Last weekend we gave final feedback for the 'My Whakapapa' writing assignment. Lots of beautiful sentiments and some interesting stories were shared. Please remind your child to email a photo of the person they wrote about to themselves, so that it can be added to their final presentation tomorrow, Wednesday.

Key reminders for Year 8 Leadership Camp: this Thursday and Friday, March 5th and 6th

• Bring bedding (including something to sleep on) and change of clothes for next day. All bags go into the Nook upon arrival on Thursday.
• In a daypack, lunch for Thursday, drink bottle, sunscreen sunhat and waterproof coat.
• Have $2.40 in change or Metro card for the bus
• Have paid $25 at the office or online (reference Leadership Camp)
• Bring food donations (cereal for Nicky's home-group, fruit for Megan's home-group and baking for Hannah and Jenny's home-groups). We'd love these by Wednesday if possible.
• If your child's health profile form is not back at school yet, we need this urgently.
• Any mediation in a named ziplock bag to be handed to home-group teacher first thing on Thursday.
• If you need to contact us urgently outside school hours or on Friday when we are at Spencer Park, call Nicky on 0276229403

Cheese Roll Fundraiser

Looking for parent or grandparent help

Year 7 Leadership Day

Swimming Sports

Leadership Guest Speakers

A huge thanks to everyone who has ordered cheese rolls. If you have yet to place your order, you have until this Thursday to get it in. Click here to order.

If you are gathering multiple orders from friends and family, please arrange this as one payment to school, i.e. get people to pay you cash or put money into your account and then make one payment to school. This message probably just applies to Kauri families.

Next week we will put boxes in front of the hall foyer to collect your containers. Please make sure your child's name and hub are on your container. If you don't have a container, we will provide one, however the less we need to do this the better.

Many thanks for your support with our camp fundraising.

The past week has involved a number of visits to the Life Education van and art work on our collaborative canvases that we are creating for the Twilight Fair art auction. We were so impressed by the leadership displayed by our house captains and their deputies at our first house games last Friday. Excitement is building for leadership week, next week. Please read on for important details.

Camp Fundraising:

Many thanks to those of you who have offered to help with our camp fundraising. We will be in touch soon. The Comedy evening is set for Saturday May 16th. We will be auctioning a new Mt Bike; details on this will be out by the end of the week.

Our cheese roll fundraiser is underway. There is the potential to raise thousands with this one. We just need lots of orders. Please contact friends and family and collect their orders as well as your own.  We have the manpower (childpower) and the enthusiasm. We just need the orders! Many thanks to those who have already submitted an order. You are welcome to submit another if you manage to get more interest. Please click here to submit your order or use the paper order form which was sent home on Monday.

We have also submitted an application for funding through the Southern Trust. Once we hear back from them, we will be able to let you know the cost of our week in Dunedin / Waihola. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for a big 'yes' for the Southern Trust!

Leadership Week: March 2-6

What you need to know:

Year 7s:

Wear mufti to school for their leadership day on Monday March 2nd.

Year 8s:

Thursday 5th - Friday 6th of March: two day leadership camp, with a sleep over at school on Thursday night.

We would like families of Year 8 children to send along food donations, on Wednesday March 4th, as follows:

Te Maunga (Nicky's home-group) - a packet of breakfast cereal
Te Awa (Megan's home-group) - a bag of fruit
Te Tai and Te Ngahere (Jenny and Hannah's home-groups) - 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.

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 change of clothes for the next day, again suitable for physical activity

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.

On Monday a health profile form was sent home to Year 8 caregivers. Please complete this form and return it to school by Friday of this week.

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

House captains in action ...

Kia ora everyone,

Year 7 & 8 are heading down to Dunedin for an exiting week of learning at the end of this term. We are kicking our fundraising off with our annual cheese roll business.

We have had fabulous feedback on the quality of our cheese rolls in the past, so you can be guaranteed a tasty product! They do well in the freezer, so this is a good opportunity to stock up for the winter months. Details are in the link below.

Please click on this link to order.  There will also be paper order forms available at the school office.

This week we are full on into our regular programme, having spent the first two weeks running workshops to set up for the year ahead. We were so impressed to see that so many of the children are keeping up to date with timeframes for completing tasks.

Life Education

You will have noticed the Life Education trailer in our car park. Year 7 & 8 home-groups will have four sessions each at Life Ed over this week and next, learning about the impacts of the things that we put into our bodies, with a focus on food, drugs and alcohol.

Maths Whizz

This year we will continue using the online programme Maths Whizz to help students consolidate their maths skills. This is an excellent tutorial programme that will enable students fill any gaps and progress further in their maths learning. As this is new to Year 7's, we want to share the following information so that you can understand how Maths Whizz works. On the link below, you will find several important resources to help you support your child with the curriculum when used at home. Students will get time to use Maths Whizz at school and will most likely earn the required 4 progressions, but some students may choose to continue their progress at home. Please see Megan if you have any queries. Thank you in advance for your support with this.
Maths Whizz Parent Resources

Leadership Week

Our leadership week is just around the corner.

For Year 7 this is a full day of leadership activities on the Monday (March 2) and a day leading in a junior hub on the Thursday or Friday. Year 7 can wear mufti on the Monday.

For Year 8 this is a two day leadership camp on the Thursday and Friday (March 5 and 6). The children sleep over at school on the Thursday night. We will send out a gear list next week. On the Thursday evening we head into town on the public bus. Each child needs to have $2.40 in coins for their bus fare (we will add this to the gear list). We also ask for a food donation:
Te Maunga (Nicky's home-group): a packet of breakfast cereal
Te Awa (Megan's home-group): a bag of fruit
Te Tai and Te Ngahere (Jenny and Hannah's home-groups) some baking

Dunedin Camp

Many thanks to those who indicated they could help out on camp if we were short on numbers. Turns out we have just the right number. The following parents will be joining us on camp: Karen M, Nicola R, Damion T, Miranda K, Belinda M, Juliet L, Katey G, Ewan C and one more to confirm.

Writing

Our current writing topic is to write a description about someone in your Whakapapa. Most children are well underway with this assignment. Over the weekend we will be checking their progress and emailing children (parents will be copied in) who need to catch up. A conversation at home about what to include in their description could be helpful for some.