Dear Parents
Welcome. We hope your child has had an enjoyable first day back and they have brought home lots of news and new learning. Some dates have changed since the last newsletter in 2015 so we ask that you read this letter carefully.
The Senior Team teachers for this year are:
Room 2 Mrs F. Chilvers Year 5
Room 18 Ms L. Corderoy Year 6
Room 19 Mrs R. Griffin Year 6
Room 4 Ms J. Redpath Year 5 (Team Leader)
Room 1 Mrs K. Riach Year 5 & 6
Room 3 Mrs R. Wilshire Year 5
The School Day
Bell Times are:
8.30 am Enter classrooms (Prior to this time early children have to remain seated outside their classrooms)
8.50 am School commences
10.30am – 10.50am Morning tea
12.30 – 12.45pm Lunch – seated
12.30 – 1.25pm Lunch/Playtime/Extra Curriculum Activities
1.25pm Return to class, use toilet, drink water, return sports equipment
1.30pm Afternoon programme begins
3.00pm School ends
Please note: For student safety, if your child is sick/absent or going to be late for the day, it is important that you phone the school office by 8.50 am. Our office takes absent children very seriously. You can now also send an email the school on the new school website (www.bbps.school.nz under the heading ‘parents’.)
Lunches/Morning Tea: All students sit and eat from 12.30 -12.45pm. They are encouraged to make healthy choices and to take wrappers home. Each classroom has a worm bin for scraps located inside the classroom. (Worms however, do not like dairy products, citrus or meat.)
Due to corridor congestion all children are encouraged to have a healthy snack that is easily carried outside. We encourage lunchboxes to be left in bags until lunchtime. We also encourage the use of water bottles in the summer months.
New Library: Each class will be allocated a library time and the children will be allowed to borrow four books over a period of a fortnight. Two books can go home and two stay in the classroom. Please can you ensure that your child is prepared with their school library bag on their library day. (Books can be also changed in the lunch hour). There will be an official library opening at 11 am on 22nd February.
Lunches: From the second week we will have an exciting new lunch menu. Pita Pit will be on Wednesdays, Thursday and Fridays will be the new school menu. Parents will be required to make their daily orders online, no money is to be sent to school. Please look out for more information, which will be sent home this week. All food for morning tea must be brought from home as the food will be delivered just before lunch. The new menu looks very appealing.
Free Milk: Free Fonterra milk will be supplied to all children on Mondays. If your child is new to the school, please ensure that you have signed a permission form to allow them to become a part of this programme.
School Reminders
- Hats must be worn outside this term No Hat, No Play
- Please name all uniform items, hats, drink bottles with a permanent marker
- No jewellery is to be worn (Only plain studs in pierced ears are allowed and wrist watches)
- No toys or trading cards. Please keep these at home to enjoy as we cannot be responsible for any loss or damage of personal items brought to school. (Cell phones must stay in school bags and only be used after school hours.)
- Due to food allergies it is school policy that children do not bring food treats to school for any other students. e.g. birthday lollies/cake.
‘Getting to Know Your Child’ Conferences
These meetings will take place after school on the afternoons of the 23rd/24th/25th February. More information will follow explaining how to book online. Please remember to bring along the booklet that is being sent home with your child this week. We are looking forward to finding more out about your child. Teachers can also be approached before school about day-to-day issues. The teachers are involved in meetings directly after school every Monday and Tuesday. Team Leaders also have a Wednesday meeting after school.
Puberty Talk
Parents of our Year 6 girls are reminded of the puberty meeting (17th March) with the Life Education Co-ordinator at 7 pm. The girls will have a follow up class session the following day.
Homework/E-learning
Your child’s teacher will clearly outline the expectations for this term. Homework is based around Mathletics, basic facts, daily reading, spelling and where appropriate, inquiry learning. As we are developing our e-learning skills this is becoming an integral part of the homework. All senior classes are now using Google Docs/Sites and will be uploading work to the new school website under “Student Voice”. http://www.bbps.school.nz/. There will be instructions attached to the site for parents. Parents will be able to subscribe so they get email alerts when new work by their child/ren is uploaded. Parents will also have opportunities to comment online.
E –learning with iPad lessons
The Senior School will continue to have e-learning lessons with the support of David Kinane, our e-learning expert. The teachers have had further professional development last week. It is very apparent that our knowledge of the use of iPads is constantly growing and they are being used in meaningful ways to extend and support our learning. All students should have returned a signed BYOD agreement within the first week. The E-Learning Guidelines are available to read on the school website.
Spelling/Word study
Our spelling programme will be based on the Joy Allcock spelling programme. This programme follows the most up-to-date spelling research and focuses on learning about sounds, rules, patterns, parts of words, origins of words and encourages the children to personally inquire into words and how they are spelt, rather than graded spelling lists. We encourage you to talk about the words your child brings home and encourage them to think of other words that follow the same pattern or rule.
Mathletics
In order to enrol in the Mathletics Home Learning programme all children are asked to pay $30.00. (This is included on your school donation request form.) This online programme is particularly successful as it is based on the NZ curriculum, it allows all children to be working at their correct ability level, it gives instant feedback and for motivation, it also allows our students to compete against students from other schools. Each time we have a team assembly we will be giving certificates for the two students in each class who receive the highest score for the week.
Student Council
Last year our Student Council was instrumental in creating a student voice in our school. The students had many great ideas and took part in supporting change. The new lunch menu and soccer goal posts are examples of this. This year each class will have a representative nominated from their class to share ideas about school issues. Those students who are Whanau leaders and Enviro leaders will also take an active part in these meetings.
Whanau Leadership Day
We congratulate our Year 6 students who have been elected as Whanau leaders. They will participate in a Leadership training session on the 24th February and will learn about the habits of highly effective leaders.
School PE Programme
The children will be taught Physical Education skills on Thursdays by Mrs Trotter. On this day, all children are required to wear their coloured whanau T-shirts, shorts (which are not school shorts) and a sun hat. If your child has an illness and cannot participate please send a note to your child’s teacher on the day. All sports gear should be clearly named. We encourage children to apply sunblock before school every day and especially on sports days.
- At present our school is in a transition stage and is working towards a new sports uniform in March. If your child has outgrown their current sports uniform, please send them to school with a personal pair of shorts and top as a temporary measure.
School Trips
Swimming: We are pleased to say our school pool is up and running again this year. The children will have regular class swimming sessions. (Please see the timetable at the back of this newsletter). We also have a swimming professional from Swimsafe NZ working with our students on the 15th– 17th February, the swimming timetable will be different on these days. Children will need their swimsuit, towel, goggles and optional swim cap. Please remember we have our school swimming sports at Howick Intermediate on 26th Feb (Saving day 29th Feb). The cost of $5.00 is to cover the cost of the bus and the hire of the pool. If you would like to volunteer to help on this day please see Ms Corderoy in Room 18.
Year 5 EOTC Day: Year 5 will be experiencing an Education Outside The Classroom (EOTC) Surf Safety trip at Red Beach on the 4th March. Knowledge of sea safety is an important issue for New Zealand children as we are never far from the sea. Please note that your child will need to be at school at 7 am and will return to school by 5 pm. It is important that all parents return the form attached to this newsletter. We will require a high number of parent volunteers for safety reasons.
Year 6 Camp: We have been fortunate to book Lakewood Lodge for the second time and all Year 6 students will attend camp in the second term. All Year 6 parents are asked to attend a pre trip meeting at 6pm on the 25th February.
Softball: There will be a softball competition on the 23rd March. (Saving day 25th). We encourage children to trial for this team.
Enviro: This year our school will be going for the Green Gold Reflection Award.
We will have the “Tread Lightly” Caravan parked at our school for a week from the 7th March. The charge will be $2.50 per child.
Sailing: This term our Year 6 students will have the opportunity to attend a sailing session run by Bucklands Beach Yacht Club at Little Bucks. The dates are as follows:
- 1st March Room 18 12.00 – 3.00 pm
- 2nd March Room 19 12.00 – 3.00 pm
- 3rd March Room 1 12.00 – 3.00 pm
We are always keen to have lots of our parents attend these afternoons. We are very fortunate to have the expertise of the members of Bucklands Beach Yacht Club and to be walking distance from the venue.
Weetbix Tryathlon: The Weetbix Tryathlon will occur on the 21st February at St Heliers. The school has now closed registrations for this event. A letter will go out to all students attending. Ms Redpath is in charge of this event and will be there on the day with the school gazebo. Look for our school sign.
Tip Top Schools: This fun day will occur on the Sunday 3rd April. Mrs Chilvers will be notifying the students closer to the time and they will be able to collect a newsletter from her with details.
Curriculum
Unit Of Inquiry for Term 1
This year we will start with a new unit with both a Science and Social Studies focus.
The Central Idea will be: Water is an essential and finite resource.
We will inquire into
- water as part of the earth’s natural system,
- the earth’s water needs
- water as a finite resource
- human’s impact on water
Our inquiry lessons will begin this first week. Mrs Sally Smith from Watercare will be conducting 3 sessions with each class. The first session will include experimentation as to how to make a water filter and a drama lesson based on the water cycle. The second session will prepare the students in order to collect and analyse water samples from the local Macleans reserve stream. The third session will be a practical fieldtrip to the stream and then lastly Sally will spend some time discussing with the students the outcomes of the fieldtrip. Sally is a terrific tutor so we know the experiences will be very valuable and will hopefully extend our students’ scientific knowledge. Beyond this we will be inquiring into water issues both nationally and internationally. If you have any other interesting ideas or you have contacts with a water expert, please let us know. Please encourage your child to look in the online newspaper to find relevant articles/issues (s)he can share with the class.
*Please note that the students will be walking to and from the stream and we would like a lot of parent support as the children learn more when they work in small groups. It is important that all students return the attached permission form ASAP as the field trips start next week.
Parent Volunteers Welcome
We will be endeavouring to learn more about the Treaty of Waitangi and also Chinese New Year.
If you would like to visit your child’s class and share about your culture, you are most welcome.
Korean Visitors
Today we have had 17 Korean students arrive. They will be shared throughout the Year 5 and Year 6 classes. As we have had previous visits, the students are now starting to become more familiar with Korean culture and some simple Korean greetings.
Maths
Our Maths Programme for the first term will cover the strands below.
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Place Value and Sequence
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Volume/Capacity Reading Scales
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Addition and Subtraction
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Statistics
Measurement Turns, Time, Timetables & Charts
(Including tide charts to fit with Science) |
Reading: Our Senior School is fortunate to have the CSI Reading Programme. Using this programme and other resources our students will be engaged in meaningful discussions about texts, focusing in particular on finding key ideas and details; using evidence from the text to justify thinking; critically analysing the text’s language, structure, point of view, and purpose; drawing meaning from information in different formats (diagrams, pictures, graphs etc) and engaging in discipline-specific literacy practices including cooperative learning.
Written Language: Our Written Language for this term will focus on writing Procedures and Descriptions. This will connect with our reading and unit of inquiry around water and scientific experimentation.
Science/Enviro: This term the Senior Team will be involved in supporting the University of Otago with their Marine Metred Square programme. By joining Mm2 we will find out more about shore life, collect valuable scientific information about the distribution and abundance of seashore animals and plants, and compare other regions. It is designed to make us think and ask questions related to sustainability and the environment. In order to participate our students will walk from school to the end of the Peninsula and back. The students will then set up 1m x 1m square patches and record data which will be uploaded to the official website.
More information will come out closer to the time. This will be in the later part of this term. The day will be chosen according to tides. If you have any marine knowledge we would love to have you there.
Paying Online
All payments for trips etc can be made online. Go to “Parent Shop” and pay on “Wrap it Up”.
We look forward to seeing you involved with our programme this term.
To our Chinese families we wish you a “Happy Chinese New Year”.
Regards
Jillian Redpath (Team Leader) and The Senior Team
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Please return this form to your class teacher in a sealed named envelope.
I give permission for my child to travel by bus to and from the Senior School Swimming Sports at Howick Intermediate on the 26th Feb (Saving Day: 29th February) Yes / No
I have enclosed $5.00 to cover the cost of transport to the Howick Intermediate Pool and pool hire. Yes / No
I give permission for my child to walk to and from Macleans Reserve and participate in water sampling activities at the stream.
Yes / No
I give my child permission to walk to and from Bucklands Beach Peninsula and to record Sealife on the Rocky Shore. (Dates to follow in a future email) Yes / No
Term 1 Fees
- Swimming Sports $5.00
- Tread Lightly $2.50
- Eastern Beach (no charge)
- Sailing (no charge)
- Year 5 Only –Red Beach $24.00
Parent Helpers
I would be interested in being a parent helper on the trip to Macleans Reserve and I am willing to walk with children to and from the reserve. Yes / No
I would be interested in being a parent helper for the trip to the rocky shore at the end of the peninsula and I am willing to walk with the students. Yes / No
Year 5 Trip To Red Beach
I would like to attend the surf safety day at Red Beach on the 4th March. Yes / No
I am willing to be in the water with children (with a wetsuit if required). Yes / No
I can provide my own transport if required. (All children travel by bus) Yes / No
Year 6
I would like to attend the Year 6 sailing afternoon for my child/ren. Yes / No
Total Money Enclosed $ __________________ or I have paid online Yes / No
I give permission for my child to be included in photos for the newspaper and internet when participating in the mentioned Term 1 activities. Yes/ No
Child’s Name _____________________________________ Room No. _______
Parent Signature __________________________________
Contact Phone number ____________________________
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