few videos of our powhiri:

Cultural Celebrations 2024

As part of our Weymouth Way kaupapa here at school, we held a cultural celebrations day. We encouraged all children of all cultural and ethnic background to dress up in their heritage clothing. For those that couldn’t we emphasised that wearing our school uniform is part of our school culture and were welcome to wear that too (which some did). Our school gathered under the large white sunshade and had performances from our Kapa Haka roopu and our Pasifika group. Every class got a chance to stand and walk around the rest of the school waving their flags. Two students from each class introduced the ethnic makeup of their class. Here are a few photos and videos from our celebration on Tuesday!

GRIP Student Leadership Conference 2024

Last week on Friday a group of 20 Year 6 children were involved in a leadership conference. It was run by the GRIP leadership organisation. When we arrived we found our seats and there were four sessions throughout the day. During and between each session students participated in: loud task games that involved lots of screaming. Other activities included: short skits that involved games and there were times throughout the day students had to get up and go and talk to students from other schools. Some of the things that we learned are: leadership involves sacrifice and helping others. We also had to think about ideas that are working well at our school and some things that need improving and our ideas to improve them. All of us came back feeling really encouraged about leadership and how we can help our school to be even better than before. Here are a few pics and videos from the day.

 

 

Rugby Boys League Training

On Wednesday it was our first after school Y5s and 6 boys rugby league training. First we ran some fitness drills which meant lots of running on the field every minute on the minute for five minutes. After a little rest, we had our ball handling skills of passing and catching. This also meant the boys had to run with the ball and pass the ball to the person behind us. The next drill was a defensive session. The boys had to try and stop the person running with the ball. It was a light run and practice. The last part of training was playing a game of stop the defender. Two boys had to run with the ball to try and score and the other two boys were the defenders. Their job was to stop the attacking team from scoring. We all had lots of fun and are looking forward to our next training session.

Maths Games

This week we have been learning some Maths Warm Up games. One is called Bowl a Fact and the other Blast Off! Bowl a Fact helps us with our basic addition and subtraction facts using two dice. You can click here to find out more about how to play. For the game Blast Off, you use two dice and draw up a rocket that has 7 squares vertically with a triangle at the top. In the bottom square, write 10 and in the triangle write 67. First player rolls the two dice and if you roll a 5 and 6 then you can choose 56 or 65 to write in one of the squares in your rocket and then it’s the next person’s turn. You can only write one number per roll. The main focus of this game is place value. The first person to fill in all their squares in sequential order from 10 to 67 yells “Blast Off” and is the winner. Here are some pics of the children playing Bowl a Fact or Blast Off! It was lots of fun.

Welcome Back to 2024

 

Kia ora! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday break and are ready for a great year of learning. There are lots of activities coming up this term: Swim safety, Waitangi Day, testing, celebrating Diversity Day, Tread Lightly, Easter and a whole lot of other things going on here at school. Watch this space for more!

That’s a wrap in 2023

What a year it has been! This term was a busy one with trips, testing, reports, Year 6 Legacy Art project and a trip to the theatre to watch High School Musical. We also had our school Prizegiving and Year 6 Graduation to farewell all the children moving on to Intermediate next year. The teachers and staff are so proud of all the Year 6 children and wish them all the best in 2024. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and a wonderful festive holiday!

Here are a few photos from the last week and a bit.

Rotoroa Island 2023

Earlier this term the Year 6 children (Rangi Team) had a previsit with Robyn and Charlie who are educators from Rotoroa Island. In week 6, Room 17 went on to the island on Monday and Rooms 18, 19 and 20 went on Tuesday. We had to be at school by 7am and were on the bus at 7.10am heading towards Auckland City wharf terminal. Part of our learning was around biosecurity and how to keep our natural reserves like Rotoroa Island safe. Everyone had to clean our shoes and Rosie the biosecurity dog came to check that there were no pests or insects in our bags.

The ferry trip took an hour and a half and we got to observe lots of surrounding islands on the way. Once there Robyn and her team divided us up into groups and off we went. We all got to see and experience the same parts of the island, just at different times. We saw parts of the old township that used to occupy the island. Rotoroa Island is owned by the Salvation Army and a long time ago it used to be a rehabilitation centre for people that were addicted to drugs and alcohol.

During the tour we got to see lots of native birds around. A rarity was a sighting of the Takahe. We also walked past a wetlands and a Pāteke (brown teal duck) swam across the pond. These were both special occasions because it doesn’t happen often. We walked up a hill and from the top we could see Waiheke Island and even the Coromandel in the distance.

All classes met up on the beach called Ladies Bay for lunch. From their we split off into groups and the activities were: exploring and looking closely at all living things on the rocks, using magnifying glasses to look closely at bugs in the bush and on the shoreline and the last task was drawing on the sand.

Rotoroa Island is a beautiful place and our children were very lucky to have gone there. Check out some of our videos below:

 

Counties Manukau Games 2023

This term our school took part in the Counties Manukau Games at Bruce Pulman Park in Papakura. It was a three day tournament with many sports happening. This year our school entered 5 different sports: Kiwi Tag, Touch Rugby, Mixed Netball, Volleyball and Baseketball teams (boys and girls). Our team all did an amazing job coming away with lots of wins. Our mixed netball team came 1st and were undefeated. Here are some photos and videos from the day: