What you need to know:

• We are off to Wainui on Monday, March 1st, until Friday, March 5th.
• Children need to be at school by 8:15am on Monday. We will be back by 3pm on Friday.
• Below is important information about camp cost, gear and food. Please read it carefully and let us know urgently if you need help with any gear for your child.
• We will have a paper gear list for the children to take home on Friday.
• On Monday and Tuesday, we will be sharing a camp social story with the children. This will have information about a wide range of things, including our programme and menu. We will share this with you early next week.
• We are currently busy allocating activities to each child. We hope to be able to give the children their activity groups early next week. 

Camp Cost:

We have set an achievable target of $5000 for fundraising, which will take place after camp. Taking this into consideration, we are requesting your contribution of  $165 per child to cover the costs of camp.  This will be added to your next account. This can be paid on a small weekly payment basis if that better suits your family. Please contact Rachael in accounts if you want to arrange a drip payment.

Camp Gear List (supplied by Wainui)

Please ensure all of the items below are named. Gear needs to be packed into a sturdy bag.

 Warm Sleeping Bag or Bedding

 Fitted sheet

 Pillow

 Pyjamas

 Toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, soap,  deodorant (not spray), shampoo etc.

 3 towels

 Tea towel

 Raincoat

 Warm waterproof jacket

 2 warm jerseys

 6 T-shirts

 3 pairs of shorts

 3 pairs of trousers

 Socks and underwear

 Thermals longs and tops

 Swimming togs

 Warm hat / beanie

 Sunscreen

 Sun hat (and a spare if you have one)

 2 pairs of lace up shoes

 If doing coasteering - an old pair of lace-up shoes that can be worn in the water

 If doing raft building or kayaking - water shoes or old lace-ups that can be worn in water

 Gumboots or jandals

 Torch

 Small Backpack

 Water Bottle

 Any Required Medication

 Plastic bags for transporting wet clothes and shoes home

 Lunch for the first day

 A book

Optional Items

 extra clothes, bedding, toiletries, cards, diary, wetsuit, camera etc

Do not bring

 Money or valuables

 Spray deodorant

 Pocket knives

 Sweets or energy drinks (stipulated by Wainui)

 Electronic equipment*

* We would prefer that cell-phones are left at home. As the road is windy, we do not want devices for use on the bus. If you would like to make contact with your child, we can arrange for them to call you on a teacher's phone. If you really want your child to bring their cellphone, please email your child's teacher. We will look after their phone and they can use it in the evening to make contact with you. We will be taking plenty of photos and will aim to put together a photobook after camp.

Camp Food

We will be self-catering at Wainui to help keep costs down and would like your help with the following.

• Jenny and Nicky's homegroup - a bag of fruit (10 -12 portions)
• Caitlin and Megan's homegroup - some baking. We would love to get more nutritious and less sugary baking, lots of oats, etc would be great. We are going totally nut-free on camp, so please avoid putting any nuts in baking.

 We had an awesome leadership day with Year 7 today. Below are reminders for the next two days of our leadership adventure!

Year 7

Either tomorrow or Friday the Year 7s will have their day as a leader in a junior hub. They need to come prepared with any equipment and materials for their activity. It is great to see that some have already brought what they need to school. Children should go to their homegroups at the start of the day and from there they will be dispersed to where they need to be. 

Year 8

• Please check our last post for the detailed gear list
• Bring bedding and overnight bag into the Nook on arrival at school tomorrow
• Take medication in a labelled bag to home-group teacher
• Remember $2.40 for bus fare, or a metro card
• Thanks for all the food donations! If you are yet to bring yours, please have it tomorrow
• We stay at school all day and night tomorrow. 
• Bring lunch for tomorrow. We have the dinner, breakfast and lunch for Friday sorted
• Any problems, call Nicky on 0276229403

 In this post:

• Swimming sports - parent help request
• Technology and slideshow
• Leadership week messages and slideshow
• Hanmer 4 Hour Mountain Bike Relay
• Tent request
• Photo gallery

Swimming Sports

Technology

Tech starts on Tuesday, Feb 16th.  Children need to be at school by 8:30am every Tuesday in order to catch the bus. They are allowed to bring some loose change to spend at the canteen. Below is the slideshow that we have gone through with the children.

Leadership Week: Feb 15 - 19

What you need to know:

Year 7s:

Wear mufti to school for their leadership day on Wednesday Feb 17.

Year 8s:

Thursday 18th - Friday 19th of Feb: two day leadership camp, with a sleepover at school on Thursday night.

We would like families of Year 8 children to send along food donations, by Wednesday Feb 17, as follows:

• Te Maunga (Nicky's home-group) - a packet of breakfast cereal
• Te Awa and Te Tai (Megan and Jenny's home-groups) - a bag of fruit (6 portions)
• Te Ngahere (Caitlin's home-group) - some baking

The cost per child for attending the Year 8 leadership camp is $25.00. Please pay this at the office as soon as possible. This is a cost that is separate to the school donation, as it involves an overnight camp. We also need the children to bring $2.40 for bus fare (or a Metrocard if they have one), as we are catching the public bus into town.

Gear list: Your child needs to come to school on Thursday dressed in clothes suitable for physical activity, i.e. track pants or shorts, t-shirt, polypro if cold, a warm top and sports shoes, suitable for running. The following needs to be packed in an overnight bag:

• Sleeping bag, pillow and something to sleep on, e.g. sleeping mat, stretcher or lilo (please let us know if you need help sourcing something to sleep on)
• PJs
• Toilet gear
• A face-mask for wearing on the public bus
• A change of clothes for the next day, again suitable for physical activity
• Bus fare: $2.40

These things should be packed in a day pack:

• Packed lunch and refillable drink bottle
• Sunhat
• Waterproof jacket
• Optional: camera, cell phone (these will be collected in)

Please make sure asthmatic children have inhalers with them and that medication is in a labeled bag. This needs to be handed to the home-group teacher as soon as your child arrives at school.

If you need to contact us outside of school hours or on Friday when we are at Spencer Park, please contact Nicky on 0276229403

Tent Request

Photo Gallery

Passion photography, exploring camera angles.

Te Tai challenging themselves with the lap-sit.

Loving challenge at lunchtime.

Cooking passion: chicken noodle salad - yum!

Science badge passion

Art passion

 It has been fabulous meeting with you all over the last two days and we are excited to get underway tomorrow. Below is the video from learning conferences in case you wanted to recap on any information. 

Key reminders for children:

• Come with a positive mindset and a big smile
• Please bring BYODs tomorrow
• As soon as you arrive at school,  go and say good morning to your home-group teacher
• If you have a phone, hand it into the blue tub and tick your name off on the chart
• If you don't want your lunch to be heated by the sun, put your lunchbox on the shelf in the maker-space when you arrive
• Remember your sunhat
• Bring your stationery if it is not at school yet
• If you took forms home to be signed and filled in, please return these to the labelled boxes on the spotty table

 Kia ora everyone,

We are looking forward to meeting with you at learning conferences on Feb 2nd and 3rd. If you have yet to book a conference, please follow these instructions: Log onto www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and, using the code 4ga7w, log in to the site and book a 30min conference with your child's new teacher.   

$5 to Learning Conferences

At the end of last year, your child would have brought home a stationery list. The lists are here if you have misplaced the paper copy. In addition to the stationery that you organise for your child, we have ordered some very good quality maths books for each child. It would be great if you could bring $5 with you to learning conferences to pay for these books. 

Megan Recovering

In mid-January Megan Culver had a scheduled operation. She is doing well and will return to school in late February. Tracy Inwood will be filling in for Megan while she is recuperating. Georgie Jones, who will be working in our hub for one day a week throughout the year, will join us for learning conferences and will meet with Megan's families. 

The Circle of Life

Sadly one of our hub guinea pigs, Fidget, passed away a few weeks ago. We were sad to see her go and knew it was important to find another friend for Snowy. Last weekend Minky joined Snowy and is settling in well. 

Wainui Camp: March 1-5

We are currently getting planning sorted for our outdoor adventure-based camp at the start of March. We have plenty of camp parents. In order to accommodate everyone, we would like to take a caravan to sleep some of our camp adults. If you can help out, please let me know.